628 NATURAL SCIENCE. 



An Introduction to the Study of the Genera of Pal-uozoic Brachiopoda. 

 Part I. By James Hall, assisted by John M. Clarke. [Geological Survey of 

 the State of New York, Palaeontology, vol. viii., 1892.] Large 8vo. Pp. xvi., 

 367. Pis. 43. Price $5. 



The study of fossil Brachiopods, especially the Palaeozoic, is beset 

 with many difficulties. It has long been considered, and with much 

 reason, that the only true basis of classification is to be found in the 

 variations of internal structure, in the muscle markings, and in the 

 calcified support of the lophophore or so-called " arms." Rarely, 

 however, is a specimen found that shows or even has preserved this 

 internal structure. Many a fossil must be ground down or dissected 

 out with infinite labour, only to find nothing in the end. And when 

 something has been discovered, and we are told, for instance, that a 

 fossil long known as Atrypa is really a.NiickosJ>ira, still the geologist or 

 the working palaeontologist is not much better off; for the resem- 

 blances in outward shape between some species of widely-separated 

 genera are often so great that we cannot, by ordinary methods, tell 

 with which we have to deal. 



For these reasons a hearty welcome must be extended to anyone 

 that points out features of classificatory value hitherto vmrecognised, 

 or that applies to the study of the Brachiopoda principles that their 

 students have up till now neglected. This has recently been done by 

 Dr. C. E. Beecher, of New Haven, Conn., in some interesting and 

 suggestive articles in the American Journal of Science (April, 1891, and 

 August, 1 892). He has been the first to regard the Brachiopoda, not as a 

 number of separate species and genera that have somehow to be 

 arranged in several families, but as a great series of living and 

 growing individuals, one linked to the other and transmitting to it its 

 own characters, though in a slightly modified form. 



America certainly seems to be the country to which we must look 

 for future advances in our knowledge of the Brachiopoda. That there 

 is magnificent material has long been known, but hitherto we have 

 had to trust too largely to the Cincinnati collectors for the interpreta- 

 tion of it. At last there is arising a school of palaeontologists who 

 look at fossils with the eyes of evolutionists and morphologists and 

 not with those of species-mongers, and who do not despise the litera- 

 ture of the subject because it happens to have been published in a far 

 country or written in a foreign tongue. There have been palaeonto- 

 logists in America, of course ; among those dealing with Invertebrata, 

 the names of Meek and Worthen and Shumard are bright examples. 

 It is not the absence of good work that we have so often had to 

 lament, as the presence of so much that is bad. In the domain of the 

 Brachiopoda, at least, there will in future be scant excuse for bad 

 work ; for there has just appeared the first part of a book that, while 

 gathering up the labours of the past, indicates clearly the direction of 

 future toil. 



This work, of which the title is given above, is the joint production 

 of the veteran palaeontologist of America and of one of the most 

 promising members of the new school. Professor Hall also acknowledges 

 his indebtedness to his private assistant, Charles Schuchert, who has 

 already published some valuable systematic papers on American 

 Brachiopods. 



The part now issued (June, 1892) retains the Articulata and 

 Inarticulata as convenient temporary divisions, and deals with all the 

 latter, and with the Ortliis and Stt'ophomena groups of the former. It 

 is an interesting feature of the work that no attempt has been made 



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