CORRESP ONDENCE. 



613 



similar manner to the stone axes of the 

 ancient Celtic tribes, so frequently found in 

 some portions of England, Ireland, and 

 Scotland. 



On the plateau above named, bowlders 

 of many hundred weight are thickly scat- 

 tered, which could have been deposited in 

 their present locality by floating ice only, 

 and it is more than likely that this relic of 

 the Primeval or Stone age was brought to 

 this locality and deposited by the same 

 agencies that brought the bowlders and 

 other detritus, perhaps, from a very dis- 

 tant region. 



The thong-marks for securing the handle 

 are well preserved, but were deeper when 

 first taken from the ground, as there was a 

 full sixteenth of an inch of semi-decomposed 

 material rubbed off in cleaning it up. The 

 stone from which it has been made appears 

 to have been a portion of one of those hard, 

 cherty strata of coralline limestone, belong- 

 ing to the Silurian formation, some of which 

 are harder than flint, and almost as tough 

 as iron. The implement, as it is now, is 

 dark blue on one side, but lighter on the 

 other. This lighter side appears to have 

 yielded more readily to the action of the 

 elements, decomposition having apparently 

 removed at least a quarter of an inch more 

 on this side than on the other, thus mate- 

 rially reducing the weight of the specimen. 

 This battle-axe was found on January 4, 

 1876. William Andrews. 



cttmbeeland, maryland. 



To the Editor of the Popular Science Monthly : 



Sir : In your notice of Mr. John Fiske's 

 criticism of Dr. Draper's " Conflict " you 

 have shown, plainly enough, that Dr. Dra- 

 per's alleged superficiality consisted in using 

 the word religion in the common sense. 



That Dr. Draper's conceptions are so 

 " crude " as to blind him to the higher and 

 more spiritual conceptions which Mr. Fiske 

 defines so admirably, or that he would con- 

 sider religion, so defined, in antagonism 

 with science, is an assertion which finds no 

 warrant in his book. It would be easy, if 

 it were worth while, to point to passages 

 that explicitly negative such imputations. 

 But to have adopted Mr. Fiske's rather 

 transcendental refinement, and to have 



constantly used the qualified terms which 

 it would require, would have been to sacri- 

 fice directness and brevity to a nicety of 

 expression that none but the hypercritical 

 would demand. 



Your quotation shows that Mr. Spencer's 

 " First Principles " must fall within the list 

 of books which, "vitiated by this crude 

 conception " (of antagonism), "cannot have 

 much philosophical value ; " and I beg to 

 append another from a work which, it 

 would seem, must come into the same class, 

 although it is by an author evidently held 

 in high esteem by Mr. Fiske : 



" That harmony which we hope eventu- 

 ally to see established between our knowledge 

 and our aspirations is not to be realized by 

 the timidity which shrinks from logically 

 following out either of the two apparently 

 conflicting lines of thought as in the ques- 

 tion of matter and spirit but by the fear- 

 lessness which pushes each to its inevitable 

 conclusion. Only when this is recognized 

 will the long and mistaken warfare between 

 Science and Religion be exchanged for an en- 

 during alliance.' 1 '' (Fiske's " Cosmic Philos- 

 ophy," vol. ii., p. 509.) 



E. R. Leland. 



Eauclaire, "Wisconsin, July 20, 1876. 



GEOMETRICAL CHEMISTRY. 



To the Editor of the Popular Science Monthly : 



Geometrical Chemistry. By Henry Wurtz. 

 First, or Introductory Memoir. Re- 

 printed from the American Chemist, for 

 March, 1876. New York: John F. Trow 

 & Son. 1876. 



The author prefixes a Greek motto to 

 his memoir, namely, the question, " Where- 

 fore did Plato assert that the God worketh 

 ever by geometry ? " As the memoir con- 

 tains no other geometry, this motto appar- 

 ently is intended to justify the first half 

 of the title. 



But the other half has not even that much 

 of a justification. From beginning to end 

 it is impossible to detect a new principle or 

 fact that properly belongs to chemistry in 

 this memoir. The great chemical authorities 

 of the memoir are Kant, Hegel, Stallo, and 

 Sterry Hunt (p. 60). A new force, the Cra- 

 letic Force, is discovered, " which is not re- 

 ciprocal, but absolute in its action upon the 

 more electro-positive molecule, without reGc- 



