This book reviews advances in understanding of the past ca. two million years of Earth history - the Quaternary Period - in the United States. It begins with sections on ice and water - as glaciers, permafrost, oceans, rivers, lakes, and aquifers. Six chapters are devoted to the high-latitude Pleistocene ice sheets, to mountain glaciations of the western United States, and to permafrost studies. Other chapters discuss ice-age lakes, caves, sea-level fluctuations, and riverine landscapes. With a chapter on landscape evolution models, the book turns to essays on geologic processes. Two chapters discuss soils and their responses to climate, and wind-blown sediments. Two more describe volcanoes and earthquakes, and the use of Quaternary geology to understand the hazards they pose. The next part of the book is on plants and animals. Five chapters consider the Quaternary history of vegetation in the United States. Other chapters treat forcing functions and vegetation response at different spatial and temporal scales, the role of fire as a catalyst of vegetation change during rapid climate shifts, and the use of tree rings in inferring age and past hydroclimatic conditions. Three chapters address vertebrate paleontology and the extinctions of large mammals at the end of the last glaciation, beetle assemblages and the inferences they permit about past conditions, and the peopling of North America. A final chapter addresses the numerical modeling of Quaternary climates, and the role paleoclimatic studies and climatic modeling has in predicting future response of the Earth's climate system to the changes we have wrought.

There is a resurgence of interest in the 'Austrian School' of economics, notably the work of Menger, Mises and Hayek. In contrast to neoclassical economics, the Austrian school has always emphasised the importance of incorporating differences in knowledge, beliefs and expectations into economic analysis. This approach leads to the notion of competition as a dynamic process of discovery and co-ordination, instead of a static state of general equilibrium. Market devices such as product differentiation and advertising, long condemned as uncompetitive, are evidence that the market process of discovery and coordination is working. Neoclassical welfare economics envisages an important role for government as correcting 'market failure' and hence supports the concept of a mixed economy. Austrian economics casts doubt on the ability of government to acquire the knowledge necessary to improve upon the market. The Monopolies and Mergers Commission is an inadequate safeguard for consumers, and prohibiting mergers may limit competition. A more effective protection against monopoly would be the abolition of patent laws. Marginal cost pricing and investment rules provide a naive and unenforceable framework of control for nationalised industries. Consumers could be better safeguarded by the abolition of statutory monopolies. 'External' nuisances like noise and pollution are more effectively dealt with by making producers legally liable for them, and by creating property rights to be traded on markets, than by cost-benefit analyses or 'externality taxes'. Planning agreements are likely to hamper the competitive process. There is no reason to believe the National Enterprise Board will make better decisions than the market. Austrian economics suggests that the free market will be more effective than the 'mixed economy' in discovering and meeting the wishes of consumers.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.