464 Notices respecting New Books. 



group, and that they " form the first of a series of stepping- 

 stones which connect Japan, by means of Kamschatka, with the 

 remainder of Asia." 



A few observations on the slope of the cones follow ; and Mr. 

 Milne records one instance, that of the " small cone rising from 

 the upper crater of Cha-cha-Nobori," in which the inclination is 37°. 

 A reference to another cone — Atatsu-Nobori, at p. 147, — "one side 

 having a slope of 50°, and the other of 49° " — might have been 

 repeated here. Mr. Milne says that Atatsu-Nobori is "the 

 steepest volcanic cone I have yet seen." 



Of the Kuriles, Mr. Milne writes, " They are, so to speak, 

 amongst the last of the links which together build up the Volcanic 

 chain which bounds the shores of the West Pacific," and " they are 

 probably contemporaneous with the younger volcanoes of Kam- 

 schatka and Japan." 



The author lays great stress on the importance of the Japanese 

 volcanoes as land-builders, and refers the low altitude of the 

 Kuriles, as compared with the Volcanic Peaks of Klutchewsk 

 (16,500 ft.) in Kamschatka, and of Fuji-yama (12,450 ft.), to the 

 fact that they were " probably built up from the bottom of an 

 ocean which is perhaps the deepest in the world." The rocks 

 that he and his assistants collected appear to be augitic andesites. 

 The absence of lava-streams is noticed, and pointed out as " sug- 

 gestive of the way in which these islands have been built up " — 

 by cindery accumulations or ash-beds. One of the most im- 

 portant parts of the Memoir is the map of the Volcanoes of Japan, 

 in which the exact positions of one hundred and twenty-nine 

 active or extinct craters are indicated. In a table accompanying it, 

 a note is given of the height, and the nature of rock, with general 

 remarks concerning each volcano. Of the 129, fifty-one are still 

 active. Thirty-nine have symmetrically formed cones. 



The paper concludes with well-considered remarks on the 

 Relative Age of all of them, the characters of their Lavas and 

 other Rocks, the intensity of Eruptions, and the general form of 

 the Volcanoes. To assist the student in following the author on 

 the last-mentioned subject he has reproduced the diagrammatic plate 

 from the ' G-eological Magazine ' for 1878, and added a plate of 

 various profiles of Fuji-san (" called by foreigners Fuji-yama") from 

 photographs and surveys of the mountain ; and he quotes an inter- 

 esting series of causes which help to modify the natural curvature 

 of a volcano. Some important notes also are given as to the 

 height of Fuji-san ; and the conclusion Mr. Milne arrives at is 

 that the proper height should be taken as between 12,400 and 

 12,450 feet. The memoir is profusely illustrated with lithograph 

 sketches, chiefly exact outlines of the various cones referred to. 



Discussions on Climate and Cosmology. By James Ceoll, LL.D., 



F.E.S. Edinburgh : Adam and Charles Black. 1885. 

 It is now nearly a quarter of a century since Dr. Croll first enun- 

 ciated the outline of the theory of the cause of glacial phenomena 



