224 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 345. 



concludes that Acadian land forms may be de- 

 scribed in terms of these two topographic facets, 

 each a nearly perfect plain of denudation, in- 

 terrupted by residual hills and incised valleys. 

 Eegarding the uplands of Nova Scotia, it is re- 

 marked that undue emphasis has been placed 

 on the hills, " apparently with the mistaken no- 

 tion that the true lover of nature cannot be es- 

 pecially interested in her land-forms when they 

 are subdued. Yet the marvel of Nova Scotian 

 scenery lies in its flatness." Although the re- 

 gion borders the sea, preference is expressed 

 for a subaerial origin of the peneplains here de- 

 scribed ; marine erosion is given a relatively 

 subordinate value in their preparation, how- 

 ever active it has bebome upon them since sub- 

 mergence has brought the sea in over the land. 



PEEGLACIAL DRAINAGE OP OHIO. 



Several papers on ' The Preglacial Drain- 

 age of Ohio ' by Tight, Bownocker, Todd and 

 Fowke are published by the Ohio State Acad- 

 emy of Science (Special papers, No. 3, Dec, 

 1900, 75 pp., plates and maps). Tight describes 

 some of the drainage changes along a part of 

 southeastern Ohio, with special references to 

 the preglacial and postglacial valleys that lie 

 to the southwest of the trenched col by Nc^ 

 Martinsville, from which the preglacial streams 

 flowed opposite ways and through which the 

 Ohio now connects basins that were formerly 

 separate. A high-level and broad-floored an- 

 cient valley is traced through the hills south- 

 west of Parkersburg ; it is now trenched 

 across by several deeper-cut valleys. The 

 most novel point is presented by Fowke, re- 

 garding a former northward discharge through 

 the Miami valley of the waters from several 

 rivers (Licking, Kentucky, etc.) whose courses 

 lie between ancient cols at Manchester and 

 Madison, east and west of Cincinnati. The 

 northward discharge is now blockaded by 

 drift ; the cols are cut across by the Ohio, and 

 the gathered rivers are discharged westward. 

 This involves an impounding of many north- 

 flowing rivers by the ice sheet and the produc- 

 tion of a temporary lake, compared to which 

 the reputed lake caused by the supposed ice 

 dam at Cincinnati would have been a compara- 

 tively small affair. Independent evidence of 



the existence of the lakes is not yet announced. 

 Both Fowke and Todd suggest that some of 

 the preglacial streams followed courses that 

 were determined in paleozoic time, a suggestion 

 that seems to give too little importance to the 

 many possible changes of secondary and tertiary 

 time. 



The technical book-making of this publica- 

 tion is not altogether creditable to a State 

 Academy. There is no table of contents, ex- 

 cept an imperfect one on the paper cove^, 

 which disagrees with the title page and with 

 the titles of some of the articles ; the same page 

 heading is continued throughout ; some of the 

 maps .are unnumbered, and all of them are 

 poorly lettered. 



SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 



An east-west section across the base of the 

 Danish peninsula is described by R. Gredner 

 (' Excursion nach Ost-Schleswig-Holstein und 

 der Insel Sylt.,' Greifswald, 1900), from which 

 it appears that the chief features of the district 

 are systematically arranged with respect to the 

 glacial moraine that forms its strongest relief. 

 The eastern border shows the hills and hollows 

 of the typical moraine, of rich soil and divided 

 into well- cultivated fields by numerous hedges. 

 The eastern shore line is irregular in conse- 

 quence of a slight postglacial submergence ; 

 embayments known as Fohrde (etymologically 

 related to fjords and firths) occur where inter- 

 glacial valleys were deepened by scouring ice 

 lobes ; they lead navigable water in among the 

 morainic hills, thus locating such towns as 

 Flensburg and Kiel. Beyond the moraine 

 comes a broad plain of washed sands and 

 gravels, sloping gently to the west and tra- 

 versed by shallow channels ; it is covered with 

 pine forests or heathery moors, and is infertile 

 and thinly occupied compared with the moraine. 

 As the plain slopes westward, its materials be- 

 come finer and ground water stands nearer its 

 surface ; thus the moors become meadows, and 

 at last dikes are needed along their borders to 

 hold off high tides. The shallow edge of the 

 sea is known as the Wattenmeer, where a great 

 expanse of fine mud, traversed by winding 

 channels, is laid bare at low tide. Fields are 

 occasionally gained by diking in the shallowest 



