PROF. G. F. WRIGHT AND HIS CRITICS. 775 



vades many of the criticisms of Prof. Wright's book is dangerous 

 to the freedom of scientific discussion. 



In an unsigned review published in an issue of the Chicago 

 Tribune in October, 1802, we read : " Prof. "Wright believes that 

 there was but one Ice epoch. In the present volume this question 

 is so handled as to leave the impression that the general opinion 

 of glacialists is in favor of but a single epoch." How true this 

 charge is let the following extract show (page 109) : " Do the phe- 

 nomena necessarily indicate absolutely distinct Glacial epochs 

 separated by a period in which the ice had wholly disappeared 

 from the glaciated areas to the north ? That they do is main- 

 tained by President Chamberlin and many others who have wide 

 acquaintance with the facts. That they do not certainly indicate 

 a complete disappearance of the ice during an extensive intergla- 

 cial era is capable, however, of being maintained without forfeit- 

 ing one's rights to the respect of his fellow-geologists." The criti- 

 cism is anonymous, and we are thereby spared the disagreeable 

 association of any name with a direct misrepresentation, due, let 

 us hope, either to careless reading or previous writing. 



To one of these two causes we should also probably assign the 

 remark, " Mr. Leverett's work is ignored," * whereas Prof. Wright 

 quotes Mr. Leverett's work as correcting that of President Cham- 

 berlin in the delineation of the terminal moraine south of Lake 

 Michigan (page 101). 



Another of these experts f writes in the same omniscient style 

 about the "unskilled observers whose difficulty is to distinguish 

 between objects included in the ancient gravel when it was formed 

 and those imbedded recently. . . . Neither of the four are geolo- 

 gists (sic), and they could not well have appreciated the need of 

 extreme care." Any reader of the evidence can form his own 

 opinion upon this assertion. Again, "Four of the rude speci- 

 mens said by inexpert observers to have been found in place in 

 glacial gravels," etc. ; and again, " The unsafe matter furnished 

 by inconsiderate bookmakers to a credulous public." This sort of 

 writing would in ordinary mortals be called conceited and unbe- 

 coming, but probably from the pens of the self-appointed experts 

 it is perfectly proper toward the amateur and the public. How- 

 ever, let it pass ; there is more to come. 



As if this were not enough, we read in the same place the fol- 

 lowing yet more unscientific statement : " The implement from 

 Tuscarawas County, Ohio, can be duplicated from the refuse de- 

 posits of any of the great Indian quarry-shops of this country." 

 This is an extraordinary assertion, surpassing in audacity any 



* Dial, Chicago, November 16, 1892, p. 306. 



f American Antiquarian, January, 1893, pp. 35, 36. 



