The Surface of the Earth

Abstract

THE varied attainments of geographers have enabled them to express emphatic views on the scope of their subject. Each in turn has augmented knowledge of the earth's surface till it has become difficult to distinguish the contributions of mathematician and astronomer, physicist and physical observer, geologist and naturalist. Many geologists have been eminent as geographers, and Lyell and Humboldt gave the subject an enduring scientific importance by teaching the effects of geological causation in shaping the earth's surface. Every geologist is aware how the light of geological structure illuminates the problems of mountain form, position, and relation to surrounding land; but never till now has an author attempted to narrate the geographical story and history of the earth's surface from a geological point of view. Prof. Suess has brought to the subject the qualifications of a great teacher, who realizes that science has a duty to make itself available to the unlearned, no less than to aid the researches which are yet to be made; and he has conceived of the earth's surface in a new, forcible way, which stimulates alike imagination and thought, and lays before the reader a wide knowledge of fact. This work, which we know has occupied the author for the past twelve years or more, can scarcely be judged of as a whole, because the third volume, whose subject gives a title to the treatise, is unpublished; but we may say that a more luminous and profound endeavour to place the elements of scientific geography before the general reader has not been made. We may perhaps think,the subjects discussed need the aid of more figures to enable the reader to think as the author thinks, and attain a similar command of his facts. The aim of the work is to lead the reader through a consideration of the movements in the outer layers of the earth's crust which are manifested at the present day, and in the first half of the first volume the more striking phenomena are narrated, which are associated with volcanic disturbance and earth movements. The second part of the volume examines the structure and construction of mountain chains. The author naturally takes the Alpine system first, as nearest to the Austrian people, and then treats of the depressions, like the Adriatic and Mediterranean, associated with the prolongations of the Alpine system. Successive chapters tell the story of the mountain structure of Southern Africa and the Sahara, of Central Asia and the Malay Islands, and of the mountain systems of America and the West Indies. Thus, by raising the mountain chains, the author leads up, in the final chapter of the first volume, to a discussion of the nature and origin of continents, no less than of their relations to the seas from which they emerge.

Das Antlitz der Erde.

Von Eduard Suess. Mit Abbildungen und Kartenskizzen. Erste Abtheilung, 1883: Zweite Abtheilung (Schluss des 1. Bandes), 1885. (Prag: F. Tempsky. Leipzig: G. Freytag.) Zweiter Band. Mit 42 Text-Abbildungen, 1 Tafel, und 2 Karten in Farbendruck. (Prag: Wien. Leipzig: F. Tempsky, 1888.)