The inscription on the seal of the former Province of Lower Canada was from it "Ab ipso Ducit opes animumque ferro." A part of it also is the Alcaic stanza familiar to recipients of prizes at Upper Canada College, from the time of its foundation: "Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam, Utcunque defecere mores Dedecorant bene nata culpæ." The inscription on the seal of the Province of Upper Canada was also from Horace : "Imperî Porrecta Majestas * Custode rerum Cæsare." But this was from the fourteenth ode of the fourth book. Formerly Virgil was held to be a source of mystic oracular responses; but with colonial ministers Horace has evidently been the favorite for such purposes. One of them (Lord Lytton) has even given the world a translation of the odes and epodes of Horace. The seal of the province of Quebec before the division of the country into Upper and Lower Canada may be seen figured on the title page of "The Laws of Lower Canada," printed at Quebec, by J. Neilson, in 1793. Its motto, "Externæ gaudent agnoscere metæ," which is to be found neither in Virgil nor Horace, seems to indicate the supposed pleasure with which the new monarch was welcomed after the conquest. A king, crowned and robed, stands before a map unrolled, and points with his sceptre towards the St. Lawrence. The legend round the outer edge of the seal is "Sigillum Provinciæ Nostræ Quebecensis in America." ON THE CAUSE OF GLACIER MOTION. BY JOSEPH L. THOMPSON. The cause of glacial action, or, as it is more briefly termed, the "glacial theory," has been a favorite subject of discussion among geologists, from Dr. Buckland downwards. The effects of glacial action, though apparent enough in many imperishable markings and striæ in the rocks and mountain-sides in various countries in both the old and new world, have now been satisfactorily explained. That the scratches and groovings referred to have been, and, indeed, only could have been caused by the action of rocks and stones imbedded in ice and forced over the surface of the earth, seems to have been admitted by all; but, how such immense masses of ice, extending over superficies of many square miles, should have been so impelled, has, I believe, hitherto been considered a mystery; at least, so far as I know, no cause adequate for such tremendous results has been suggested. It may be considered presumptuous in one unknown to science, to venture to offer a solution of a mystery that has, till now, eluded the attempts of the scientific word; but I believe it to be better to try and do good, even with the certainty of failing, than to sit down in apathy without making the attempt. ". It is a well known fact that all glaciers have an onward or progressive motion. The immense heaps of rocks, stones, mud, &c. (moraines), which mark the limits of glaciers, prove this beyond a doubt; as do also the differences between the summer and winter limits of the same glaciers. This motion is invariably in a direction from its source in the mountain to its extremity in the valley (for it is necessary to the formation of a river of ice that it should be confined at each side, as its lateral expansion would deprive it of its distinctive character: a valley, therefore, is an indispensable condition of a glacier), irrespective altogether of the inclination of the bottom of the valley; thus disproving the gravitation theory of Prof. Forbes, of Edinburgh, which for some time. obtained favor among geologists, though, in my opinion, the theory of Prof. Agassiz, of Switzerland, was, albeit short of the truth, nevertheless, a much nearer approach to it. He imagined that the glacier being full of chinks, owing to its being composed of snow and ice, and on its being exposed to the action of the rays of the sun portions of the ice 'were melted, the water flowed into these chinks; and thus, by the alternate thawing and freezing of the water so lodged, the movement of the whole mass was effected. Surely never was the solution of a great scientific difficulty so nearly attained: another step, and it had been solved. It seems to me that the great defect in the learned Professor's reasoning lies in this, that the progressive motion is ascribed to the alternate thawing and freezing of the water in the cavities in the glacier, and the consequent contraction and dilatation of the water, and, by that much only, of the volume of the glacier! Now, if this were true, absolutely, it would apply with equal force to the glacier throughout its entire course; whereas, as all glaciers originate above the line of perpetual snow, it is obvious that however well this theory may apply to as much of it as the rays of the sun might affect so as to melt it, it is absolutely certain that it could not apply to that portion where the ice does not melt. Another reason must therefore be sought for, that will apply to the glacier as a whole. I venture, then, with all deference, to submit the following as one that, whether it solve all the difficulties of this difficult question or not, is, I think, worth a moment's consideration. The alternate thawing and freezing, that is, the expansion and contraction of the glacier, of the enormous mass of ice itself, constitutes the motive power of this extraordinary phenomena. The melting and congealing of the water in the chinks are opposing, not assisting, forces; because, although water in the act of freezing does expand, this takes place generally and in the greatest degree at night; therefore the contraction of the bulk of the water is not coincident with, but in opposition to the expansion of the volume of the glacier by the action of the sun, which takes place during the day; and the act of contracting, consequent on the diminished temperature, and therefore increased density, or, which is the same thing, diminished bulk, takes place at night, the very time that, according to Agassiz's theory, the greatest dilatation of the mass ought to take place. These are antagonistic forces, whose effects must be neutralized. These, added to the stupendous vis inertia of the glacier itself, show the amazing power of the apparently simple action of difference of temperature upon inert matter. The resultant is easily predicated. The mass, being once set in motion, moves in accordance with a known universal law of nature, i. e., that expansive forces move in the direction of the least resistance, that is, downwards towards the lower and wider extremity of the valley. It may be, and generally is, assisted by the formation of the sides and bed of the valley and laws of gravitation; though were these aids absent, it would still advance in that direction, because, being frozen and solid at the upper extremity, it could not move towards that. It is therefore shut up to go the other way, that is, in the line of the least resistance. This seems to me to be the rationale of the onward motion of modern glaciers; and I see nothing in it which will bar its application to a system or series of glaciers, however extensive, however great, the operation of the laws which regulate the movements of matter being absolute and invariable. Lindsay, February 17, 1870. THE LAW OF COPYRIGHT. PIKE vs. NICHOLAS. In an article in the last number of the Canadian Journal, entitled "Race Head-forms and their Expression by Measurements," reference was made to a suit prosecuted in the English Court of Chancery, before the Vice-Chancellor, Sir W. M. James, in which Mr. Luke Owen Pike, a graduate of Oxford, and member of Lincoln's Inn, author of "The English and their Origin, a Prologue to Authentic English History," charged Dr. Thomas Nicholas, a professor in Carmarthen College, with plagiarism, literary piracy, and appropriation of the contents of that work, in the production of his "Pedigree of the English People." The suit is one of great interest to literary men, as it raised questions involving the practical interpretation of the law of copyright, and the whole bearings of their vested rights in their own brain-work. There is something curious in the very prosecution of a suit for the restitution of a man's rights in reference to his own published thoughts and inductions, which is calculated to arrest attention as a characteristic phase in the highly artificial development of modern civilization. In this respect the student of science stands at a peculiar disadvantage. The novelist or other caterer for popular tastes receives in general so abundant a pecuniary reward as to furnish no inadequate compensation, were his literary claims in any danger of invasion. But the laborious researches of the student of science rarely produce any more practical return for the cost of publication, than the reputation thereby acquired. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at if authors of scientific treatises should be found prone to evince even undue sensitiveness in reference to the misappropriation of the fruits of their literary toil. It chanced that the readers of this journal had a special interest in some of the questions raised in the suit of Pike v. Nicholas; for while plaintiff and defendant figured in the reports of the trial as contending for originality of views, or priority of publication, in reference to sundry results of ethnical study and research, we had no difficulty in showing that many of those had been published by us years before, in the pages of this journal, as well as in original works. The occasion was a legitimate one for reclaiming our own; for more than one contributor to this journal has had repeated reason to complain of such ignoring of his published views, and misappropriation of his labours. Soon after its publication, however, we received a letter from the defendant, Professor Nicholas, protesting against the article in question, in which, as he says, "with no purpose to injure, I am quite sure, but doubtless out of zeal for justice and literary honor, you do me and a book which I recently published (The Pedigree of the English People'), a great injustice. That book and its author, I am happy to tell you, have been fully vindicated before the High Court of Appeal in Chancery." Dr. Nicholas further adds: "From what quarter you got the ex parte statement of facts on which you rely, I do not know; but it was clearly a quarter wholly unworthy of reliance. You have, however, based your remarks upon the facts given you, and taken Vice-Chancellor James's judgment as just and final; whereas, as now proved, it was neither the one nor the other. That judgment was at once declared, by all men acquainted with the two books, and capable of understanding the question, as absurdly unfair; and while you were making use of it in Canada to bring down upon the temporary victim a greater weight of odium, I was engaged here in vindicating, before the Lord Chancellor and Lord Justice Giffard, my own rights as an author, and collaterally your right to priority in the very matters in which you claim priority in your article of November last. As you will see from the pamphlet I send by this post, the Vice-Chancellor's judgment has been dismissed without hesitation, and the merits of my book, as an honest and independent production, properly vindicated. If you glance at the pamphlet, although the discussion is necessarily condensed and incomplete, I think that you will see that the decree did me a gratuitous injury; and I trust that you will also see, on consideration, that the Canadian Journal, which has assisted in augmenting that injury, will only act fairly by making fully known to its readers the other side of the question." * The Canadian Journal cannot be justly accused of going beyond its legitimate province, in giving publicity to a judgment of the English Vice-Chancellor on an important question of literary copyright, in which its own contributors had special claims and rights involved; nor can we, with propriety, be charged as having "taken the ViceChancellor's judgment as just and final." Its finality was a question * An Examination of Vice-Chancellor James's Judgment," with an account of its dismissal by the Court of Appeal in Chancery, in the case of the book entitled "The Pedegree of the English People," by Thomas Nicholas, M.A., Ph. D., F. G. S. |