SOME NEW BOOKS. 



Elements de Paleontologie. By Felix Bernard. Premiere Partie. 8vo. 

 Pp. 528, with 266 figures. Paris: Bailliere & Sons, 1893. Price 10 francs. 



The position of Palaeontology among the sciences is somewhat 

 doubtful, and even a palaeontologist may question its right to have 

 a text-book at all. Do we not rather need books of the following 

 kind? — first, a systematic zoology, embracing all creatures whether 

 living or extinct, and arranged, according to the best modern lights, 

 on a phylogenetic basis — a work that should illuminate the obscurities 

 of the present by the light of the past, and show the true meaning of 

 perished organisms by reference to their living descendants ; secondly, 

 a good stratigraphical geology, correlating, as nearly as possible, the 

 beds of different countries, without laying undue stress on those of 

 theauthor's native land, then tracing through these beds the histories of 

 the various faunas all over the world, and, from the combined evidence, 

 sketching out the evolution of land and sea masses from the earliest 

 times to our own day. To such ends, at least, our endeavours are 

 directed, and to the ultimate perfection of both these as yet unwritten 

 books every palaeontologist makes his contribution. The worth of 

 that contribution is proportional to the amount of zoological and 

 geological knowledge possessed by the contributor. It is idle to 

 select from the garner of the zoologist just those facts relating to the 

 hard parts of animals, and from the geologist's note-book such infor- 

 mation as bears only on locality and horizon. What is a palaeonto- 

 logist without a knowledge of embryology, of geographical distribution, 

 of marine life, sedimentation and currents, of some mineralogy and 

 petrology, and of changes induced by metamorphism ? And yet, even 

 if it were possible, it would surely be absurd to collect all these diverse 

 bits of information, however valuable, and, putting them between 

 two bits of pasteboard, to call the whole a Text-book of Palaeontology. 

 Nevertheless, the present dearth of competent British palaeon- 

 tologists — as evidenced by the failure of the Indian Survey to find 

 other than Germans — when regarded in connection with the abundance 

 of pure zoologists and geologists, seems to show that palaeontology, 

 in practice, if not in theory, must have its special study. Let us, 

 then, concede that it may be convenient for the student 10 have his 

 special text-book, and let us consider what it should contain. The 

 contents may be arranged under three headings : — (i.) The general 

 principles of the science ; in other words, the principles of biology 

 and of geology so far as they affect the history of extinct animals, 

 (ii.) Practical aids to research, including an account of the way to 

 collect, clean, dissect, and investigate fossils, a guide to biblio- 

 graphy, and hints on the working out of problems and the proper 

 way of publishing results. (iii.) The main facts in the history of 

 extinct animals, which should be related as to one already acquainted 



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