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were main factors in bringing about the final tragedy. These bad surfaces in their turn were chiefly due to the presence of a peppering of loose snow crystals upon the surface of the wind-hardened snow sastrugi. These acted efficiently as a brake to the sledge runners, playing a part akin to that of loose sand under desert conditions. Undoubtedly surface conditions deteriorate progressively with decrease of temperature, but this alone is not nearly sufficient to hold a party up in country which is habitually swept by periodic gales as is, for instance, the Ross Barrier.

That low temperatures alone are not enough to ruin sledging conditions has been shown by the experiences of other parties. Amundsen with his dogs covered 37 miles in the autumn in low temperatures after a fall of temperature to -45° F., but with a south-east gale intervening to sweep away the rime. Again, he marched 46 miles into Framheim after recording temperatures of -68.8° F. the previous day. Cherry Garrard, during the winter journey to Cape Crozier, refers to "perfect weather and good travelling" at -55.3° F. to-63.2° F. Our own party in the north of Victoria Land managed pulls of 15 to 20 miles-manhauling-with heavily laden sledges in temperatures below -20° F. and without sun. The factor which slew the Southern Party was not so much the low temperatures as the fall of temperature with its accompanying deposit of fog crystals. In the centre of the plateau southerly winds breasting the slow rise from the Pole towards the Ice Divide: on the Barrier in late February and March the autumn seasonal fall at the period of maximum open sea, both provide ideal conditions for such deposition. During the latter decisive period of the march the conditions were exaggerated by abnormally calm and therefore abnormally cold weather, which was perhaps associated with the presence of an unusual amount of ice in the Ross Sea for the period of the year.

How far the conditions which were the cause of the Terra Nova's failure to pick up the Western and Northern Parties at the appointed places and those which caused the destruction of the Polar Party were associated phenomena one cannot tell in the absence of sufficient data. That the weather in the autumn of 1911 to 1912 was abnormal appears likely: whether the tragedy would not have taken place if the weather had been normal is a different and difficult question. The incidence of the great March blizzard commencing on March 21 undoubtedly appeared to Scott and his unfortunate companions the decisive factor in their fate. It is very doubtful, however, whether, had that blizzard not arrived, the debilitated party could have made Hut Point. At the time they were held up their day's march was reduced to 5 or 6 miles. At the Depôt there were three weeks' provisions: they had 150 miles to cover to bring them to safety. All were badly frostbitten, and Scott himself says earlier that he had nothing better than amputation to look forward to. One cannot but think that their average march would have decreased rather than increased, and that long before they could have reached their haven they must have given up the struggle and died.

While recognizing the dominant influence of the weather in bringing about the tragedy, however, it is important not to lose sight of the rather numerous predisposing circumstances in which the meteorological conditions played no part. Foremost among these, or so it seems to the writer, must be placed Scott's disastrous and hurried decision to change his party from four men to five. We know the decision was taken hastily, for otherwise why was Bowers instructed to leave his ski behind when the remainder of his unit depôted them some four days before the redistribution? We have the anomaly of the

man in the party who possessed the shortest legs trudging ankle-deep and deeper in soft snow for 200 miles and more while his companions on ski pulled upon a higher plane in every sense. What Scott's motives were we can only guess doubtless they were high; equally certainly the policy was a grave mistake.

Then, again, the composition of the final party-four men of the officer class and one long-service naval seaman-is also open to criticism, and may have played its part in the breakdown of Seaman Evans, which took place with alarming rapidity once the main stimulus to his imagination was removed by the sight of the traces of Amundsen's party near the Pole. Dr. Simpson speaks of the party as struggling on the plateau on "insufficient" food. That the food was insufficient one feels inclined to doubt. All parties and food experts seem agreed as to its adequate content of energy value even for the stringent conditions of the plateau. The suitability of the ration for a trek of the length contemplated and accomplished is another matter. How far the failure of the final party was due to the general debility and lassitude which is one of the symptoms of incipient scurvy is a debatable point. Macklin, in his able summary of the occurrence of scurvy under Antarctic conditions, has attributed the loss of the party to this cause. Certainly the long duration and harsh conditions of the journey would go far to use up the reserves of antiscorbutic vitamine which normally serve to delay the incidence of scurvy for several months. Still, the pony-meat should have been a source of new supply, and the breakdown of E. R. G. R. Evans, who had been living on sledging rations and had been manhauling for some weeks longer than the members of the polar party, is not a reliable criterion from which to argue about the state of health of his companions. Wilson was an expert; knew the symptoms of scurvy from personal experience; was a conscientious and scientific observer, and does not suggest that visible signs of scurvy had appeared. Dr. Atkinson, the writer believes, was clear that this was not so. The case must be regarded as not proven, although the possibility needs to be borne in mind. Finally, there is the mysterious disappearance of the paraffin oil over which Scott is clearly preoccupied throughout the weeks of the return Barrier journey. All sorts of explanations have been advanced to account for this, ranging from the formation of an allotrope of tin in the solder of the tins under the influence of low temperatures and consequent leakage, to the shrinkage of the washers of the tins and consequent evaporation. We shall never probably know the truth. Only two things seem clear. Each returning party took, if anything, less than their share. Leakage did take place. At One Ton Depôt later in the year, portions of the food were found to be saturated with paraffin.

None of the above reasons nor-the writer believes-the weather were sufficient by themselves to bring about the tragedy. Combined and acting in concert they have served to convert a commonplace story of endeavour into one of the finest traditions of the age. They have enabled Scott's Last Expedition to stand forth almost alone among private polar ventures as a perfected enterprise with all its results adequately recorded. Further, by making possible the founding of a scientific Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University, they have gone far towards ensuring a similar survival for the more important results of the numerous expeditions yet to come before the exploration of the polar regions is complete and the era of "exploration" has definitely given. place to that of "exploitation." R. E. PRIESTLEY.

AN AGRICULTURAL ATLAS

An Agricultural Atlas of England and Wales. - Compiled by J. Pryse Howell on behalf of the Agricultural Economics Research Institute of the University of Oxford and published by the Ordnance Survey at Southampton. 1925. 22 + 4 maps on scale 1: 1,500,000 and Introduction.

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IOS. net.

TUDENTS of geography, and many others, have long wished to obtain

in a convenient form information as to agricultural distributions such as that given here. Published official statistics are issued only for the Administrative Counties-areas which are in general too large and varied to allow of any detailed comparison of the distributions of the crops and other products so listed with their conditions of relief or climate or populousness. In compiling the twenty-two distribution maps which form this atlas Mr. Howell worked from the Parish Returns and plotted his results on maps showing parish boundaries on a scale of 1 inch to I mile. That scale, and the extent of land (25 or 100 acres) or number of animals (100 or 500) represented by one dot, do not allow of precise allocation of crops or stock within a parish, except in very large ones. But the civil parish is the smallest unit area for which statistics are available, and on the scale of these maps variations within a parish will usually be inappreciable. Each map is accompanied by a corresponding table of statistics for the county areas.

There

The maps fall into four well-defined groups. The first three show the utilization of the land surface as (1) Mountain and Heath; (2) Permanent Grass; and (3) Arable Land. On each one dot represents 100 acres. is no indication either on the maps or in the Introduction that other parts of the land surface than these three-e.g. woodland, built-on areas, waste, etc.have been taken into account in any of the calculations.

The next eleven maps show the distribution of the chief crops of the arable land. Here each dot represents 25 acres; and the accompanying table states the proportion of the arable land in each county devoted to the particular crop. A similar map shows the bare fallow.

The last seven of these maps show the distribution of the chief domestic animals. Each dot represents 100 animals, except for sheep, whose much greater number allows only one dot for 500 animals; for in this country the number of sheep is nearly twice that of horses, cattle, and pigs together, and not much less than half that of the human population.

All these agricultural distribution maps are printed with black dots on a red outline of coast-line and county boundaries on a fairly transparent tracing paper, so that they may be superposed on any one of the four foundation maps which follow. These four are printed in colour on loose sheets of opaque white paper.

The first "basis" map is a generalized map of the "solid" geology which can, in many areas, be used to give some indication of the character of the soil and also, more often, of the subsoil. It is too general to be of much value for detailed study; but, in the absence of any good soil maps or of a complete "drift" map, it is perhaps the best thing possible at present. It would have been possible to show much more detail without loss of clearness. The second (orographic) basis map shows altitudes by layer colours which change at the 200-feet, 600-feet, 1200-feet, and 2000-feet contours. The third is a similarly generalized map of mean annual rainfall. These three maps will serve their purpose of giving a reasonably correct indication of the association of par

ticular crops or types of farming with the facts they show; and the student who requires more detail must consult maps on a larger scale.

The fourth basis map is one " showing the locality of certain Market Towns, etc." The Introduction states "No attempt has been made to provide a chart of economic conditions, but the map showing the situation of market towns indicates in some measure the localities in which the chief part of the urban population is to be found." This map employs a circle, in red or black, as its town symbol. There is no indication of the difference of meaning intended by the two colours; examination shows that in England most of the county towns and many county boroughs are marked by black circles and most smaller towns by red ones. But in Wales several small non-county towns are shown by black circles. In at least four cases, however-Beverley, Merthyr Tydfil, Newport (I.W.), and Presteigne-both colours are printed. In the industrial areas of West Yorkshire and South Lancashire many town symbols have been inserted without names, and not all of them are market towns. But in the Black Country and South Wales and on Tyneside there are relatively fewer town symbols; so that on comparison these areas appear to be less populous than they are in fact. This map seems to attempt too much, and in doing so it fails to give much information of value. Markets might be usefully classified as (a) consuming markets and (b) collecting markets, and, though in practice it is difficult to distinguish marginal cases, it is clear that the large populous urban regions are primarily consuming markets for agricultural produce, while the small rural market towns are mainly engaged in collecting that produce and forwarding it to the greater consuming markets. For a study of the effects of accessibility of the markets and market requirements on agricultural production the consuming areas are the important markets, roughly in proportion to their consuming power, and they could be shown very much better by a map showing density of population than by that given here. Possibly consuming centres and rural markets would be best shown on separate maps: certainly this attempt to combine them is not a success.

Space does not allow us to comment on each map. Their value is in that they show more vividly and precisely relationships which are, at least in general terms, familiar to students of the geography of England. The association of hill-pasture and heath with the high and rainy areas of the North and West and with the Tertiary gravels and sands of the South and East is clearly shown. So also is the marked concentration of some crops, e.g. of potatoes grown for sale in the Fenlands about the Wash and the Humber and on the Lancashire and Cheshire plain, and the wide diffusion of other types of farming, as e.g. dairy work. And comparisons among these maps demonstrate many interesting facts, such as the apparent association of pigs and milch cows, and suggests many questions.

One very serious drawback to the atlas is the fact that all its data are for the year 1918, which was very far from being a normal year; and to some extent it may be regarded as a record of some results of the War. To fix on a normal year for all crops would be difficult, and hence we might expect better results from using average records over a period of years; though to do so would add very considerably to the work of compilation. It is also to be borne in mind that the data were collected in summer, and therefore the maps do not show any of the seasonal changes in distribution of cattle and sheep which are considerable in some areas, as, for instance, on the arable lands of the East Riding of York, where store cattle from the west, or from Ireland and Scotland, are purchased in autumn to consume the fodder crops

and provide manure before being sold as beef cattle in the winter and spring.

Part of the material used here was published in 1921 as 'The Agricultural Atlas of Wales.' It is a matter for congratulation that the success of that atlas has been sufficient to lead to this one. And we trust that there is a sufficient public for this to make possible further developments of the kind. The style of the base maps, with their ugly typed names, is not up to the high standard usually associated with the work of the Ordnance Survey, but was doubtless dictated by economy, and the price charged for the atlas is remarkably low. Mr. Howell, the Oxford Research Institute, and the Ministry of Agriculture are to be congratulated on having made a distinct contribution to our knowledge of England. C. B. F.

U-SHAPED MOUNTAIN AND FOLD LINE

The Unstable Middle Section of the Island Arcs. - W. H. Hobbs. Verh. v. Geol.-Mijnb. Gen. v. Ned. en Kol. Geol. Ser. VIII., pp. 219-262. Four Plates.

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HE curved course of fold-mountains and island festoons is one of their most characteristic features. According to Suess the direction of these lines is sometimes reversed by a sudden bend like a hair-pin, and the middle of such an arc may be fractured into widely spaced islands. Professor Hobbs has discussed some of these bent and fragmentary island chains, and attributes their features to the instability of the middle section of the arc. He considers especially the arcs of the Sunda line, the Andaman-Nicobar Islands, the Moluccas, the West Indies, and the mountain arc of Iberia and Mauritania. Sharply bent mountain lines are frequent and easily explained; for they may be the worn jagged rim of narrow sunklands. There are serious mechanical difficulties in the explanation of U-shaped mountain lines by thrusting outward from the foundered block below the included basin. The sinking mass would doubtless cause an outward deep-seated pressure by displacing the material below it and thus uplifting its edge; but in such cases the folding at the surface would naturally be toward the basin. The down-faulting of a block after the folds have become rigid might cause a deep basin without any marginal folding; but outward folding appears improbable.

Hook-shaped island arcs to which Suess directed special attention are the Caribbean Arc of the West Indies, South Georgia in the South Atlantic, and the Moluccas, and as a corresponding type of mountain chain, those of Southern Spain and Morocco, and of Assam. Before consideration of the mechanical processes involved in such overthrust outfolds it is advisable to inquire whether the evidence for them is convincing, or whether the structures thus interpreted may have been produced by subsidence within a folded belt, and not by folding outward from the sunken block.

In the case of the arc of the Caribbees or Lesser Antilles, the best evidence available is from Barbados. The base of that island is intensely folded; and if it were folded according to the hypothesis by pressure normal to the Caribbean Arc the folds in Barbados should trend from north to south. The folding, though subject to many local irregularities, is predominantly along lines from west to east, and due to pressure from the south. Professor Hobbs figures one fold which he attributed to pressure from the west; it may be only a local

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