September 23, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



153 



tion of geographic forms has been attempted, and there is no 

 " thorough and consistent physiographic terminology ; " but syste- 

 matic incursions have been made into this field by meteorologists, 

 by engineers, and notably by American geologists. The geologist 

 is not, for example, chemist also, because chemistry aids in geo- 

 logic investigation, but here, from necessity, the geologist is also 

 physiographer. The effect of this orderly work upon the study of 

 physiography, though in the nature of clearing away outlying ob- 

 structions to adjoining interests, is seen in the scientific beginnings 

 of a terminology that may be assembled from the writings of Gil- 

 bert, Davis, Chamberlin, and others. 



The term ' topography,' it would seem, has, within a few years, 

 been appropriated as a general designation for those superficial 

 forms which have recently received attention as both the product and 

 the promise of so much in geologic evolution. The surveyor made 

 little progress in hill-drawing until it was seen that many obscure 

 geologic facts bore, in surface form, a typical expression that could 

 be readily interpreted. As the director of the Geological Survey 

 said recently, in his testimony before the 'Joint Commission' for 

 the investigation of the scientific bureaus of the government, " the 

 most fundamental connection of geology is with topography, be- 

 cause geology has for its purpose, either directly or remotely, the 

 explanation of topography. ... All the vigor and energy which 

 are devoted to topography in modern times arise from its geologic 

 relations." To meteorology, and to the broader problems of en- 

 gineering, surface shape, or surface shaping, also bore complex 

 relations ; to engineering it set examples ; to meteorology it was 

 a known quantity in an intricate problem ; to geology it was the 

 beginning and the end. There were recognized " a topography of 

 the land and a topography of the sea," and, in each, characteristic 

 type-forms, both of erosion and of deposition. The type-forms of 

 erosion were seen to vary with the nature and grouping of mate- 

 rials, so that each class of rocks had its own distinctive topographic 

 expression. The recognition o^a ' topography' of coal, and of the 

 allied natural products, in the mining regions of Pennsylvania, is of 

 acknowledged economic importance ; and glacial history is traced 

 more successfully through its splendid topographic record than 

 through the composition characteristics of its drift. 



Obviously a distinctive term is needed here, in the more dis- 

 criminative modern geology and allied sciences : from recent 

 inquiry into usage, on this point, I cannot but think that ' topog- 

 raphy ' has been adopted in this definitely restricted sense, and will 

 hold. For example, in a standard treatise on roads, by Lieutenant- 

 Colonel Gillman of the Engineer Corps, this occurs : " In laying 

 out important roads, and especially in locating streets, in thickly 

 settled districts, it is well to place contour curves upon the map. 

 These curves indicate at once, to the practised eye, the topography 

 of the country which they embrace." Dr. Woeikof, meteorologist 

 and professor of physical geography in the University of St. Peters- 

 burg, devotes a chapter in his recent book, ' Die Klimate der 

 Erde,' to the ' Variation of Temperature with Altitude, with Par- 

 ticular Regard to the Effect of Topographic Form on Tempera- 

 ture Changes,' as interpreted in Science of the same number with 

 Mr. Davis's letter, cited above. In the newer geological reports 

 abundant instance may be found of this use, for example, here and 

 there : " Change in the character of the rocks produces corresponding 

 change in the topography ; the soft mica-schists have been worn by 

 erosion into broad parks and valleys, intervening with rounded 

 peaks and ridges of harder strata ; " " the main topographical fea- 

 tures of this country are the results of erosion, aided and modified 

 by faults and folds, to which volcanic rocks have added many inter- 

 esting features, mainly by the resistance which they offer to denuda- 

 tion ; " " the contrast of hard and soft has determined the main 

 features of the topography. . . . These have been made to give ex- 

 pression to the main facts of the geologic structure ; " " the former 

 [a beach line] crosses the irregularities of the pre-existent topog- 

 raphy as a contour, the latter [a fault] as a traverse line ... a 

 system of shore topography, from which the ancient lake has 

 receded, is immediately exposed to the obliterating influence of land 

 erosion ; '' " the topography was not too rough on the one hand, nor 

 so low and flat as to be submerged, on the other ... as the 

 peculiar character of the topography of the moraine varies through 

 a somewhat wide range, and sometimes simulates very closely the 



surface aspect assumed by other formations, the study of topo- 

 graphical types becomes one of essential importance ... a topo- 

 graphical species absolutely impossible of formation by drainage 

 agencies." Upon the first appearance of the proof-sheets of the 

 new topographical survey of Massachusetts, a year or more ago, 

 the work was commented on editorially in Science, in part as fol- 

 lows : " The curious Hopper of Mount Greylock, with its deep-cut 

 valley, is one of the best marked topographic forms in the State 

 . . . what is now needed is the local examination of minute topo- 

 graphic details so that we may learn to see and appreciate the forms 

 about us at home ; and nothing will lead sooner or surer to this 

 long delayed end, than the publication of good topographic maps." 



I do not think that the term has acquired this association through 

 exceptional fitness of its own, though small objection can be urged 

 on etymological grounds, but because it was in the field, and out 

 of serious employment. Originally it meant place-description, or, 

 as applied to surveying and maps, simply detail, or the art of por- 

 traying it. Early topography was, however, singularly unobserv- 

 ant of surface configuration. When the important bearing of 

 surface expression on geologic problems came to he recognized, 

 related topographic work became more appreciative of this addi- 

 tional feature in place-description. Maps of the novel sort were 

 at once recognized as the only completely topographic maps, and 

 to their distinctive characteristic, finally, the term 'topography' 

 got exclusively to apply. 



From this point of view, then, in a map, the expression given to 

 the vertical element, whatever the symbol employed, is ' topog- 

 raphy;' the drainage, — stream, pond, or marsh, — the obvious 

 agent, destructive or constructive ; and the ' culture,' an incident. 

 The term is still in use in the old sense, among surveyors and 

 engineers ; and it may, perhaps, contmue so, without confusion, as, 

 in turn, a technical meaning. Willard D. JOHNSON. 



Templeton, Mass.. Sept. 13. 



A Living Glacier on Hague's Peak, Colorado. 



Four years ago, Mr. W. L. Hallett of Colorado Springs, while 

 crossing an ice-field on Hague's Peak, stepped into a crevasse 

 which had been hidden by a thin layer of recent snow, and nar- 

 rowly escaped a serious accident. The crevasse suggested to him 

 that this snow-field was really a glacier. Since that time the place 

 has been visited by only five or six persons. Among these were 

 Mr. Chapin of Hartford, Conn., a member of the Appalachian 

 Mountain Club, who is said, during last July, to have pronounced 

 the formation to be a true glacier. I have recently examined the 

 region, and the following is a brief statement of the principal facts 

 observed : — 



From Long's Peak northward to Hague's Peak is a line of noble 

 mountains thirteen thousand or more feet high. The numerous 

 tributaries of the Big Thompson River take their rise in snow or 

 rather ice fields which are situated in basins or mountain cirques 

 far above timber-line near the summit of the range. The upper 

 parts of the valleys of these streams were all glaciated in ancient 

 times, and are bordered by moraines which in some cases extend 

 down into Estes Park. This region is marked on the maps of 

 Clarence King as having formerly been glaciated, but no moraines 

 are shown on Hayden's large map of Colorado. Several of the 

 ancient glaciers are shown by the moraines to have been more than 

 ten miles long, and some of them were at least fifteen miles. Near 

 the post-office marked Moraine on Hayden's map, the moraines 

 are well developed as ridges having steep slopes on each side. 

 They are from a few feet up to about two hundred feet high, and 

 in places are perched on the mountain-sides five hundred feet or 

 more above the bottom of the valley. Going up these valleys, one 

 sees a succession of terminal moraines, showing that there has 

 been a gradual recession of the ice. 



The ice-field on Hague's Peak is in a basin roughly semicircular 

 in shape, situated on the east face of the northern spur of the 

 mountain. The basin is small, — hardly one-fourth of a mile in 

 diameter, — and is at the head of a deep valley which drains east, 

 and then south-east, into the Big Thompson. This valley was 

 once occupied by a large glacier, as shown by moraines, by a num- 

 ber of glacial lakelets in the bottom of the valley, and by mou- 

 tonned bosses of rock. Just below the ice-field a broad moraine ex- 



