October, igo6.] 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



photography, and partly on account of the actual expedition 

 and the geographical, magnetic and meteorological results 

 which were beyond the reach of weather conditions. We 

 can recommend both the volume and the Society as being 

 worthy of a wider support than it has yet met with outside 

 the limits of the Dominion. 



BOTANY. 

 British Flowering Plants, by \V. F. Kirby (Sidney Appelton : 

 igo6). — We fear that both the beginner and the scientific botanist 

 will find this book inadetpiate. It has one good feature, in 

 describing the caterpillars which feed on various plants ; and 

 interesting scraps of plant lore are occasionally thrown in. 

 lint it is difficult to identify some of the figures. Scarce plants, 

 such as Geranium pyrenaicum or liabus chamicmoras., pose as 

 typical of a genus ; others, as Cytisus ctipittitiis, Tropa nutans. 

 Erica herbacea, Ccrintlic major, Glohiilaria viili^aris, and Oleaster, 

 are not found wild in the British Isles. There are also serious 

 omissions. From a stroll in a Surrey lane we brought in 

 Melilot, Ploughman's Spikenard, Lysiinachia vulgaris, and Torilis 

 anthriscas, neither of which could we find in this volume. 



QEOLOQY. 

 Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution (Wash- 

 ington, (iovernment Printing Office, 1906, 714 pp. and 

 index). — The report which has just been issued brings the 

 record of the " Operations, Expenditure, and Condition of 

 the Institution "' down to June 30, 1904. It is replete with 

 information which is interesting to the whole scientifii: 

 world. It is furnished with 208 illustrations, including 

 geological specimens, sections, maps, and portraits. It is 

 divided into two parts, the first dealing with matters 

 referred to in the report of the Assistant Secretary of the 

 Institution, and the second including papers describing 

 and illustrating collections in the L'.S. National Museum. 

 Part I. gives an account which will be useful to young 

 geologists, of the founding and history of the Institution. 

 .•\n Act of Congress founded it in 1846. and a museum was 

 made one of its principal features. The first collection to 

 come into its possession, was the valuable mineralogical 

 caliinet bequeathed to it by John Smithson, who was himself 

 a t'ellow of the Royal Society of London. As years passed 

 on it came to be regarded as the legitimate repository 

 for national collections, and grants were made by Congress 

 for its upkeep. Then in 1880, it was enacted that the col- 

 linions made by the Coast and Interior Survey, the 

 • ■'Illogical Survey, and other Government bodies, should 

 111 inrmanently housed in what had come to be the National 

 Museum. The Museum, we are told, contains objects 

 whose intrinsic value mounts into the hundreds of 

 thousands of dollars, many of which are so small that 

 several could be carried away in a man's pocket, and, conse- 

 quently, like all scientific institutions, it constantly needs 

 an increased income and increased staff to i^rotect its 

 treasures. Wc must pass over the interesting reports by 

 the Head Curators of the Departments of Anthropology, 

 Biology, and Geology, and refer here to the Bibliography 

 for 1903-1904. In this we have not only the titles of 

 various publications issued, dealing with specimens in the 

 Museum, but each has a brief, but suflicient resume of im- 

 portant points. By far the greater portion of the volume 

 is taken up with "Contributions to the History r.f 

 American Geology," by George P. Merrill, the Head Curator 

 of Geology. No less than 400 pages are dcvotetl to his- 

 torical narratives of the founders of geology in the .States, 

 as well as of others who are still living. In (jreat Britain 

 we can scarcely imagine such a gre.-it service being done 

 with Government aid in a Government i)ublication. and it 

 remained for Sir .\. <ji ikie to do something in th(> same 

 direction in his "Founders of Geology," without aid from 

 the .State. The names of all the best-known .American 

 geologists are to be found in this historical review, together 

 with some account of the work of each, and in most cases 

 a portrait, some of which arc full-page, illustr.atcs the text. 

 This portion cannot fail to be of great benefit to current 

 geology. The science has grown up around certain names, 

 and some of them arc best known by the errors which they 

 committed. Herein lies the educational value of such i 

 record, and the Lf.S. Government is doing a good work 

 for future geologists in honouring past geologists bv a 



permanent and official record of those whose work is done. 

 Here we find details of the liv'es of many whose names arc 

 already familiar on this side of the ocean, and the accounts 

 which are given now enable one to feel more in touch than 

 ever with the pioneers of the science in the New World. 

 Amongst those whose life-histories are given are Silliman, 

 Eaton, Hitchcock, Mather, Owen, Dana, Dawson, Powell, 

 and Logan, names as well known as any of our British 

 geologists. In Appendix B, there are brief biographical 

 sketches of the principal workers in American geology. 

 Tins includes man)' whose work has been dealt with at 

 gi eater length in a former part, but adds a large number 

 of names of other geologists w ho have done, and are doing, 

 good work. This part will be of great value for future 

 reference. Three chapters deserve special mention, dealing 

 respectively with the Footprints of the Connecticut Valley, 

 the Eczoon Question, and the Laramie Question. These 

 :ire of international importance, and are treated at length. 

 The rise of the belief in the animal nature of the Eozoon 

 Canadcnsc, and its dramatic downfall, sfiould be read by all 

 who have a lingering belief in the foraminiferal nature of 

 the remains. Possibly the matter would not have rcceiveJ 

 the attention which the whole scientific world gave to it, -f 

 it had not been backed by such energetic men as Logan, 

 its discoverer, and Dawson, the Canadian geologist, and 

 Principal of McGill University, Montreal, for 38 years. 

 From i86j, when Logan first announced his discovery, until 

 1S94, when, as we are told, J. W. Gregory and H. J. 

 Jdhnsfon-Lavis gave the "death-blow to the theory," war- 

 fare raged around the Koznon.. Dawson died in 1899, and 

 it could have been but a few months before his death that 

 he made, in person, a last appeal to the London Geological 

 Society, and exhit)itcd his specimens and lantern slides, 

 illustrating the various points on which he depended for 

 proving its animal nature. The appeal was, however, to a 

 new and unsympathetic generation, to whom it had been 

 satisfactorily proved that the structure was a purely 

 mineralogical simulation of the organic. In summing up, 

 we are told that " there is apparently no doubt but that this 

 sirniditive form is due merely to a process of chemical 

 nietamorphism, a process of indefinite substitution and re- 

 placement, technically metasomatosis, acting upon tocks 

 which arc granular aggregates of lime-magnesian 

 pyroxenes, with more or less calcareous matter, the ser- 

 pentine being in all cases secondary. Similar structures 

 liave, moreover, been noted by various observers in rocks 

 which were unmistakably of igneous origin." This con- 

 clusion should be noted in all geological text-books that 

 still mention the Eozoon, although wc think that this reputed 

 creature might well now drop out entirely. The Laramie 

 beds fust examined by Haydcn in 1S54 and 1S55, along the 

 Upper Missouri River, have received almost as much dis- 

 cussio'i as that through which the Eo-oon passed, although 

 with more satisfactory results. The difficulty very early 

 presented itself of deciding as between Cretaceous and 

 Eocerie. Cope, in 1S74, said that in his opinion, there was 

 " n(> alternative but to accent the results that a Tertiar/ 

 flora was contemporaneous with a Cretaceous fauna, es- 

 tablishing an uninterrupted succession of life across what is 

 gencrElly r-?garded as one of the greatest bicaks in geolo- 

 gin! time." .And in sSy/, Drs. Knowlton and Stanton came 

 to the conclusion that " the base of the Laramie they would 

 place immediately above the highesv marine Cretaceous beds 

 of the Rocky Mountains region," the top being marked bv 

 the Fort Union beds. The Fort L'nion beds arc now, in 

 fact, regarded as Eocene, and the lower-lying as Laramie 

 Cretaceous. E. A. M. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Carcinoma of the Rectum, by F. Swinford-Edwards, 

 F.R.C.S. (Ualliere, Tindall and Cox ; price js. 6d. net). — ■ 

 Mr. .Swinford-Edwards gives here his experience on the 

 diagnosis and treatment of the above disease in words that 

 should impress on his professional brethren the value of 

 its early recognition and the necessity for prompt operative 

 measures. In a few pages Mr. Edwards writes instruc- 

 tively on his subject, and presents it in a concise and up-to- 

 date manner. Had the author illustrated his small work, 

 it would, to our mind, have enhanced its value in the eyes 

 of the student and practitioner. 



