<j 
1897] NOTES AND COMMENTS 36 
AMERICAN FosstL BRACHIOPODA 
DESPITE the many valuable monographs that have been issued of 
late years by our American colleagues, the study of the fossil 
Brachiopoda has hitherto been a task to be undertaken with trepi- 
dation. The labours of James Hall, J. M. Clarke, C. E. Beecher, 
and Charles Schuchert have considerably changed our views as to the 
inter-relationship and classification of these animals, and have 
rendered necessary extensive revision of nomenclature. But while 
we had an uneasy feeling that the names in our text-books and the 
labels in our museums were of too ancient a kind, we shrank from 
the difficult duty of resorting and renaming. The magician prepared 
to substitute new lamps for old arises in the person of Mr Charles 
Schuchert, who essays the task for the American fossil species ; and, 
since North America seems to have been the gathering-place of the 
brachiopod clans in Palaeozoic times, much of this welcome light is 
also available for European species. 
The book that forms the necessary keystone to previous writ- 
ings is entitled “ A Synopsis of American fossil Brachiopoda, including 
bibliography and synonymy,” and has just been issued from Wash- 
ington as Bulletin, No. 87,of the United States Geological Survey. 
It has, however, been prepared after official hours, and represents 
the work of eleven years. The main part of the book is the “ Index 
and Bibliography of American fossil Brachiopoda ;” which occupies 
227 pages and contains about 10,000 references. All names that 
have ever been applied, rightly or wrongly, to fossil brachiopods of 
North and South America, are here given in alphabetical order. The 
names accepted by the author, after careful research, as valid, are 
printed in bolder type, and under each is given the geological age, 
chief localities, and a list of synonyms. Under each generic name is 
quoted the name of the species, whether American or not, that 
served as the original type of the genus; Mr Schuchert calls this the 
‘ genotype.’ 
The index is preceded by some useful and interesting chapters 
on general questions, accompanied by some elaborate tables. These 
chapters are :—‘‘ I. Geologic development and geographic distribution 
of American fossil Brachiopoda.” “II. Brachiopod terminology, 
applied to fossil forms ”—practically an alphabetical glossary of 
terms. “III. Biologic development of the Brachiopoda”—an ex- 
ceedingly important chapter. “IV. Morphology of the Brachia,” 
contributed by Dr C. E. Beecher. “ V. Classification of the 
Brachiopoda,” in which the point of chief importance is the entire 
dismissal of the old division into Lyopomata and Arthropomata 
( = Inarticulata and Articulata), as discordant with the facts of race- 
development. 
