i 5 4 SOME NEW BOOKS [February 



Cambridge, the other half contains Dr. Gadow's notes, and it is difficult to say 

 which half is the more interesting. With his wonted clearness and decisiveness 

 Haeckel sums up the conclusions set forth at length in his " Systematische 

 Phylogenie," and traces the presumed evolutionary stages from Monera to man. 

 Due use is made of Palaeospondyhis and Pitheeanthrojms and other recent dis- 

 coveries, while some hypothetical groups are utilised to eke out the imperfect 

 geological record. The essay must be taken as a sketch of phylogenetic possi- 

 bilities — and the possible has a wide radius in phylogeny — for it need hardly be 

 said that there is room for much difference of opinion as to the systematic posi- 

 tion of many of the types. What we are afraid of is that the uncritical and 

 unsuspicious may infer from this lucid exposition that there is no longer any 

 doubt that " the Dipnoi form the actual link between fishes and Amphibia," 

 that " Sphenodon is the reptile which stands nearest to the main stem of our 

 ancestry," or that the acknowledgment of the affinity of Vertebrates and Tuni- 

 «ates " has abolished the erroneous hypothesis that the Vertebrata may have 

 arisen from Annelids or from other Articulata." These and many similarly 

 decisive statements may turn out to be true, but surely there is at present 

 warrant for a reasonable argument over any of them. We have great admira- 

 tion for Haeckel's genius, but his decisiveness often becomes perilously like 

 dogmatism ; nor can we conceal our disappointment to find him saying that it 

 would be better to return to the Mosaic cosmogony than to agree with Weis- 

 mann. 



Dr. Gadow furnishes terse and vivid biographical sketches of Lamarck, 

 Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (variously referred to also as Geoffroy, Geoffroy 

 Saint- Hilaire, and Saint-Hilaire), Cuvier, von Baer, Johannes Mueller, Virchow, 

 Cope, von Koelliker, Gegenbaur, and Haeckel himself. Besides these sketches, 

 there are notes on the theory of cells, factors of evolution, and geological time. 

 Here and there we notice what appear to us to be defects in the historical 

 notes, and we venture to give three illustrations. In discussing Lamarck's 

 position is it not well to point out that, as regards the evolution of plants, 

 Lamarck laid the main emphasis on the direct action of the environment 1 In 

 speaking of Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Dr. Gadow says "he maintained 

 that, since Nature takes no sudden leaps," etc., but is it not to this author that 

 we owe some of the first suggestions as to saltatory or transilient variations 1 

 Dr. Gadow credits Huxley with the terms " ectoderm " and " endoderm," but 

 were they not Allman's invention 1 We might ask other such questions, but it 

 seems ungracious, for the notes are delightful. Not least so is the one with 

 which we disagree most heartily — that which maintains that adaptation and 

 variation are simultaneous and fundamentally the same, and that acquired 

 characters are inherited. X. 



GEOMORPHOLOGY. 



Earth Sculpture. By Professor Geikie, LL.D., D.C.L., F.E.S. 8vo, pp. 

 xvi. + 320, with 2 plates and 89 figures. Progressive Science Seines. 

 London: John Murray, 1898. Price 6s. 



During the Victorian era the origin of the earth's surface-features has been 

 studied by many geologists, especially by those whose vocations have kept them 

 much out of doors. Ramsay, Jukes, Whitaker, Foster and Topley, Lapworth, 

 both the Geikies, and others in Britain, and a host of workers in America and on 

 the Continent, have all contributed to our present knowledge of the genesis of 

 land forms. During the last ten or fifteen years many of those whose business 

 it had hitherto been to record geographical facts without concerning themselves 

 as to how the phenomena had been brought about, have awakened to the im- 

 portance of learning why these features have taken on their present form. In 



