FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



425 



Cave, Tennessee. Pp. 39 Richmond, Charles 

 W. : Birds collected by Dr. W. L. Abbott in 

 Madagascar, with Descriptions of Three New 

 Species. Pp. 20. Rotch, A. Lawrence : On ob- 

 taining Meteorological Records in the Upper Air 

 by Means of Kites and Balloons. Pp. 8 Ratter, 

 Cloudsley : A Collection of Fishes obtained in 

 Swatow, China, by Miss Adele M. Fields. Pp. 36. 

 Schuchen, Charles: On the Fossil Phyllopod 

 Genera Dipeltis and Protocaris of the Family 

 Apodidoe. Pp. 9, with plate. 



Revue Diplomatique et Coloniale (Diplomatic 

 and Colonial Review). Bimonthly summary of 

 external poliiics. Henri Pensa, Director. Vol.1, 

 No. 1, March, 1897. Paris : Bureau des Revues, 

 19 Rue des Saints Peres. Pp. 64. 12 fr. .50 a 

 year. 



Sands, Manie. The Opposites of the Universe, 

 Part IV. Ethological and Egological Opposites. 

 A Discourse about Conduct. New York : Peter 

 Eckler, .35 Fulton St. Pp. 89. 50 cents. 



Schneider, \. Reagents and Reactions known 

 by the Names of their Authors. Revised and en- 



larged by Dr. Julius Altschul. Translated by 

 Richard Fischer. Milwaukee : Pharmaceutical 

 Review Publishing Company. Pp. 82. 



Smith, William Benjamin, Tulane University. 

 The Origin and Significance of Disease. New 

 Orleans. Pp. 2.5. 



Solly, S. Edwin. A Handbook of Medical 

 Climatology. Philadelphia and New York : Lea 

 Brothers & Co. Pp. 470. $4. 



Thruston, Gates P. The Antiquities of Ten- 

 nessee and the Adjacent States. Second edition, 

 with New Chapters, Notes, and Ilhistrations. 

 Cincinnati : The Robert Clarke Company. Pp. 

 369, with plates. $4. 



United States Treasury Department. Notice 

 to Mariners for April, 1897. Pp. 16. 



Walker, Judge J. C. Waco, Texas. What ia 

 the Unit of Life ? Pp. 16. 



Ward, Lester F. Dynamic Sociology, as 

 based upon Statical Sociology and less Complex 

 Sciences. New York : D. Appleton & Co. 2 vols. 

 Pp. 706 and 690. 



x'AQxxitnXs xrt ^ci^ttcje. 



Dr. Ebonezer Emmons and the Olcnellns. 



During the geological survey of the State 

 of New York which, commenced in 1836, 

 was almost the first of the geological surveys 

 that were entered upon and properly prose- 

 cuted m the United States, there was a 

 marked difference of opinion between Prof. 

 Ebenezer Emmons, of Williams College, who 

 had charge of the portion of the survey that 

 embraced the rocks of western Massachu- 

 setts and the upper waters of the Hudson, 

 and his associate geologists, which finally ter- 

 minated in a bitter personal antagonism and 

 almost social ostracism of Dr. Emmons. The 

 point at issue was mainly the relationship in 

 respect to position and age of the rocks in 

 question, especially those typified by the 

 strata of Greylock Mountain and the Hoosic 

 Valley. The position taken by the majority 

 of the associate geologists on the survey was 

 that the so-called Silurian system of rocks 

 constituted the basis of the fossiliferous 

 rocks of New York and inferentially of the 

 whole country, and that the so-called " Pots- 

 dam sandstone " was the lowest fossiliferous 

 member of this system, and in fact marked 

 the dawn of life upon the planet. Dr. Em- 

 mons, on the contrary, claimed that beneath 

 the oldest member of the Silurian system 

 there was an older and extensively developed 

 system of fossiliferous rocks, to which he 

 gave the name " Taconic," and exhibited an 



entirely new and characteristic fossil not 

 before recognized or described, and which 

 received the name of " Olenellus." For all this 

 Dr. Emmons received little or no credit, and 

 among geologists was regarded as visionary 

 and something of a humbug. But time has 

 at last brought its revenges, for, at the last 

 meeting of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science (Liverpool, Septem- 

 ber, 1896), Mr. J. E. Marr, F. R. S., President 

 of the Geological Section, in an address re- 

 viewing the recent progress in this depart- 

 ment of science, took occasion to speak of 

 the " Olenellus " whose first discovery he 

 attributed to Dr. Emmons as characterizing 

 a zone of life in rocks much older than the 

 Silurian system, and as " furnishing us with 

 a datum line from which we can work back- 

 ward," and possibly prove the existence " of 

 a fauna of a date anterior to the formation 

 of the Olenellus beds." So that Dr. Em- 

 mons, in place of being wrong in his obser- 

 vations and deductions in 1845, did really 

 find the fossil he described, and rightly lo- 

 cated the rock containing it in the geological 

 horizon ; and thus was entitled to take the 

 lead at that time over all his American and 

 European colleagues. 



Koch's Latest Tuberculin. Since the 

 premature announcement of Dr. Koch's con- 

 sumption cure, some six years ago, the doc- 



