June 13, 187S] 



NATURE 



175 



lished in 1870 as the " Geology and Physical Geography 

 of Brazil." In addition to the account of Hartt's re- 

 searches, it included the best results of all who had 

 ever published on the geology of the country. 



Early in 1868 he "was elected Professor of Natural 

 History in Vassar College, and shortly after of Geology 

 in Cornell University. In 1870, with Prof. Prentice and 

 eleven students of Cornell University, he again went to 

 Brazil. He entered the Amazonian Valley, hoping there 

 to discover, at the falls of the different tributaries of the 

 Amazonas, other fossiliferous formations than the creta- 

 ceous, which latter alone he had found along the coast. 

 He was well rewarded, and returned to the United 

 States with large collections of fossils of the palaeozoic 

 age, and sufficient other evidence to allow of his giving 

 us a very accurate though general idea of the formation 

 of the Amazonian Valley. His results were strongly 

 opposed to the theory of Prof. Agassiz, of its glacial 

 origin. He returned again to the Amazonas in 1871 

 with Mr. O. A. Derby. Together they carefully re- 

 explored the same regions gone over before, adding 

 mu:h to the stores already brought to the United States, 

 and also examining the ancient Indian mounds and 

 shell-heaps of numerous localities. 



Returning from Brazil once more he remained at 

 Cornell University about three years, quietly working up 

 the results of his later trips, and pubhshing his reports 

 upon them. In August of 1874, by request of the Bra- 

 zilian Minister of Agriculture, he went to Rio de Janeiro 

 to submit his plans for the organisation of a Geological 

 Commission of Brazil. He entered on his work in May, 

 1875, with five or six assistants. 



On the reorganisation of the National Museum at Rio, 

 in 1876, Hartt became Director of its Department of 

 Geology, but on account of his many other duties he was 

 soon obliged to resign that position. The results of his 

 researches may be briefly summed up as follows: — Be- 

 fore he went to Brazil on his second trip, in 1867, 

 scarcely anything Avas known of fossjHferous deposits 

 there, and thus no material existed toward the study 

 of the systematic geology of the country. A few cre- 

 taceous fossils had been recorded from Bahia; the 

 Danish naturalist Lund had very fully described the bone- 

 caverns of Lagoa Santa in Minas Geraes, and we knew 

 of -coal-plants from Rio Grande do Sul, but beyond this 

 the palaeontology of Brazil was a perfect blank. Hartt's 

 greatest achievement in Brazil was probably his solution 

 of the structure of the Amazonian Valley. It was 

 founded on the best of palaeontological evidence which 

 proves the existence of an immense palaeozoic basin 

 lying between the metamorphic plateau of Guiana on the 

 north, and that of Central Brazil on the south, and 

 through which flows the river Amazonas. Silurian, De- 

 vonian, and carboniferous rocks, make up the series in 

 regular succession, and in many localities are highly 

 fossiliferous. He has explained the character of the 

 isolated cretaceous deposits, mostly discovered by him- 

 self, existing along the coast from Para to Bahia, and of 

 the carboniferous and other regions south of Rio. He 

 has shown us the manner in which the rocky structure of 

 Brazil was built up, and has done much toward solving 

 the relations of the crystalline rocks which compose by 

 far the larger portion of its surface. He has explored 

 the shell-heaps, burial-mounds, and other relic-locahties 

 of the prehistoric tribes from far up the Amazonas to the 

 southernmost coast province. We owe to him also the 

 first real satisfactory explanation of the reefs of Brazil, 

 which he distinctly shows to be of two kinds — sandstone 

 and coral. He spent much time in studying the customs 

 and languages of the modern Indian tribes of the Ama- 

 zonas and Bahia, and collected very much material toward 

 a grammar and dictionary of the Tupe Indian language 

 m several of its dialects. But to attempt a complete 

 account of Prof. Hartt's Brazilian explorations and dis- 



coveries Avould require a longer article than we can give 

 here. In connection with the Geological Commission of 

 Brazil he founded a large museum in Rio de Janeiro, 

 which will always bear testimony to his great final under- 

 taking. It forms the most complete repository of South 

 American geology in the world. 



A start had just been made toward publishing the 

 reports of the commission when the death of Prof. Hartt 

 deprived it of its main support. But though this will 

 occasion some delay in the publication, it is to be hoped 

 that we shall soon have before us the entire results of this 

 most important of explorations. 



Prof. Hartt's published works are not very voluminous. 

 He was so confident of a longer life that he delayed too 

 long, but still he was a constant contributor to American 

 scientific periodicals. 



THE DARK CONTINENT^ 



T N our article last week on "Old Maps of Africa" we 

 ■*■ said that even if it were the case that the great lakes 

 and rivers of Central Africa were known to early Portu- 

 guese missionaries and traders, it would not in the least 

 detract from the glory of modern African explorers. Even 

 if the work of those early travellers had not been clean 

 forgotten, it was done so imperfectly that in any case it 

 would have had to be done over again ; their work bears 

 about the same relation to that of modern explorers that 

 the observations of an ancient Chaldean shepherd watch- 

 ing with powerless eyes the march of the stars, while he 

 tended his flock on the hill-side, do to those of a modem 

 astronomer armed with all the instruments of an observa- 

 tory. It scarcely needs a perusal of these two volumes to 

 convince us that it would be simply absurd to attempt to 

 deprive Mr. Stanley of the glory of being the first white 

 man whose keel has cleaved the broad bosom of the 

 Upper Congo. He has done his work in such a May that 

 there is no chance of it being ever forgotten. 



Let us at once assure those of our readers who may 

 cherish the idea that, after having read Mr. Stanley's 

 letters in the Telegraph, they need not trouble themselves 

 with his book, that they labour under a delusion ; com- 

 pared with the book, the letters are a mere prospectus, 

 and therefore we cannot hope within the limits of an 

 article to give any adequate idea of its contents. From 

 a merely literary stand-point, Mr. Stanley's work deserves 

 to take a high rank. We know no other narrative of 

 travel with which it can be compared ; it reads more like 

 a prose epic than a story of stern facts, and the reader 

 who remembers his classics will be over and over again 

 reminded of the story of the wanderings of Ulysses' as 

 chanted by Homer. No such revelation of African life 

 and African character and African scenery has ever been 

 made, scarcely, we think, even in the half-fictitious pages 

 of Winwood Reade. The trustworthiness of Mr. Stanley's 

 narrative cannot for a moment be doubted ; his art has 

 been evidently used simply to enable us to realise with 

 perfect clearness the scenes and events through which he 

 and his followers passed. 



From the numerous notices" we have published, our 

 readers must be familiar with the great outlines of Mr. 

 Stanley's discoveries. The two volumes before us are 

 concerned mainly with the incidents of the wanderings of 

 himself and followers from Bagamoyo to the mouth of 

 the Congo ; another volume, which is promised for 

 autumn, M'ill contain chapters on the hydrography, 

 ethnology, and natural history of Central Africa, with 

 " considerations " on the lakes, lands, and peoples of the 

 equatorial regions ; as well as chapters on the hydro- 

 graphy and physical geography of the western half of 



« '' Through the Dark Continent, or the Sources of the Nile, around the 

 Great Lakes oi Equatorial Africa, and down the Livingstone River to the 

 Atlantic Ocean." By Henry M. Stanley. Two vols. Maps and Illustra. 

 tions. (London : Sampson Low and Co., 1878 ) 



