LIFE OF EDUARD SUESS——-TERMIER. yagi 
America, the chains of northern Africa, the old Laurentian conti- 
nent, the immense African Plateau, and the chains of the Cape, the 
chains of the islands of Oceania, the mountain systems which extend 
the length of the west coast of the two Americas; followed by general 
considerations on folds, on the depths, on the manner of formation 
and the distribution of volcanoes, on the moon and recent geologic 
theories, and, finally, observations on life. 
The book is an exposition of the planet viewed from without, as 
travelers from other stars of the solar system would see it. It con- 
tains scarcely any theories. The author does not seek to explain or 
to convince; he shows. He leads his reader by the hand; he makes 
him see the peaks and the abysses; he makes him touch the seams 
and fractures with his hand; he leads him along the shores, not only 
those of to-day, but also those of the ancient seas; and he goes over 
with him step by step the traces, three-fourths effaced, the wrin- 
klings, the foldings of former times. In the company of the master 
one soars on geologic time as on the air of this earth. The impression 
is singular, immediate, unforgettable; one knows no longer, indeed, at 
what epoch in the duration of time, life came on this earth; and there 
are seen, sketched simultaneously on the face of the planet, the 
ancient features and the present features. <A vision, giddy, often 
confused and troubled, like those which pass, on a high mountain, 
under the eyes of the Alpinist, a day of heavy cloud and violent wind; 
‘a vision a little cloudy, a little sybilline, in which there are mist and 
clearness, thunder and great silence, diluvian floods and sun-fétes, 
days and nights of inordinate length, and which recall ““A Legend of 
the Centuries,” in which man was lacking. 
The usefulness of such a book is to arouse great and growing enthu- 
siasm and to create an interest in this luminous science through all 
their lives among hundreds of young men who without that incen- 
tive would have done nothing or would have groped about in the 
dark, to enlarge our thoughts, to give us the taste for general prob- 
lems and the thirst for synthesis. It can be said without exaggeration 
that Eduard Suess had his part, often a preponderating one, in all the 
geologic discoveries of the end of the nineteenth century and the first 
years of the twentieth. The geologic sciences, which have advanced 
with giant steps for 30 years, would not without him have advanced 
so rapidly. He did not say all, he made few personal observations, 
he did not foresee everything—but by his intuitions, truly those of a 
genius, of relations and their causes, he incited, prepared, made pos- 
sible decisive observations, observations which have revolutionized 
our ideas and illuminated our knowledge.’ Among the most impor- 
tant discoveries, among all those which have changed the aspect of 
geology, there figures in the first rank the verifying, in mountain 
chains, the structure in great nappes, which makes of these mountains 
