Glaciers of North America: a Reading Lesson for Students of Geography and Geology

Abstract

A GOOD summary, in a convenient form, of what has been ascertained about North American glaciers, has been for some time a desideratum. Prof. I. C. Russell has supplied it in a volume of moderate size, well illustrated, and written in a cautious and critical spirit. As he points out in his opening words, North America, in reality, affords more favourable conditions for the study of existing glaciers and the records of ancient ice-sheets than any other continent. It affords excellent examples of the three types into which glaciers may be distinguished—namely, Alpine, Piedmont, and Continental. Of the first, specimens are abundant in the mountain system of the West, from “pocket editions” in the peaks of the High Sierra to the huge Seward glacier in Alaska. Glaciers of North America: a Reading Lesson for Students of Geography and Geology. By Israel C. Russell, Professor of Geology, University of Michigan, Pp. x + 210. (Boston, U.S.A., and London: Ginn and Co., 1897.)