December 18, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



911 



the surrounding country ; all these layers 

 are now trenched by the axial and centripe- 

 tal streams. The outlet gorge is so deep 

 and narrow that access to the bench land 

 of the lake basin is gained at present only 

 by roads that cross over the enclosing ridge. 

 This relation of terraced lake beds and out- 

 let gorge is of frequent occurrence on small 

 and large scale in the Montana Rockies, 

 and has its homologue in the Vale of Kash- 

 mir, the control of human occupation and 

 movement being much alike in all. The 

 other folios are equally deserving of physi- 

 ographic note. 



TIDES OF THE BAY OF FUNDY. 



Baya Fonda, named so by the early 

 Portuguese explorers because it reached far 

 into the land, and now anglicized as the 

 Bay of Fundy, has a world-wide reputation 

 for its excessive tides, which by tradition 

 reach seventy feet of rise and fall, and ad- 

 vance with the speed of a galloping horse, 

 as many of us have learned at school. The 

 facts as reported by Chalmers (Geol. Surv 

 Canada, for 1894 (1895), rep't M.) are 

 somewhat more sober, but extraordinary 

 enough. From the mouth of the bay, 48 

 miles wide and 70 to 110 fathoms deep, the 

 bottom rises at the rate of four feet a mile 

 over a distance of about 145 miles to the 

 head . On the coasts adjacent to the mouth, 

 the spring tides vary from 12 to 18 feet. 

 Within the bay the spring and neap tides 

 are as follows : Digby neck, 22, 18 ; St. 

 John, 27, 23; Petitcodiac river, 46, 36; 

 Cumberland basin, 44, 35 ; ISToel river in 

 Cobequid bay, 53, 31; the last named being 

 the greatest tidal oscillation in any part of 

 the bay. The flood tide rises about 20 feet 

 above mean sea level ; the ebb falls the 

 same amount below, leaving the branch bays 

 empty or nearly so. The tidal bore is seen 

 inMaccan river, entering Cumberland basin, 

 but is stronger in Petitcodiac river, entering 

 Shepody bay. At the bend of this river, by 



Moncton, 20 miles from the bay head, the 

 bore is seen to best advantage ; it rushes in 

 ' as a foaming breaker, five or six feet high, 

 with a velocity of five or six miles an hour. ' 

 The spring and neap tides here have 45 

 and 38 feet range. The ebb tide runs like 

 a mill race ; the water rapidly sinking, the 

 bare muddy channel is exposed, and the 

 river is reduced to a small meandering 

 stream. It so remains about two hours, 

 when the rushing waters of the bore are 

 heard again, and the river is soon filled 

 with their sweeping flood. 



In this connection, reference may be 

 made to an account of the bore from Eng- 

 lish sources, at Hang Chow, south of Shang- 

 hai, China, in the Annalen der Hydro- 

 graphie for October. 



holzel's geographische charakter- 



BILDER. 



The 37th and latest number of this 

 beautiful and unrivalled series of chromo- 

 lithographs ' for school and house ' (Holzel, 

 Vienna) represents the gorge of the Rhine, 

 looking southward past the Lorelei, and 

 displaying the gently rolling uplands, with 

 quiet farming villages and broad wheat 

 fields, seldom entered by the stranger, in 

 emphatic contrast with the deep, steep- 

 sided gorge, an artery throbbing with inter- 

 national life, occasionally holding a town of 

 close-packed houses where the little delta 

 of a side stream afibrds foothold. The de- 

 scriptive text is prepared by Penck's com- 

 petent hand, and describes three stages in 

 the evolution of the region: The general 

 denudation of an ancient mountain range, 

 indicated by the bevelling of the extremely 

 deformed strata, reducing them to a Gebirgs- 

 rumpf, a peneplain; a slight elevation, fol- 

 lowed by the excavation of a shallow 

 valley trough in the rolling peneplane, 60 

 to 80 m. deep and one or two miles wide, 

 still floored with river gravel and alluvium 

 (loess) ; and a much mO're recent elevation, 



