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mine, or other point of production in the United States or, in the case of articles not produced in the United States, the import price at New York. Let us consider how this method applies to a single commodity. The value of any commodity is the ratio of exchange of that commodity with any other commodity (but usually money) at a given place and time. But by the method indicated the proviso as to place at least is neglected. No true value enters into the calculation, but an arbitrarily chosen average. The total amount of the commodity thus estimated will vary according to the quantity, and thus it is really quantities and not values that are measured. When we are dealing with a single commodity that does not matter. Whether values or quantities are used the variations will be the same. Clearly the expression in values has been adopted only to arrive at a formal total for a diversity of articles. But this total is merely formal, the supposed unit standing for something of no significance in relation to "the task in business geography," in the language of the top of p. 12. Consider, for instance, concrete facts in relation to two commodities for which data are given in Table A, pp. 9-10, oats and milk. The "value" is the average of the values on the different farms of the United States, but the fact of business significance is the utility to the consumer, which is measured (at least relatively to the place and time) in the price at the place of consumption. There can be no absolute measure of utility. But a very large proportion of the oats is consumed on the farm, and for this part of the consumption it is not practicable to estimate any addition for the cost of reaching the consumer. For milk, on the other hand, in a country with a population distributed like that of the United States (still more in a country like Great Britain) enormous additions must be made under this head. To reinforce this consideration let us look at facts given in other tables. From Tables I (pp. 515-7) and 13 (pp. 543-5) in Part V. we get the figures in the first two lines of the table below, from which may be calculated those in the last line :

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From these figures it is manifest which of the three countries is most likely to have its inhabitants adequately supplied with milk.

Then in connection with this matter further difficulties arise in consulting other parts of the book. On p. 84 we are given one reason why New Zealand stands at the top of productivity. This position for New Zealand is based on the figure (1059) given for its productivity on the map which we are now considering. But in another table (11, pp. 528-31) we have other figures for productivity arrived at by another method, and in this table New Zealand with the productivity there given (155) does not stand at the top, but is surpassed by Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Belgium, for which last the figure 204 is given. As to New Zealand, it may be pointed out that the method adopted for the map must give it too high a place in productivity if that productivity is thought of in relation to its purchasing power on the world market. Its remoteness, a point on which the authors insist, must make its actual values much lower than the supposed values based on American prices.

G. G. C.

The Oil Industry. - Ernest Raymond Lilley. London: Constable & Co., Ltd. 1926. 94 × 6, pp. 548. Maps, Photographs, and Diagrams. 31s. 6d. net.

The economic importance of mineral oil, so much in demand in all civilized countries and so unequally distributed through the world, has led to the growth of a considerable body of literature, both periodicals and books. The subject has so many aspects that no two books are likely to treat it in exactly the same way, however much they may repeat one another on the fundamental facts. The present work gives comparatively little space to the geological side of the subject, though enough to give the general reader some idea of the problems that face the oil geologist. Much more attention is given to details of drilling, transport, refining, and marketing methods. There are very good accounts of the geographical distribution of mineral oil and of oil-shales, and of the history of the industry from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present time. The last chapter discusses the probable future of the industry. If the exhaustion of the world's coal supply be a remote prospect it is otherwise with oil, the practical exhaustion of which may possibly come within the lifetime of the younger of us. Professor Lilley thinks that in twenty years' time oil-shale may have begun to replace mineral oil for the production of gasoline.

The book is well printed and the maps and diagrams well reproduced. The half-tone photographs are not all equally good, some being rather foggy; but perhaps the American student has an eagle eye not possessed by the present reviewer, and can carry out the injunction, given below a distant photograph of a gusher, to "note the sand which has been brought up with the oil." A misprint of New Guiana for New Guinea (p. 478) has escaped the Errata; and the term " isovol," used in Figs. 4 and 5, does not seem to be explained and is not found in the index. A. M. D.

THE MONTHLY RECORD
EUROPE

Glacial Observations in the French Alps.

IN vol. 5 (1925) of the Etudes Glaciologiques, issued by the Service des Forces Hydrauliques of the French Ministry of Agriculture, we have a new series of observations of the glaciers of the French Alps in the decade ended 1920, put together by M. P. Mougin. It includes a vast amount of detailed work which will be invaluable for future study, but of which only a few salient points can be mentioned here. The continuity of the observations was naturally broken to some extent by the War, but every effort was made to keep up the more important, especially in the Massif of Mont Blanc, whose glaciers have been longest studied and present the greatest interest. The first chapter, occupying 66 pages out of a total of 224, presents the details of the observations for each glacier in turn under the three headings of variation in length, variation of level, and variation in the extent of the terminal snout, the whole profusely illustrated by diagrams and illustrations. Particularly careful were the observations of the Tré-la-Tête glacier between 1908 and 1913, largely under the direction of Prof. C. Bernard; but they were interrupted during the War. However, a reconnaissance made by M. Bernard in 1920 has permitted fairly accurate conclusions as to the changes which had taken place in the course of the preceding decade. No summary of results is given in this chapter,

and it requires a somewhat careful search to find certain general conclusions at the end of the second chapter, which deals with the questions of alimentation and melting. There, in two short and inconspicuous paragraphs, we are told that during the period in question there has been a general increase of the ice in the Mont Blanc Massif and the inner chains of Savoy-an increase most marked in glaciers of steep gradient (Le Tour, Argentière, Les Bossons); whilst in glaciers of the Alpine type, with but a moderate general gradient, it is at present seen only in the form of a rise in the surface-level (Mer de Glace, Tré-la-Tête, Gébroulaz), the effect not having yet reached the lower end. Conditions are different in the glaciers of the Franco-Italian frontier, subject to the influence of winds from the Po valley. These show either a but slight increase (sources of the Arc), or are even in marked retreat (sources of the Isère and Arnès). In this second chapter special attention is given to the observations of snowfall and its variation both with altitude and from year to year. It is shown that the principal periods of advance since the early nineteenth century have all been preceded by periods of abnormal precipitation. In the third chapter an attempt is made to determine the sub-glacial contours of the Mer de Glace, and in the fourth such subjects as the variations of speed of flow according to the stage of advance or retreat and according to season (the movement being found generally most rapid in summer) are discussed. The last chapter deals with avalanches, glacier-bursts, and glacial erosion. In regard to the last, M. Mougin adopts a cautious attitude, holding that the question is still an open one, though he quotes M. J. Vallot, apparently with approval, to the effect that the erosive action of glaciers is but slight. An attempt is being made to obtain definite evidence by means of holes drilled in rock surfaces about to be covered by an advance of the ice, the depth of each hole being exactly determined.

A Thermal Continentality Map of Germany.

In view of the discussion in the Journal (July 1924) of the maps produced by Spitaler and Swoboda showing for the world and Europe the distribution of thermal continentality and oceanity on the basis of mean annual range of temperature (Petermanns Mitteilungen, June 1922), it is of interest to draw attention to a continentality map of Germany on the same basis produced by Dr. Hans Schrepfer by a somewhat different method due to Zenker (Petermanns Mitteilungen, 21 Jahrg., 1925, 3/4 Heft). Like Spitaler, Zenker some forty years ago did a great deal of work, though on rather different lines, relating to the mean temperature of parallels of latitude and of hypothetical land and water hemispheres (Hann's Handbuch der Klimatologie, I. Bd.), but his more immediate process of deriving coefficients expressing the degree of thermal continentality is a good deal simpler. First of all, he makes the crude annual ranges of temperature at various places between January and July comparable by reducing them to a percentage scale by a method which involves a correction for latitude, under the assumption that the mean annual range is inversely proportional to the cosine of the latitude. The reduced range at each place, called the "relative range," is then expressed on a continentality or oceanity scale by using the ratio (1:6) between the smallest relative range over the heart of the oceans and the greatest over the middle of the continents, and from these values the lines of equal continentality are drawn across the map. No correction is made for altitude, since it is not absolute height above sea-level that affects the annual range of temperature, but height in relation to surrounding configuration which is taken as part of the continentality effect-isolated

peaks and ridges having a smaller range of temperature than cups and plateaux at the same height above sea-level.

Without entering into the philosophy of Zenker's method which, like Spitaler's, is open to criticism, it is obvious that Zenker's scale is purely relative, leaving no room for super- and sub-continentality values, above and below 100 and o, and thus lacking the more absolute significance of Spitaler's scale which gives the latter its value. The consequences of Zenker's compressed scale is at once apparent when Schrepfer's map after Zenker is compared with Spitaler's map. In Schrepfer's map Germany lies between 15 per cent. continentality in the west and 30 per cent. in the east, in Spitaler's between 35 per cent. and 50 per cent. respectively, and the latter figures are certainly in better keeping with practical experience of the German climate. There is much to be said for placing an abnormal region like North-East Siberia (Spitaler 130 per cent., Zenker 100 per cent.) in a class by itself, so that the values for ordinary climates are not unduly lowered by competition. The figure of 27 per cent. assigned by Spitaler to Cambridgeshire, for example, gives a fairly suitable expression for a country which while sharing the general oceanic character of England as a whole has a distinct continental tendency. But had Schrepfer's work been extended to the British Isles we should have found Eastern England with something like 10 per cent., the value shown on Spitaler's map along the monotonously equable west coast of Ireland, and there would be much less room to distinguish instructively between different parts of these islands.

It is somewhat singular that Schrepfer makes no reference to Spitaler's maps published only three years previously in the same periodical. A Canal for Northern Italy.

A paper was read before the International Exhibition of Inland Navigation and Utilization of Hydraulic Power at Basle this summer on a project for a great North Italian canal. This suggested "pedemonte" canal is to link Milan and the industrial areas of the Po valley with Venice and the Adriatic. For various reasons, including the extent to which it experiences "brouillards " and the length and deviousness of its routes, it has been decided not to canalize the Po system. The exact route of the canal has not yet been determined, but it would at least link together Turin, Novara, Milan, Mantua, Verona, and Venice. It is also expected that the Italian lakes could be brought into the system. One of the aims is to give Italy an increased share and control of Central European traffic-to reply, in fact, to what are referred to as the attempts to "smother" Genoa as a great European port. It is claimed that, as compared with the Marseille-Rhône-Rhine route, it would reduce the journey to Central Europe by 400 kms. It seems doubtful, however, whether the cost and delay of transferring from the canal to the Swiss railways would not considerably decrease this benefit. Its value to Italian industry however is not overrated. It is pointed out that the direction of the railways show that the traffic is pedemont: these lines, now sometimes congested, would also be relieved by the canal. Few actual details are given, but a company has been formed in Milan to acquire powers for its construction, which it is stated could be done in five years.

ASIA

A Scientific Trip in Southern Palestine.

In spite of the work of scientific travellers like Dr. Max Blanckenhorn (see Fournal, 42, p. 386), not to mention his many predecessors, the geology

and physical geography of Palestine still offer a field for research, and a beginning in this direction has been made by the Chemical Institute of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The still imperfectly known "South Country" was chosen as the scene of the first attempt, a trip being made in that direction (in what year is not stated) by Messrs. Reifenberg, Bernfeld, and Picard, the last acting as geologist to the party. The time was limited and the trip is regarded as merely a preliminary reconnaissance, but the account written by Mr. Reifenberg (accompanied by a geological report by Mr. Picard) adds something to our knowledge and corrects statements by Blanckenhorn in one or two particulars ('Publns. on the Scientific Investn. of Palestine,' I. - Jerusalem, 1926). Besides the geology, attention was given to the chemical composition of rocks, soils, and waters, as also to the bituminous deposits and the possible occurrence of petroleum. Among the rocks examined were the salty dolomitic limestone already described by Sachsse, which always remains moist owing to its hygroscopic character. Its marked salt-content led Blanckenhorn and Sachsse to suppose that rock salt existed at no great depth, but Mr. Reifenberg prefers to assign the salt to æolian origin. An analysis of soil of the white alkali type in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea also showed a very high salt content, enough to make it completely sterile in one case. A visit was paid to certain pitch-wells in the Wadi Muhawat to which the Badawin apply the name Bir Chumr, in which the writer sees a survival of the "Beeroth Chemar " in the valley of Siddim associated in Genesis with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. No traces of asphalt were seen in these shafts, but a high temperature was noticeable, and the site, which lies near a fault marked by the sudden change from dark Turonian to light marly strata, seems to have been the scene of a former eruption from the Earth's interior. Near Kurnub some small springs with a nauseous taste, associated with evil-smelling loam and sand, were examined, both water and sand being found to yield a bituminous oil, suggesting that petroleum might be found lower down. A microscopic examination of the loess of the neighbourhood of Beersheba showed it to be made up almost entirely of the finest quartz particles evidently derived from the sandy desert to the south. During the journey various remains of Roman and Byzantine age were examined and photographed, and the paper is illustrated with views of these and subjects of geological interest.

The Journey of Gabet and Huc to Lhasa.

It has become so usual to speak of "Huc and Gabet" by reason of the assured place taken by Huc's 'Souvenirs d'un Voyage' as a classic in the literature of travel, that we are apt to forget that Gabet was not only the senior of the two missionaries but the leader of the venture into the Tibetan wilds. That we would do well to reverse the popular practice is suggested by Prof. Paul Pelliot in an interesting article on the journey in Toung Pao, vol. 24, 1925-26, pp. 133-178. Although elicited by the recent publication at Peking of a new edition of the 'Souvenirs,' ably edited by M. Planchet (a Lazarist missionary like the travellers), the article is much more than a review of this book, for it discusses fully the many puzzles suggested by a study of the narrative, on which no one is so competent as Prof. Pelliot to pronounce. At one time even the fact of the visit to Lhasa was questioned, but this point has long been settled in their favour. But though Huc's inimitable work may give a correct general impression of the countries traversed, it would be risky to trust it in matters of detail, even when they refer to the author himself. His dates especially are constantly incorrect, and he seems even to have been a year out consistently when he speaks of his first arrival in China. Even his several

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