THE STORY OF ICE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2416, 28 June 1900, Page 67

THE STORY OF ICE.

(By W. A. Bbend, F.G.S.)

London : George Newnes (Limited) — " The

Library of Useful Stories."

(Reviewed by Dixornis.)

The author of this miniature treatise for the million finds sermons in snowballs and good, illustrative instances in all other forms of frozen water. Many readers of his " Story of Ice " will be fain to admit (to themselves, at least) that before reading it they- had very little knowledge of the numerous important functions performed by ice in Nature. As its historian, however, Mr Brend makes it exceedingly plain that ice is a most interesting substance, capable of doing, and in fact always doing, astonishing and prodigious things on the earth's surface. The writer is modest, only claiming "to describe the chief features of iceaction, both as they can be observed on the surface of the globe at the present day, and as they appear to have operated in past limes, in a manner suitable to those who have not previously skidied the subject." Ice may seem an unlikely subject enough to write a book about, but those who read this one will have to admit that its author has succeeded in producing a brightlyattractive and pleasantly-readable brochure. First, we find described tlie chief phenomena manifested by ice on the earth's surface as at present, while the effects produced by ice during pa_st epochs" are very fully and explicitly dealt with in the second of the two parts into which the book is divided.

Within the compass of less than 100 small pages the author has neatly and dexterously packed an amazing amount of the essence of knowledge concerning snow, hail, and hoar-frost, glaciers, ice-aheets, and floating ice His passages range from epitomes of Professor Tyndali on '' Ice-flowers," to others descriptive of Nansen's " First Crossing of Gieenland," a land that is being slowly giound out of existence by the vast glacier that covers its surface. It is difficult to realise that these vast valley-fulls of frozen snow are really rivers, and always on the move. too. The " Mer-de-Glace " of Chamouni glides along in summer at from 20in to 27in in 24 hours, but some of the great northern glaciers move as much as 64ft in the same space of time. "Mark^Twain, in the humorous account of his travels in Switzerland, describes how, after reaching the summit of the Biffelberg, he determined to make the descent by sitting on the glacier and allowing it to carry him down to Zermatt." Even at record speed it would have taken him several years to get there, and he had to get up and walk. Mr Brend's written descriptions are excellent, the pictures no less so. United they give a fine idea of the stupendous processes by means of which Jack Frost does his work as a sculptor, whose model is the earth, and whose labours are ceaseless and eternal.

Mention is made of the grand glaciers of the New Zealand Alps as illustrating the fact that these " snowy rivers " may extend a long distance below the snow-line before being finally melted. Some of the Swiss glaciers terminate in valleys in the neighbourhoods occupied by cornfields and orchards, the lower end of the Great Tasman glacier on the West Coast of New Zealand being " hidden by a grove of pines, beeches, and arborescent ferns." Icebergs (enormous as many of these bodies are) are merely bits of glaciers, which, sliding oft' the land, break away in chunks from the parent, mass.

The remaining 120 pages are devoted to some account of the"* doings of ice in times long past, as written upon the rocks by vanished glaciers ; of the position of the ice-age in the geological record ; ice-ages in the New as well as in the Old World; of life during the glacial period ; and a brieflyworded, but explicit, review of theories bearing upon " the causes of the ice-age." As is well-known, there are quite a number of suggested 'explanations of the latter occurrence, some emanating from geologists, and others from astronomers and physicists, but none of them beyond the controversial -stage. The carefully impartial summary here given is one of the best features of the little volume, cleai'iy setting »f or th the main points of all the issues involved.

Whatever its causes may have been there can be little doubt that the chief fascination of the subject for us lies in the fact that our ancestors skirmished around in pursuit of big game upon the very fringe of the colossal snow-cay which the Northern Hemisphere had then, so to speak, pulled over its ears. Leaving the endless speculations of purely scientific reasoners aside, it it almost possible to envy the free nomads of those days, roaming from land to land, unencumbered by domestic impedimenta and untroubled by visions of grim men in pursuit of them for rates and taxes, and grocer's and tailor's bills. Who Avould not Uke to be a palaeolithic savage, hunting and slaving the mammoth and rhinoceros, the giant &tag, cave bear, and mastodon? In the good old days, when such doings were the chief busine&s of life, existence had more of sociability than now. How cheerful it must have been to wind up every eventful day by a corroboree around the camp lire, every heathen doing his level beat 1o bile the biggest bites, and to tell the biggesL lies about the day's exploits. In "tho.<a days men were one family, and if you clubbed your neighbour or your neighbour clubbed you there were no policemen or lwyers or judges to make the survivor's life miserable about it. Life was all a holiday- to paleolithic men and women and childien, who changed their hcibiuits according as the seasons changed. In Fimiiiier they went northwards, and in winter southward*.. — glorious existence, to be always on tour, yet always at home !

And, judging by the author's description of Nature in the far north, even the land clo.ie to the great icy fringe was like to be by no means bleak-faced. " On. the

coast of Greenland little shrubs, grass, and even flowering plants spring up in sheltered nooks among the rocks, and flourish during the short summer, while on the more exposed mountain sides are mosses and dull-grey or orange-coloured lichens. In the ravines grow whole forests of the dwarf Arctic birch or willow, 'small, stunted forms, rarely attaining a greater height than 2ft. One of the most conspicuous plants is the crow berry or curlew berry, the black, juicy fruit of which is largely ea-ten by the Eskimos in early autumn. Among the flowers are found daisies, buttercups, the little blossoms of the white-starred chickweed, dandelions, purple lychnis, cinquefoil, and other brightly-coloured forms. Nansen speaks of the great delight with which he saw saxifrages, poppies, and stellarias growing in the crannies of the rocks when, at the end of his long tramp over the frozen sea, he reached the north coast of Franz Josef Land." Many other plants are to be met with, and, on the whole, I think that what delighted Nansen should be good enough to please most of us.

Mr Brend has been able to give excellent resumes of all the great voyages to both southern and northern Polar regions in the limited space at his disposal, and the numerous illustrations culled from Nansen, Garwood, and others .are beautifully reproduced, and distinctly helpful towards a mucli-10-be-desired " eye-knowledge " of the subject.

It is curious that some of the most striking phenomena resulting, from intense cold should occur in the absence of actual'freezing. Take, for instance, certain experiments carried out in Canada by Major Williams. "He filled two 13in iron bombshells with water, and firmly closed the touchholes with iron plugs. They were then exl>osed to the action of frost. In one case, after some time, the iron plug was forced out with a loud explosion, and thrown to a distance of over 400 ft, a cylinder of ice, Bin long, issuing from the opening. In the second case, the 'shell weiS burst before the plug was driven out, and a collar of ice was formed all round the fracture. . . . In this qase the pressure which maintained the liquid until the moment the shell burst was produced by the attempt of the water itself to expand within a closed space." Several other equally simple and convincing experiments bearing upon the phenomena of freezing are given, only I hope no one will blow himself up with a compressed water-bomb on account ol any recommendation of mine. This little book, which I have found pleasure in lingering over, well illustrates the old saying about " Good things being made up in small parcels."