6S 



NA TURE 



[November 21, 1907 



has only lately been formed, and should have been in- 

 cluded between subsections 6 and 7 (chemistry and 

 mineralogy and crystallography). Subcommittee, Prof. 

 Arnold, Prof. J. A. Ewing, Mr. Walter Rosenhain, and 

 Mr. J. E. Stead; convener, Mr. Walter Rosenhain. 



It is hoped that everyone interested in the welfare of 

 science will materially assist the committee, the work of 

 which is a labour of love. Such help, in the form of the 

 loan of objects, photographs, &c., of scientific interest which 

 they may possess, will add greatly to the value of the 

 sections. The conveners of each section will gladly com- 

 municate with such intending exhibitors if applications be 

 made to them through the main ofifice (56 Victoria Street, 

 S.W.). 



THE EXTINCT VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF 



PATAGONIA.' 

 T F eccentric originality stand for genius, and refusal to 

 ■^ follow the beaten track, even when compass-bearings 

 indicate that it is the right one, be deemed merit, then, 

 unquestionably, the author of the work before us is 

 entitled to stand in the first rank of scientific men. If, 

 on the other hand — but perhaps it will be better to leave 

 our readers to complete this sentence as their own judg- 

 ment dictates after the perusal of the following remarks 

 and criticisms. 



Dr. Ameghino was, it seems, engaged on a monograph 

 on Palagonian fossil fishes, when the appearance of an 

 article by Mr. O. Wilckens on the Cretaceous and Tertiary 

 strata of Patagonia led him to direct his attention to the 

 task of confuting the (to him) heterodox views therein 

 expressed. The result is the present bulky volume, which 

 comprises within its purview a survey of the whole of the 

 vertebrate-bearing strata of Patagonia, together with a 

 summary of the author's views with regard to their geo- 

 logical ages and the relationships and phylogenies of their 

 faunas. 



So far as vertebrate pala-'ontology is concerned. Dr. 

 .Ameghino has long been imbued with the idea that the 

 .Argentine Republic (like Boston in another sense) is the 

 ■' hub of the universe." In previous works he has demon- 

 strated to his own satisfaction that South America was 

 the birth-place of every mammalian group save that 

 typified by man. He now goes one better, and claims 

 that even Homo sapiens himself traces his ancestry to 

 the great South American birthplace and nursery of 

 creation, where he was represented by " Homo 

 pampcanus " in the reputed Lower Pliocene strata of 

 Mar del Plata. 



Theie was, however, we are told, a yet earlier fore- 

 runner of the human race in Patagonia, to wit, the still 

 apparently unknown Homosimius of the Lower Miocene 

 or Oligocene, and it was this hypothetical creature which 

 passed from South .America by a land-bridge across the 

 Atlantic, in company with Cercopithecida, to colonise the 

 Old World, where the more bestial man-like apes made 

 their appearance at a later date as a lateral ofi'shoot from 

 the human stock. Finally, to go still further back, the 

 whole order of the Primates (not to mention other 

 mammalian groups) traces its descent to the Argentine 

 Microbiotherium, which the prosaic paUxontologists of 

 other countries persist in regarding as neither more nor 

 less than an aberrant type of opossum. We have thus the 

 direct descent of man from marsupials, in defiance of the 

 accepted view that marsupials and placentals are not in 

 the same line. 



The above is merely one example from among manv 

 elaborate mammalian phylogenies to be met with in this 

 volume; all, if we may say so, evolved from the author's 

 fertile imagination rather than based on any tangible 

 foundation of fact — or, at least, upon any that is apparent 

 to ourselves. 



To put the matter briefly, it may be said that whereas 

 most palaeontologists of repute who have practical 

 acquaintance with the country or its fossils, or with both 

 together, see in the Patagonian se'quence a series of 



' "Lfs Formations se'dimenlajres du Cre'taci; Superieur el du Tenia^re 

 ^e Patagonie, avfc un parallele enire leurs Faunes mammalogique^ et celles 

 de rAiicien Con-inent," By Florenlino Ameehino. Pp. 568+plates. 

 Buenos Aires An. Museo Nacional, vol. xv. (1906) 



NO. iq86, vol. yy] 



Cretaceous strata with dinosaurian remains followed, after 

 an interval, by others containing one or two mammalian 

 faunas of apparently .Miocene age. Dr. .Ameghino recognises 

 in the lower beds a mingled mammalian and dinosaurian 

 Cretaceous fauna, succeeded by several distinct mammalian 

 faunas extending from the Eocene upwards. Nor is this 

 all, for while those who do not accept his views consider 

 that the exclusively Patagonian extinct mammalian fauna 

 (and iTiore especially the Ungulate) is sui generis and 

 strictly local, the author is of opinion that the various 

 faunas recognised by himself present numerous ramifying 

 affinities with practically all the other Tertiary faunas of 

 *he globe, of which, indeed, he regards the former as the 

 fans et origo. 



It is, however, only fair to add that at the commence- 

 ment of the volume Dr. Ameghino puts these two irrecon- 

 cilable views candidly before his readers, and if he elects, 

 in opposition to, practically, the united opinion of the rest 

 of the palseontological world, to adhere to the second 

 alternative, he has, of course, a perfect right to do so. 

 To_ attempt to refute his views by summarising and 

 criticising the evidence would manifestly be impossible 

 within the limits of a single short article, and it must 

 accordingly sufiice to reiterate emphatically that they are 

 not endorsed by even a respectable minority of expert 

 opinion elsewhere. 



It may, however, be well to refer to a couple of instances 

 (in addition to those already cited) of what we venture 

 to call Dr. Ameghino's idiosyncrasies in the matter of 

 classification and phylogeny. European paleontologists, 

 after very careful study, have arrived at the conclusion 

 that the remarkable Eocene Egyptian ungulate .Arsinoi- 

 thcrium either represents a special group of the order by 

 itself or that It is an aberrant hyrax. Our author scouts 

 both these opinions, and without any apparent reason 

 refers the genus to the Ancylopoda, as typified by the 

 European Chalicotherium (Macrotherlum). Again, if there 

 is one apparently well-established fact in p.Tl.xontology it 

 is that the Egyptian Mcerllherium is on the direct ancestral 

 line of the modern Proboscidea. In this, according to our 

 author, palaeontologists are, however, altogether wrong, 

 and instead of Africa having been the birthplace of the 

 elephants, we are to look for this in South America, 

 whence, by some unexplained magic, various (shall we 

 say imaginary?) genera with almost unpronounceable 

 names blossomed on the one hand into Palasomastodon 

 and the elephants, and on the other into the forlorn and 

 childless Moerilhorium. 



To enter into further details would be mere waste of 

 space, and it must sufiice to add, in conclusion, that, while 

 fully appreciating the great industrv Dr. .Ameghino has 

 displayed in collecting and describing the pnlreontological 

 marvels of Patagonia, we sincerely regret our inability to 

 accord him that encomium on the results of his labours 

 which it would have been a real pleasure to bestow. 



R. L. 



HYDROLOGY IX THE UNITED STATES. 



'\X7'E have been favoured by the Department of the 

 United States Geological Survey with seven' more 

 papers on the geology and water resources of various 

 States. Most of these, although containing valuable in- 

 formation on such subjects as underground water supplies, 

 rainfall and stream flow, pollution and its relation to 

 typhoid fever, weir experiments as to the measurement of 

 running water, are principally of local interest. 



Paper No. 194, on the pollution of the Illinois and 

 Mississippi Rivers by Chicago sewage, by Marshall O. 



1 "The Geology -nd Water Resources of the Western Portion of the 

 Panhandle of Texas." By C. Gould. Water Supply and Irrigation Paper, 

 No. rgi. 



"The Water Supply rf Nome Region, Seward Peninsula." By I. C. 

 Holt and F. Hensh.-iw. Paper No. 106 



" Underground Waters of the Costal Plain of Texas." By T. U. T.iyIor. 

 Paper No. iqo. 



" Potomac River Basin." By Parker, Willis, Bolster and Marsh. Paper 



"The Quality of Surface Waters in Minnesota." By Wesbraat. Paper 

 No. ig-;. 



" Weir Experiments, CoefTicients and Formulas." By R K. Horton. 

 Paper No. 200. (Washington ; Government Printing Office, 1907.) 



