Dec. 1 4-. 1876] 



NATURE 



141 



the work will be no less valuable than to the tourist and 

 general reader, for in it he will find an authoritative 

 resuini of the results of multifarious studies by one of the 

 most eminent of living palaeophytoljgists ; results which 

 otherwise he would be compelled to search for in numerous 

 scattered papers and bulky monographs. Just such a 

 sketch of the general geology of Switzerland as is con- 

 tained in the work before us, is indeed especially wel- 

 come at the present time, from the fact that Studer's 

 admirable " Geologic der Schweiz," is so far behind date. 

 The main features of the Carboniferous, Saliferoas, Lias, 

 Jurassic, and Cretaceous formations as displayed in Swit- 

 zerland, are all very clearly described in Prof. Heer's book ; 

 but it is of course in respect to the Miocene — to the eluci- 



dation of the characters of the fauna and flora of which 

 his own admirable researches have been more especially 

 devoted — that our author's detailed observations and infer- 

 ences are possessed of the greatest value and interest. 

 Prof. Heer's general conclusions on such subjects as the 

 physical evolution of our globe, the changes of climate 

 during former geological periods, and the doctrine of 

 descent and Darwinism, are also worthy of the most 

 serious attention. 



We shall not here stop to discuss how far the identifi- 

 cation of species of plants, by their leaves alone, is safe or 

 defensible on the part of the palajophytologist. Some 

 botanists, especially in this country, have adopted very 

 extreme views with regard to the work of Heer and others ; 



Fig. 5. — Ideal Section of the valley of Utznach (the vertical »cale is to the horizontal as 8 ; i). g, Gubel ; u, Utzaach ; b, Liwer Buchbe'g. 



demanding that fossil plants, like recent ones, should only 

 be named after an opportunity has been found for studying 

 their organs of fructification. But the geologist may with 

 justice object to such a limitation, that it would practically 

 be almost as fatal to the pursuit of his inquiries, as a 

 demand from malacologists that no conclusions should be 

 based on the shelly coverings of molluscs, or from com- 

 parative anatomists, that we should reject all identifica- 

 tions based on portions of the skeleton of the vertebrates. 

 It is surely better to make the best of the imperfect ma- 

 terials which we possess —guarding ourselves meanwhile 

 at every point with cautious reservations — rather than to 

 reject it altogether because of its lack of completeness. 



Opinions, too, may differ as to the propriety and value 

 of those rather fanciful delineations of scenery in the 

 ancient geological periods, which are so frequently intro- 

 duced in French scientific treatises. But in the case of 

 " The Primccval World of Switzerland " all such criticism 

 is disarmed by the fact that, while a means of arresting 

 the interest of the general reader has been supplied by 

 these rather questionable " landscapes," the real wants of 

 the student have by no means been lost sight of, but are 

 very liberally provided for in numerous other plates and 

 woodcuts of truly scientific character and accuracy. 



No time, perhaps, could possibly be chosen as more 

 opportune for the appearance of this work than the pre- 



FiG. 6. —Section of the paper-coal or lignite deposit and pebble-beds, at Durnten. 



sent, for attention has recently been very generally drawn 

 to the discovery of certain articles of human workman- 

 ship in Switzerland which seem to throw far back the 

 date of the appearance of man upon the globe, and 

 to make him contemporaneous with a portion at least 

 of the Glacial period of that country. The editor 

 of this work has, we think, acted most judiciously in 

 appending to Dr. Heer's book, which contains ample 

 details concerning the characters and relations of the 

 beds which have yielded these interesting relics, a trans- 

 lation of Prof. Riitimeyer's memoir in the Archiv jiir 

 Anthropologie for 1875, which describes the objects 

 themselves, and we cannot more appropriately close this 



article than by a brief reference to the facts of the case, 

 as detailed in the work before us, illustrating them by 

 several woodcuts borrowed from the same source. 



That the relics in question are of artificial origin, there 

 can be scarcely the smallest room for doubt. They consist 

 of a number of rods lying side by side in a block of 

 lignite from Wetzikon, in the Canton of Zurich ; these 

 rods are of fir- wood, they are converted into true lignite 

 perfectly similar to the surrounding matrix, and are fla:- 

 tened and crushed like the remains of plants, constituting 

 the mass. Careful examination of them shows that the 

 point of one of these rods has been artificially cut (Fig. 

 I, «" and Fig. 3), and that it has been bound round with 



