This small book is number 562 in the “Que sais-je?” Series of Presses Universitaires de France, an excellent collection roughly equivalent to the Pelican Series. It sets out to discuss the physical properties and occurrence of ice, and, in particular, its presence in glaciers of to-day and of the past. In such a field it would seem to have a place to fill, since a small and authoritative book at a reasonable price is not readily available. Unfortunately this book does not completely supply the need, for it is marred by several errors of fact in the first part, where, for example, it is stated that “la température de fusion de la glace augmente avec la pression, ainsi à 50000 kg/cm2 la glace ne fond qu’à 200°.” This statement gives a totally wrong impression, for the melting point of ice at first drops as the pressure increases, reaches a minimum of −20° C. at 2,000 kg./cm.2 and then rises to reach 200° C. at the pressure quoted. Other mistakes include the statements that one angström unit is a ten-thousandth (instead of a ten-millionth) of a millimetre, that the iceberg aircraft-carrier was an American project and that the Journal of Glaciology is published by the Royal Geographical Society. The diagram given for the position of the atoms in the structure of water is incorrect; all the points marked are the sites of oxygen atoms, not half oxygen and half hydrogen as indicated (this figure has been miscopied from a correct version in the quoted source). Apart from these errors and several misspelt names, the book covers its ground adequately, the second part being much the more satisfactory.
The subjects dealt with in the first part include the relation between water and ice, the structure of ice and its physical and mechanical properties, methods of studying ice in glaciers, ice in the atmosphere (but rather curiously omitting snow), ice in lakes and rivers, sea ice, icebergs and the industrial production of ice. The second part comprises a general description of glaciers, secondary effects of glaciers, glacial erosion and sedimentation, history of glaciations and mechanisms and causes of glaciations. In a book of this kind new ideas are not to be expected, and the matter in this volume is mostly of an agreed nature, although the use of the term “zonation” for structures in glacier ice formed by pressure during its motion is new to the reviewer. With the exception of the mistakes mentioned above, this book is a useful concise summary of the field, and also introduces most of the French equivalents for most of the more common glaciological terms. Its format is, of course, not lavish, but, for the price, quite adequate.
