Miscellaneous Intelligence. 317 



Section I. Economic Science and Statistics. 



Manly Miles : Surface tension of water and evaporation with experiments. 

 Energy as a factor in nutrition. 



Laura 0. Talbott : The utility of practical psychology. G-eneo-pathological 

 chart. 



"W. J. Beal : Manual labor at agricultural colleges. 



Richard Colburn : The maturing Pacific railroad debts. 



Henry Farquhar : Relations of production and price of silver and gold. 



H. F. J. Porter : The necessity for a bureau of record and reference. 



2. The Physical Geography of Antarctica. — The following para- 

 graphs are from a notice of Dr. Karl Fricker's paper on "Die 

 Entstehung und Verbreitung des antarktischen Treibeises," in the 

 London Geographical Journal for September. 



The sources of polar ice are in the main three — snow or glacier 

 ice, fresh-water ice, and sea-water ice, with the possible addition 

 of a fourth, the coast ice or ice foot ; and, inasmuch as the rela- 

 tive importance of these is determined both directly and in- 

 directly through the influence on climate, by the geographical 

 distribution of land and sea, the south polar regions present, so 

 far at least as is known, an almost complete contrast to the 

 north. The northern hemisphere has a polar sea, enclosed by a 

 polar continent except for at the most four or five openings, of 

 which only two — Davis Strait and the channel between Iceland 

 and Norway — are of real moment in the movement or distribu- 

 tion of ice, while the southern hemisphere has a polar continent 

 surrounded by a polar ocean, to which a number of islands con- 

 tribute a quite negligible fraction of the total ice. The supposed 

 Antarctic continent has been touched by explorers in three dis- 

 tinct regions — Enderby Land and Kemp Land in 40° to 60° E. 

 longitude, Wilkes Land and Victoria Land 100° to 170° E. longi- 

 tude, and Graham Land and Alexander I. Land, with a number 

 of detached islands (for which Dr. Fricker proposes the name 

 Gerritsz Archipelago) to the south of Cape Horn — and in each 

 case it has been found to present an almost unbroken sheet of 

 ice, varying in thickness and formation with the configuration of 

 the land, which extends outwards from the coast and terminates 

 in precipitious ice-cliffs, the great ice barrier. 



The conditions giving rise to the formation of an ice-cap of 

 such dimensions are chiefly, of course, those of climate, and of 

 these our knowledge is as yet wofully meagre. Theory, as at 

 present developed, requires a polar area of low barometric pres- 

 sure — a uniform gradient downward from all sides — and a belt 

 of westerly winds with a central calm area; and for comment we 

 have only a few sets of observations taken during the summer 

 months, none of which extend over more than a few weeks in one 

 place. But so far as they go, the observations almost directly 

 traverse the theoretical hypotheses. They indicate in the first 

 place a zone of low pressure in about 75° S. latitude, with higher 

 barometer further south. Hann suggests that this trough is due 

 to the passage of moving cyclones; but the supposition is not 

 borne out by the wind observations, which show an overwhelm- 



