Notices of Memoirs — Prof. Heim on Formation of Mountains. 131 

 NOTICES OIE 1 IMIIEiMIOIIESS. 



Notice of Prof. A. Heim's work on the Mechanism of the 

 Formation of Mountains. 1 By Prof. E. Kenevier. 



THIS work is an important one, not only from its being a con- 

 scientious study of a very interesting Alpine region, but also 

 from its containing the result of the author's systematic researches 

 on the mode of formation of the Alps and of mountain chains in 

 general. 



Prof. Albert Heim, former pupil of the late Escher von der Linth, 

 replaced the latter on his lamented decease in the Chair of Geology 

 at the University of Zurich and at the Federal Polytechnic School. 

 He has profited not only by all the experience of his master, but 

 has had the use of all his manuscript and unpublished notes. Be- 

 sides having often traversed the Glarus Alps with our regretted 

 colleague, he has studied them more in detail for a n amber of years. 

 In these explorations — as well as in his numerous travels across 

 Europe, from Sicily in the south to Norway in the north — he has 

 fixed his attention especially on the different alterations and dislo- 

 cations of rocks, and on the physical causes to which they have been 

 subject. This is also the dominant point of view in the work to 

 which we have the pleasure to point, and it is this which the author 

 has wished to signify by the phrase, " Mechanism of the Formation 

 of Mountains." From the wide generalizations in which Prof. 

 Heim's book is very rich, it commends itself not only to the notice 

 of Swiss geologists, but also to those in other countries who are 

 interested in the physical laws which govern our world. 



The work consists of two 4to. volumes, accompanied with a 

 magnificent atlas of 17 large folio plates, of which 14 are chromo- 

 lithographs. The first two are geological maps, one on the scale of 

 rooVo o of the mass of the Toedi and its environs, the other on the 

 scale of 2-50V00 representing the Glarus Alps and chain of the 

 Grisons to the north-west of the Ehine. The plates following con- 

 tain geological sections to true scale, without exaggeration of heights, 

 also drawings and sketches, done with the hand of a master — exact 

 execution being guaranteed, since they have been put on stone by the 

 author himself. 



Vol. i. 350 pages, contains the geology of the Toedi mass, whilst 

 the second, of 250 pages, is devoted to the discussion of general 

 orographical principles applicable to all mountain regions. They 

 are complementary of each other and form one inseparable whole. 



The Toedi- Windgaslle group of mountains is at the eastern ex- 

 tremity of the Finsteraarhorn mass of crystalline rocks. The Reuss, 

 Linth, and Hinder Rhine have their sources in this district. We 

 find there rocks of very different age, protogine occurring at a short 

 distance from Eocene beds. 



The first volume is divided into five parts, of which the first is 

 devoted to the description of the crystalline rocks which form the 



1 Mechanismus der Gebirgsbildung im Anschluss an die geologische Monographie 

 der Tcsdi-Windgsellen-Gruppe. 2 vols. 4to. with Plates. (Bale, 1878.) 



