FEBRUARY 15, 1884.] 
lished in 1866, under the editorship of E. 
Behm. On the death of Petermann, in 1878, 
Behm took charge of the Mittheilungen, and 
H. Wagner succeeded him in the prepara- 
tion of the Jahrbuch, of which the ninth bien- 
nial volume has recently been issued. It is 
about double the size of the first number, and, 
as now conducted, covers a broad field in geog- 
raphy and allied departments of study, as the 
following abstract of the contents will show. 
Indeed, the range of topics reported upon by 
the thirteen specialists who aid Wagner in its 
preparation is now so extensive that the seven 
hundred pages of the present volume are no 
longer sufficient to contain abstracts of all of 
the three thousand papers quoted. 
The more directly geographical part of the 
volume contains chapters on the exploration of 
Africa (42 pages), Asia (35), the polar regions 
(27), and the oceans (25), by Zoppritz and 
Lullies of Konigsberg, Wichmann of Gotha, 
and v. Boguslawski of Berlin. From the last 
of these, we may note the following maps, as 
embodying the present state of our knowledge 
concerning the form of the sea-floor. An atlas 
of thirty-six maps, showing the physical rela- 
tions of the Atlantic Ocean, was published in 
1882 by the German ‘ Seewarte’ at Hamburg. 
Its first plate shows the depth by eight contour 
lines at two hundred, a thousand, two thousand, 
etc., to seven thousand metres, the old fathom 
measure being discarded. The northernmost 
Atlantic and adjoining Arctic Ocean are repre- 
sented in the maps by Mohn, published in sup- 
plement No. 63 to Petermann’s Mittheilungen 
(1880). The Indian Ocean and the several 
seas between Asia and Australia are shown in 
two maps by Krummel in Kettler’s Zeitschrift 
Sir wissenschaftliche geographie for 1881 and 
1882. The latter is especially valuable in illus- 
trating the distribution of temperatures in the 
sea. 
A very considerable share of the work is al- 
lowed to questions not simply geographical. 
Geological investigation is reviewed by v. 
Fritsch of Halle in seventy-one pages; but 
only three of these are allowed to the United 
States, showing a decided inequality of treat- 
ment. Studies on the distribution of plants 
(83 pp.) and animals (71 pp.) are summarized 
by Grube of Dresden and Schmarda of Vienna ; 
and Gerland of Strassburg reports on ethnology 
(95 pp.) with satisfactory detail. Geographic 
meteorology (71 pp.) is safely intrusted to 
Hann of Vienna. Among the many important 
memoirs referred to, we may mention Supan’s, 
on the distribution of annual variations of 
temperature; those by Teisserence de Bort 
SCIENCE. 
201 
and Wild, on the relation between isobars and 
thermic isabnormals; Spindler’s paper on the 
strength and inclination of the wind in storms ; 
and several others on meteorological cycles. 
Concerning the latter, Hann says, in effect, that 
the hope that such cycles might afford a founda- 
tion for long-range prognostics has proved de- 
lusive, and the problem is at present of purely 
scientific, not practical, interest. Whipple’s 
inquiry into the periodicity of rainfall is quoted 
as proving the absence of any short cycles of 
between five and thirteen years’ duration, so 
that it can be definitely said that predictions 
of wet or dry years on the basis of previous 
observations are quite worthless. So, also, 
Hoffmeyer’s study of the North Atlantic tem- 
pests serves to show the inaccuracy, to say the 
least, of the New- York herald’ s cable-warnings 
to western Europe. Forty-four pages are de- 
voted to questions of regional climate. 
Dr. Zoppritz of Kénigsberg is allowed forty- 
two pages for the progress of terrestrial phys- 
ics (geophysik). In commenting on Professor 
George Darwin’s work on the effect of the 
tides upon the moon’s distance, and on Mr. 
Ball’s entertaining lecture, ‘A glimpse through 
the corridors of time,’ on the same subject, 
the reviewer accepts Professor Newberry’s 
conclusion that the moon must have already 
attained its actual distance from us when our 
oldest Cambrian and Silurian strata were de- 
posited. This seems an unnecessary adher- 
ence to doctrines of uniformity: for, in the 
spread of our paleozoic strata, there is evi- 
dence of much stronger submarine transporta- 
tion than we now find; and even in Jurassic 
times there is a surprising area of cross- 
bedded sandstones in the region of the Colo- 
rado plateau. We agree more fully with the 
author, in his opinion that Mr. O. Fisher has, 
in his ‘ Physics of the earth’s crust,’ rather 
overvalued the strength of his conclusions, 
and again in objecting to the theory of the 
permanence of continents. Under glaciers, 
the discussion by Forel, of their periodic varia- 
tions in Switzerland as dependent on preced- 
ing and not contemporaneous climatic irregu- 
larities, is regarded as of especial importance. 
Forel was preceded in this idea by Giissfeldt.* 
Geodesy and cartography are also discussed ; 
and a list is given of geographic societies, 
which now number seventy-nine, and of geo- 
graphic journals, which have recently increased 
rapidly to the number of one hundred and 
nineteen. Among the societies, the Royal 
geographical society of London leads the list 
1 Ueber die eisverhiltnisse der hochgebirge. Verh. ges. 
erdk. Berlin, vi., 1879, 86. 
