Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal Volume 4 Number 2

Mountaineering literature

Ice-Work, Present And Past, by Professor T. G. Bonney

(International Scientific Series)

London: Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co. 1896

THIS is not, as its title might suggest, a work on mountaineering, but treats of glacial geology. Perhaps no department of science furnishes at present a larger crop of difficult and unsettled questions than this, and by a somewhat strange antithesis no disputed questions of science seem to generate a greater amount of argumentative heat than these icy ones. The facts of glacial geology confront the mountaineer in almost every part of the world, and the peaceful climber who wishes a key to the interpretation of what he sees, and who does not share the stern joy that glacialists and anti-glacialists of various schools seem to feel in demolishing each others theories, will welcome a book which without active partisanship states the facts as ascertained, and explains the opposing theories, with their pros and cons. Such a book Professor Bonney has aimed to supply. Though not unknown in the gladiatorial arena, he in the present work assumes the rôle of the judge summing up the case to the jury, leaving to his readers to decide for themselves between the different theories. This we venture to think he has done remarkably well, and whilst we can here and there detect the leaning of his own view, he appears everywhere to state the case on both sides fairly as well as clearly.

The book commences with a summary of the existing evidence. This is perhaps an inconvenient arrangement for the reader who approaches the subject for the first time, as he finds facts piled up for him without having the key to their interpretation. This, however, can be remedied by re-reading the book, and on the whole the arrangement is probably the best.

The evidence referred to principally relates to the glaciers of the Alps, of Greenland, and of the Antarctic region, which are taken as types of three stages of glaciation. Then the vexed question of the origin of lakes is considered, when Scotland receives some attention, and among other references the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy are fully treated. The author seems to lean to the submergence rather than to the ice-dam theory. We think, however, the difficulties attending the submergence theory are greater than those of the other. Then follows a lengthy description of the traces of former glaciation in the British Isles. Here England, where the phenomena are exhibited over a wider area and in a more complicated form, receives the lion's share of attention, but our Scotch boulder clay is referred to, and the much discussed Clava beds have some space devoted to them - the author again apparently favouring submergence. A subsequent chapter deals with the traces of former glaciation in Europe, North America, and elsewhere.

The latter part of the book deals with theoretical questions, and the difficult subjects of temperature in the glacial epoch, the cause of a glacial epoch, the number of glacial epochs, and the interpretation of glacial deposits with reference to their causes, all receive due attention - the arguments for and against the various theories being clearly and carefully stated. We think the result of a perusal of these chapters will be to convince the reader that we do not yet possess the key which will unlock the secret of the cause of an ice age.

This book, then, does not deal with the physical questions relating to glaciers, so charmingly treated of by Tyndall in his "Glaciers of the Alps" (which we are glad to see republished) and in his "Forms of Water," albeit his conclusions may not all have commended themselves to some of our greatest men of science. Neither does Glacial Scotland receive so large a share of treatment as in Dr James Geikie's "Great Ice Age," or Sir Archibald Geikie's "Scenery of Scotland." Still the facts and the latest theories of glacial geology are treated in a comprehensive and impartial spirit, and the book forms an excellent introduction to the subject. If we may refer to one defect, it is in the illustrations. These might well have been more copious, and in some instances less far-fetched. For this perhaps, however, the author is not altogether responsible.