52 



NA TURE 



[May 1 8, 1905 



Bittner and Kellncr, and in 1S92 by the author, who 

 was sent by von Haucr to collect for the museum 

 hi Vienna. The whole Alpine Trias seems well 

 represented near the city, some of the massive lime- 

 stones, rich in Diplopora, being spoken of as 

 "Riffkalke." The red limestone with Ptychites, 

 I he rock best known in our collections, is on an 

 I'pper Muschclkalk horizon. While the Eocene 

 period is probably represented by a Flysch-facies, the 

 Olig-ocene and Miocene lagoons and freshwater 

 lakes show that the mountain-land of Bosnia was 

 rising above the sea in Middle Cainozoic times. 



The author's detailed descriptions of the region, 

 district by district, are illustrated by sections drawn 

 on a correct vertical and horizontal scale, and by 

 occasional sketches and photographic views. As a 

 type of the sketches, we may mention the effective 

 Fig. 16 (p. 611), showing the rounded forms of the 

 Flysch deposits banked and sometimes faulted against 

 the scarped Triassic masses to the east, .'\nother 

 section (p. 639) shows well how the Flysch strata, 

 extending north towards Doboj and the great 

 Hungarian plain, have been tilted and overfolded 

 during the orogenic movements of the Dinaric Alps, 

 which continued, as we now know, far into Pliocene 

 limes. The steep forms of the lowland landscape, 

 cut into by frequent streams, are readily appreciated 

 from the section. 



The pateontological portion of the memoir records 

 fossils from the " Kulmschiefer," including, curiously 

 enough, Modiola lata, described by Wheelton Hind 

 as recently as iSgh. The author supports (p. 671) 

 E. Haug and J. P. Smith in restoring Gonlatites as 

 a restricted generic term, so that we again have 

 Gonialiies crenistria and iruncatus, as well as 

 sphacricus and striatiis. Osmanoceras and Tetra- 

 gonites are described as new genera- of goniatites. 

 The Bellerophon-beds of the Upper Permian yield, 

 amid a fairly rich fauna, Promyalina, a new member 

 of the Aviculidse. These forms, and a number of 

 new species, are suitably figured, either in the text 

 or in tlie plates. It is pleasant to recall the book- 

 shops in Sarajevo on the way to the bazaar and the 

 river-side, where this last product of Austrian investi- 

 gation will appear for sale under the shadow of the 

 Sultan's mosque. G. A. J. C. 



ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 

 Eiononiic Essays by Cliarlcs Franklin DtDibar. 

 Edited by O. M. W. Sprague, with an introduc- 

 tion by F. W. Taussig. Pp. xvii + 372. (New 

 York : The Macmillan Co. ; London : Macmillan 

 and Co., Ltd., 1904.) Price 105. 6d. net. 



NO .\merican economist has been held in higher 

 repute for judiciousness, breadth of view-, and 

 " soundness " than Charles Franklin Dunbar, pro- 

 fessor of political economy at Harvard from 187 1 until 

 his death in 1900, sometime Dean of the college 

 (between 1S76 and 18S2), and later Dean of the 

 faculty of arts and sciences. But his output was 

 never extensive, perhaps because the university teach- 

 NO. 1855, VOL. 72] 



ing of political economy was not his first choice, or at 

 any rate not his first calling. It was not until Prof. 

 Dunbar had attained the ripe age of forty-one that 

 he was appointed to his professorship at Harvard. 

 Previously he had engaged in newspaper work, and 

 had edited between 1859 and iS6g the Boston Daily 

 Advertiser. To the work of the editorship of this 

 paper Prof. Dunbar returned for a brief space to fill 

 a breach at a time of crisis in 1884. 



Having taken to the profession of teaching after 

 engaging in practical affairs and feeling the excite- 

 ments of politics, it is somewhat remarkable that 

 Prof. Dunbar's interests after his appointment at 

 Harvard should have been " academic " to so ex- 

 clusive an extent. He studiously avoided making con- 

 tributions to magazines upon the economic aspects of 

 current events, and appears to have held that it was 

 the main duty of the economist to trace the leading 

 trends of social forces rather than to spend his 

 energies in directing minor circumstances. Prof. 

 Dunbar's best known work was done upon the sub- 

 ject of banking, and we are told by Prof. Taussig in 

 his introduction to this collection of his late 

 colleagi.ie's economic essays that he had meditated a 

 comprehensive treatise relating to America upon the 

 wider subject of which banking is a part, namely, 

 financial history. Prof. Dunbar's little " History of 

 Banking " is read to-day by all students of economics 

 of this country and the United States at least. 



The collection of essays before us contains a good 

 deal of material that was not easily accessible 

 previously, and some matter that is now published 

 for the first time, upon the range of subjects which 

 Dunbar made peculiarly his own. Eight out of the 

 twenty essays included deal specificallv with banking, 

 and some of them are valuable contributions to our 

 knowledge of the history of banking — for instance, the 

 two dealing with early banking schemes in England 

 and the Bank of Venice. Eight more essays are con- 

 cerned more particularly with finance, for example, 

 analyses of certain crises, the examination of the 

 direct tax of 1861, and the discussion of the pre- 

 cedents followed by .\le.xander Hamilton. The re- 

 maining four essays arose out of the author's other 

 chief interest, namely, the literature of classical 

 economics; they are entitled "Economic Science in 

 America, 1776-1876," "The Reaction in Political 

 Economy " (written in 1SS6), " The .A.cademic Study 

 of Political Economy," and " Ricardo's Use of 

 Facts." Certain of these essays were executed so 

 long ago as almost to have become themselves a part 

 of the old literature of classical economics ; but, taken 

 as a whole, they will prove enlightening even to 

 economists who have benefited from the analysis 

 effected and researches carried out since Prof. Dun- 

 bar's discussions appeared, for without exception the 

 essays collected in this volume are thorough, scholarlv, 

 well pondered, and finely proportioned. Prof. 

 Sprague's w-ork of editorship appears to have been 

 done admirably. All students of economics will be 

 grateful to him for having made a collection of Prof. 

 Dunbar's scattered writings and brought to the press 

 the work which he left behind in manuscript. 



