56 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VI., No. 128. 



figured. But nearly every page contains mat- 

 ter which would be of interest to readers of 

 Science^ and unfortunately we cannot 3'et print 

 numbers in twelve hundred pages quarto. We 

 are obliged to reserve our concluding para- 

 graphs for the geological aspects of the voyage. 



GLACIERS, 



AND THFAR 

 NATURE. 



KOLE IN 



of the present time. The reference made to 

 their former extension is sufficient for a vol- 

 ume that professedly does not discuss that part 

 of the question. As in the earlier numbers of 

 the series, illustrations and references to au- 

 thorities are practically wanting. An index 

 is also absent in this volume ; but its place 

 partly taken by a well-arranged table of con- 

 tents and page-headings. Our many students 

 of the difficult problem of North-American 

 glaciation will find much of value in the sum- 

 maries of recent Swiss studies on the structure 

 of glacial ice, of observations in Greenland on 

 the motion of the great glaciers there, and of 

 the many suggestions to account for glacial 

 motion, as well as in the accounts of existing 

 glaciers and their oscillations. 



The remarkable recession of the Swiss gla- 

 ciers during recent decades, which travellers 



Professor Ratzel's ' Bibliothek geograph- 

 ischer handbiicher ' reaches its fourth volume 

 in Heim's comprehensive review of what may 

 be called ' glaciology,' — a general discussion 

 of glaciers, and the part they play on the 

 earth's surface. It is fully up to the high 

 standard attained by the earlier numbers of 

 the series. Ratzel's ' Anthropogeographie ' 

 was the first issued ; and, although somewhat 

 venturesome in regard to the control that ge- 

 ography has exercised on history, it is a 



very suoj^estive book. Hann's ,..» * -w,?j:.ii^,<? vcnJ^rs 



' Kiimatologie ' has already ^"''l-^^^aSaBiiii*^!^*^ 



been reviewed here : it Ci, 



has everywhere 

 received high 

 praise, and at 

 once takes its 

 place as a stand- 

 ard work. The 

 ' Ozeanographie 



begun by von 

 Boguslawski, was unhappil}^ left 

 incomplete on his death : one 

 part was issued a 3'ear ago, containing an ex- 

 haustive description of the oceans, but not 

 reaching the discussion of their physical con- 

 ditions. Drude, von Fritsch, Penck, Vetter, 

 and Zoppritz are still to follow with volumes 

 on special subjects. 



These books have no equivalents in English. 

 It is becoming very monotonous to record, time 

 after time, that German writers are so far in 

 advance of us ; but the fact is very plain. If 

 such works cannot be originated here, we wish 

 that they might at least be translated and re- 

 published, so as to come within reach of our 

 teachers and students. 



Professor Heim has hitherto been known 

 rather as a worker on mountain structure than 

 on glaciers. His studies in the direction of 

 the latter subject, so far as they are published, 

 have been concerned chiefly with the share that 

 ice has had in mountain sculpture ; but the 

 book now before us shows deliberate and care- 

 ful work on all topics connected with glaciers 



Handbuch der gletscherkunde. Von Albert Heim. Stutt- 

 gart, Engelhorn, 1885. 16+560 p., map. 8°. 



MAP SHOWING RE- 

 CESSION OP RHONE 

 GLACIER. 





^"^""••^'rw^"*"' 





may earnest- 

 ly wish has 

 reached its 

 maximum, is 



finely illustrated in the figure of the glacier 

 of the Rhone, of which a part is copied here. 

 The measurements carried on of late 3^ears, 

 under the direction of the Swiss alpine club, 

 give precise data on this matter, and, if con- 

 tinued long enough, will undoubtedly^ in the 

 end lead to the discovery of the cause of gla- 

 cial oscillations in the peculiarly dry or wet, 

 warm or cold, weather of some antecedent 

 series of years ; the effect leisurely following 

 the cause, as the excess or deficiency of upper 

 snow supply arrives at the lower end of the 

 ice-stream. A view of the Rhone glacier, as 

 it was at its recent maximum extension about 

 1820, is given in de Charpentier's ' Essai sur 

 les glaciers,' and offers a striking contrast 



