266 
NATURE 
[JANUARY 21, 1904 
England, nevertheless, had a narrow escape; we have 
been slow to realise how narrow it was. Mr. Mait- 
land was the first, we believe, in his Rede lecture two 
years ago, to claim boldly for the common law and its 
traditions their due share in effectual resistance at the 
critical time. This point, though lightly touched on 
by Sidgwick, did not escape him; see his well weighed 
remarks on the unity of the common law and of 
Parliament (p. 312). The beginning of modern 
political history and constitutional doctrine is placed 
at the peace of Westphalia, and we do not think a 
better date could be found. We have some doubt on a 
matter of detail in the next stage. Blackstone is the 
normal representative of the doctrine accepted in the 
reign of George III. Sidgwick ucquiesces in the 
current view of Montesquieu’s influence on him, but 
we think that Blackstone’s own practical consideration 
of Locke may have counted for more than is 
commonly supposed, and Montesquieu, whose work 
was still very recent when Blackstone wrote, for less. 
Although Blackstone not, on the whole, an 
original thinker, there is no reason to assume that he 
never did any thinking for himself. 
The reader is finally conducted with a sure hand 
through the modern development of constitutional and 
cabinet government to the prospect of federalism as 
the most important factor in the coming generation. 
FREDERICK POLLOCK. 
was 
A CONTRIBUTION TO CALIFORNIAN 
GEOLOGY. 
The Palaeontology and Stratigraphy of the Marine 
Pliocene and Pleistocene of San Pedro, California. 
By Ralph Arnold. Pp. 420; 37 plates. (California : 
Stanford University, 1903.) 
HIS, the latest of the well-known ‘‘ Contributions 
to Biology from the Hopkins Seaside Laboratory 
of the Leland Stanford Junior University ’’ (reprinted 
from the Memoirs of the California Academy of 
Sciences, vol. iii.), forms a dissertation presented to the 
faculty in geology of the university for the degree of 
doctor of philosophy, and is by far the bulkiest of the 
thirty-one ‘‘ Contributions ’’? as yet published. 
It may not, perhaps, contain matter apparently offer- 
ine such brilliant results as some of its predecessors, 
but it yields to none of them in being a most sound 
and important contribution to the knowledge of a 
scarcely touched subject. Nor is it the outcome of 
some spasmodic effort of the moment, for Mr. Arnold 
began the work in the winter of 1886, and has paid 
several visits each year since to the fossil-bearing beds 
of San Pedro. 
In the field work and in collecting the author had 
the assistance of his father and the further cooperation 
of numerous friends, principally of Dr. J. P. Smyth, 
Dr. J. C. Branner, and, in the systematic work, of 
Mr. Wayland Vaughan and Dr. Dall. 
The deposits investigated rest on raised and con- 
torted Miocene shales, while a similar unconformity is 
evident between the Pliocenes and Pleistocenes them- 
No. 1786, vol. 69] 
selves. All are successively overlain by alluvial soil 
with Kitchen-middens. In thickness these beds exceed 
any of the same age in this country, and attain in the 
Pleistocene to more than 1300 feet, and in the Pliocene 
to about 5000 feet. : 
In the first portion of the work the information con- 
cerning the various subdivisions is summarised, and 
lists of the several fossil contents are given. The 
faunal relations of the beds are of great interest. The 
fauna of the Pliocene strata is similar to that now 
living only a short distance off-shore from San Pedro, 
but probably in colder water than is found in-shore; 
it also contains 18.5 per cent. of species only found 
living further north, hence the climate was probably 
colder on the coast of California at the time of de- 
position than it is at the present day. 
In the succeeding Pleistocene deposits the lower 
series reveal by their fossil-contents a change in 
climatic conditions towards tropical, while in the upper 
series semi-tropical conditions appear to have pre- 
vailed. 
Great similarity is shown to exist between the later 
Tertiary and Pleistocene marine invertebrate fauna of 
Japan and that of the western coast of the United 
States, though the living faunas are not as closely 
related. 
The second portion, or the ‘‘ description of species,”’ 
forms the bulk of the work, and occupies 276 pages, 
of which all but 12 deal with the Mollusca. The 
excessive preponderance of molluscan remains, indeed, 
is one of the most remarkable features connected with 
these beds. The diagnoses of the few new Anthozoa 
are by Mr. Wayland Vaughan, whilst to Dr. Dall the 
author acknowledges indebtedness in the identification 
of some of the Mollusca and for superintending the 
text relating to the Pyramidellida, which was prepared 
by Mr. Paul Bartsch. 
In his classifications the author has wisely followed 
well-known text-books or memoirs, and though this 
course necessarily results in the nomenclature being in 
some places not quite of the latest description, it en- 
ables the work to be more readily followed than if 
some fresh arrangement had been adopted. One 
rectification we are glad to note in Mr. PBartsch’s 
portion—Fleming’s name, Odostomia, its 
pride of place. 
A useful bibliography forms the third part of the 
volume, albeit unduly extended to include works that 
might have been, rather than that were, actually re- 
ferred to, and even to embrace all the papers of one 
writer because he was considerate enough to supply 
them, although a considerable number have no bearing 
whatever on the question. That the G. B. Sowerbys 
should have become mixed is not surprising, but 
“* Sowerby, James, and De Carls, James ’’ should have 
been avoided. 
The thirty-seven plates, twenty-one of which relate 
to the fossils, are of that high qualitv which we have 
come naturally to expect in works of this class pro- 
duced in the United States, and he who could find 
aught to cavil at in them must indeed be hard to 
please. B. B. W. 
resumes 
