August. 1896. CORRESPONDENCE. 143 



In the case of the Pleistocene bones, we know that they remained not only 

 ungnawed, but with their fleshy covering uneaten until it decayed away, while the 

 bones remain as fresh to-day after thousands of years as they were when the animals 

 died, and without the slightest trace of weathering. This is, in itself, a very great 

 distinction. A greater remains in the fact that the Pleistocene bones are buried 

 deep in gravel or brick earth, and do not lie on the surface, and they must have been 

 buried when the carcases were intact, for the bones are all in place. They are 

 buried not merely on river bottoms, but over immense stretches of undulating 

 country in Eastern Europe and Siberia, are chiefly found where the ground is highest, 

 and are covered by vast continuous mantles of gravel, etc., in countries where the 

 rivers carry no gravel, and where, when they flood the country, they leave scarcely 

 a trace of warp. All this I have urged in great detail elsewhere, and it has to be 

 accounted for. What single point of contact does it present with the scattered bones 

 on African plains after a drought, or the myriads of dead seagulls on our coasts 

 after some portentous storm ? 



Again, all these cases and similar ones are quite local, dependent on local 

 circumstances, local droughts, local murrains, etc., etc., but in the case of the 

 Pleistocene beasts the problem which has to be explained covers three continents. 

 We may start from Italy and Southern France, traverse every degree of longitude 

 till we reach Behring Straits, and find the same phenomenon presenting the same 

 conditions ; and if we cross Behring Straits to Alaska, we may begin another 

 journey which shall carry us right down to Patagonia. Everywhere, so far as the 

 evidence goes, we have traces of the same stupendous hecatomb of beasts buried 

 under similar continuous mantles of loam and gravel, and for the life of me I cannot 

 see, any more than Darwin could see, how the phenomenon of the Pampas is to be 

 separated in date or in kind from the phenomenon of the Russian plains. Darwin 

 himself confessed that he was baffled in trying to explain the difiiculty, and so must 

 every man be baffled who starts with hypotheses and then turns to the facts 

 Deductive methods must be barren in a science like geology. To start with a 

 magnificent postulate about uniformity, and to attempt to squeeze any part into 

 that straight jacket is not science. It may be metaphysics, but metaphysics is not a 

 fruitful tree. Nor may I say is it fruitful to attempt to correlate the local phenomena 

 following a drought in Africa with continental phenomena derived from droughtless 

 regions, which, as I have shown, differ so essentially in every particular from them, 

 as do the conditions under which the bones in the great Pleistocene graveyard were 

 accumulated. Yours most obstinately, 



30 Collingham Place, Earl's Court. Henry H. Howgrth. 



The Name of the Gorilla. 



On p. 31 of your last number Dr. Arthur Keith comments on the name 

 Anthropopithecus gorilla afi'ixed to the gorilla's cage in this Society's Gardens, and 

 asks who is responsible for it. I may state in reply that I am responsible for all the 

 names given to the animals in the Zoological Society's Gardens. Dr. Keith appears 

 to prefer the name Troglodytes gorilla, but if he will refer to Flower and Lydekker's 

 " Mammals Living and Extinct " (p. 736) he will find the reason stated why the 

 term Troglodytes cannot be used. 



I may add that all the names employed in the labels used in the Society's 

 Gardens will be found to correspond with the list of the animals in the Gardens 

 published in 1883, which was prepared mainly with the view of ensuring uniformity 

 in the nomenclature. 



Zoological Society of London, P. L. Sclater. 



3 Hanover Square, London, W. 

 July jth, 1896. 



A Plea for the Preliminary Sinner. 



It is not without much hesitation that I venture to appear in Natural Science 

 as a defender of the " preliminary notice," and I am quite prepared to undergo the 

 process which on this side of the water is styled being "jumped on with both feet." 



