Notes on Elementary Physiography

Abstract

THE author has collected a lot of scraps of information from standard writers on physiographical matters, and has strung his gleanings together to form this book. And if he were an adept at compilation, and knew how to best arrange and connect facts, this plan of printing extracts verbatim might be commended. But when Mr. Martin selects notes which by themselves are incorrect, and interpolates in others crude statements which render them ridiculous, he does an injustice to the authors to whom he acknowledges his indebtedness, and he shirks responsibility by saying that “these notes do not lay claim to originality.” Could anything be more misleading than the following description of sun-spots on p. 148? “They seem to rise suddenly to a great height, cool, and then sink back into the photosphere. They are due to uprushes of incandescent hydrogen, and are identical with the red flames seen during an eclipse.” And the figure that accompanies this text cannot be a sun-spot at all, but must be something else inserted by mistake. Another blunder occurs on p. 59, where a section of an intermittent spring is shown upside down. The figures are mostly very coarse and poor, especially the moraines on p. 62, the section through a cinder cone on p. 89, and one of a volcano on p. 90; whilst the two figures of ocean bottoms on pp. 102 and 103 give a very wrong idea of their nature. There is, of course, a deal of information in the book, but no attempt is made to give it interest. In fact, although the author is a teacher of physiography, it is very evident from his work that he has not paid attention to the practical side of his science, or verified any of the phenomena he essays to describe. As a book of reference the work before us is untrustworthy; and as a work for students of elementary physiography it is useless and much to be condemned.

Notes on Elementary Physiography.

By Horace C. Martin. (London and Manchester: John Heywood, 1891.)