FOR GENERAL READERS. 



Vol. II. 



SEPTEMBER 21, 1 1 



No. 12. 



CONTENTS. 



Scientific Table Talk 305 



Gaseous Fuel. (Ulustraten) 3C6 



The Arehaxipteryx. (tttiiitratai) ... 2°9 



Durable Bookbinding 310 



Gereral Notes ... . . ... ... 3 11 



Surface Tension. (Illustr.UJ) ... 313 



Paper Bottles 314 



Natural Historv : — 



The Kagu. (Illustrated) 



Miscellaneous Notes 



Customs of Savage Races 



The Electrical Transmission of Power 



The British Association — 



General Committee ... 



Mathematical and Physical Section 



PAGE 



■ 315 



■ 316 

 317 



3'9 



321 

 322 



Economic Science and Statistical 

 Section 



Mechanical Section ... 



R. A. Proctor 



International Geological Congress 

 Notices ... 

 Meteorological Returns 



PAGE 



322 

 322 

 323 



324 

 32S 

 328 



SCIENTIFIC TABLE TALK. 



By W. Mattieu Williams, F.R.A.S., F.C.S. 



My visit to M. Agassiz — as the date indicates — occurred 

 long before he left Switzerland for America, but I found 

 that he spoke English freely. I was then the proud pro- 

 prietor of a grand and decidedly original theory of the 

 origin of mountains, and improved the occasion by sub- 

 mitting it to him. 



I started my theory by assuming, in the ordinary 

 gratuitous, matterof course fashion, that the earth was once 

 an intensely heated sphere of fused matter, which has 

 since cooled down and become solid. This being taken 

 for granted as usual, my great deduction logically and 

 necessarily followed. This was, that in such slow cool- 

 ing of silica, the silicates, etc., would crystallise, and 

 that the size of the crystals would be, and as we find 

 they become in artificial crystallisation, proportionate to 

 the whole mass and the slowness of cooling; therefore, 

 when this world of ours first solidified, those parts of its 

 surface where the quartzites and similar material pre- 

 vailed, presented on a large scale a group of pyramidal 

 eminences, corresponding to those we find on a small 

 scale in drossy cavities and other places, where such 

 material has been fused and slowly cooled. These 

 pyramidal crystals were the great mountains of the 

 earth. 



This idea seemed to be confirmed by the fact that the 

 highest mountains of the Alps, etc. , were mostly composed 

 of silicates, etc., with crystalline proclivities, and I had 

 measured and recorded by means of a simple instrument 

 the visual angles of a large number of the well-known 

 " aiguilles " and summits of the Alps, many of which — 

 such as the Silberhom of the Jungfrauand the aiguilles ot 

 Mount Blanc — are remarkably geometrical and crystal- 

 like in their form, and appearance. The first blow to my 

 grand theory was presented by Mont Blanc itself, which 

 -...instead of appearing as the master crystal of the group, 

 is a rounded mass, its summit receiving the name of the 

 " dromedary's hump." 



This, however, I parried by making an ascent, and 

 thereby learned that Mont Blanc actually has a similar 

 structure to the pyramidal aiguilles around it, and that 

 the rounded appearance is due to the snow that fills up 

 all their hollows, leaving only the summits of the, 

 pyramids visible just above the snow such summits 



being the Grands Millets, the Rochers rouges, etc., etc., that 

 are seen in the course of the ascent. 



I still believe that such is the real structure of this 

 mountain, though I am not aware that it has been so 

 regarded by any other observer. 



Agassiz listened attentively to my exposition of the 

 grand theory, used some complimentary expressions in 

 reference to its ingenuity, etc., and then proceeded to 

 demolish it by referring to what I saw around me, to 

 the block on which we stood, and the material on the 

 great moraine over which I had travelled that morning, 

 all of which showed that even if such crystallisation had 

 ever occurred the pyramids would have been obliterated 

 by weathering and glaciation long ago. He admitted, 

 however, the possible existence of something like 

 crystalline cleavage planes having produced the curious 

 uniformity that I had observed in the summit angles of 

 different mountains composed of similar material. 



This conversation showed that Agassiz at that time had 

 strong faith in the potency of glaciation as a shaping 

 agent of the earth's surface. Subsequent researches have 

 justified this, so far as the Arctic and temperate zones 

 are concerned. 



The scene presented from the Hotel des Neufchatelois 

 was very grand and characteristic. We stood upon a 

 wide expanse ot ice, having the appearance of a solidified 

 river of great width, with great blocks of stones floating 

 on its surface, some standing on stalks like gigantic 

 mushrooms, others, as already described, forming the 

 great ridge of the medial moraine. 



Looking up the ice river, the bold wedge-shaped pro- 

 montory of rock, the Abschwung formed the middle fore- 

 ground, and diverging upwaids from this were the two 

 tributary ice streams of nearly equal width, the Fins- 

 teraar and the Lauteraar glaciers, which by their con- 

 fluence form the Unteraar glacier, on the medial moraine 

 of which we stood. 



R—)ing trom all sides of all these ice rivers were 

 pyramids and pinnacles of snow-clad rock. Above the 

 Lauteraar glacier were the many glistening peaks of the 

 Shreckhorn (12,383 ft.) and the Lauteraarhorn. To the 

 left above the Finsteraar glacier stood the massive 

 Finsteraarhorn (14,106 ft.) and its snow-capped satellites, 

 and on either side of the wider stream at our feet w ere 

 similar peaks; nothing but frozen desolation visible 

 every where around, although it was the 20th of August, 



