Geology and Mineralogy. 465 



ice, but the whole of this immense valley was buried in this out- 

 pouring of the inland ice, until only a few of the mountain sum- 

 mits remained above the surface of the icy mantle." Similar 

 observations were made on the neighboring Staten Island. 



The author remarks upon the remarkable character of the 

 present Antarctic glaciers in being usually simply ice-caps, form- 

 ing convex glaciers covered with heavy snow. There are, how- 

 ever, also both ice rivers and cascades, and forms recalling 

 " corrie glaciers " all alike buried beneath a mantle of per- 

 petual snow, and bare ice is nowhere seen. Numerous evidences 

 were observed of the greater extension of glaciers in former 

 times, in the frequent occurrence of roches moutonnees, in the 

 moraines and in the distribution of erratic blocks. 



Moraines were observed at various points along Belgica strait' 

 between Danco Land and the outlying islands. One of these 

 moraines at Cape Reclus, running from northeast to southwest, 

 had a great extent, and it was concluded that the glacier producing 

 this moraine must have had a breadth of 10 miles and a depth of 

 342 fathoms. Another moraine on Banck island had a height of 

 65 feet and ran parallel to the strait. There must have been 

 formerly an immense glacier which flowed westward through 

 Belgica strait toward the Pacific ocean. It is suggested that 

 the facts observed indicate that the existing climate of Antarctic 

 lands in 64° south latitude may be to-day much the same as that 

 which prevailed in Tierra del Fuego (54° S. L.) during the ice- 

 age. — Geogr. J., xviii, 353. 



2. The Glaciers of Switzerland in 1900. — The Sixth Annual 

 Report of the International Commission of Glaciers, edited by 

 S. Fixstekwalder and E. Muret, gives a summary of the con- 

 dition of glaciers over the northern hemisphere during the year 

 1900. In regard to the glaciers of Switzerland, it states that the 

 phase of retreat, characteristic of the years preceding, has still 

 continued. It may be said that in 1900 all the glaciers of 

 Switzerland, with a single exception, were either at a state of 

 minimum or actually receding. The exception is the small 

 glacier of Boveyre in val d'Entremont (Valais), which attained 

 an elongation of 8 meters in 1900, and of 113 meters between 

 1892 and 1900. Six other glaciers are mentioned as possibly 

 advancing, though the observations need confirmation, but of the 

 remaining seventy-five examined, sixty-one were certainly and 

 fourteen probably retrograding. — Bibl. Univ., xii, 1901. 



3. United States Geologiccd Survey: Charles D. Walcott, 

 Director. — Three volumes of the Twenty-first Annual Report 

 have recently been issued. These include Parts I and YI. The 

 former contains the Director's Report already issued in separate 

 form and noticed on page 468 of Vol. XI. With this are included 

 also appendixes, including triangulation, primary traverse and 

 spirit leveling. 



am. Jour. Sci. — Fourth Series, Vol. XII, No. 72. — December, 1901. 

 32 



