33^ 



NATURE 



[Feb. 



that either the morality or the courtesy of the scientific world i.-. 

 likely to be improved by the renewed exertions on their behalf 

 which are about to be made by Mr. Samuel Butler. 



George J. Romanes 

 [This correspondence is now closed. — Ed.] 



Will it go any way towards calming Mr. Butler's zeal in the 

 cause of literat-y honesty to remark that at any rate fifteen years 

 ago, and it may have been further back, Mr. D.irHin prefixed to 

 " The Origin of Species" a hi^torical sketch of the progress of 

 opinion on that subject ? In view of this it is at least very m's- 

 leading on the part of Mr. Butler to quote the first sentence from 

 the edition of 1859, and then to ask : " What could more com- 

 pletely throw us off the scent of the earliest evolutionists ? " as if 

 in those days it would have made a pin's difference to him, or any 

 one else whom he includes in the us, whether the scent of the 

 earlier evolutionists laj' strong or weak in the track. In these 

 days he .■-hould know, if he knows anything of the history of 

 opinion, that these predecessors of Mr. Darwin, with their great 

 though varied merits, had been laughed down, and, for all 

 popular estimation, might be said to have disappeared. To have 

 relied in any way on their authority when Mr. Darwin's book 

 was first published might well have increased the mountain of 

 prejudice against his views witiiout in any way relieving the weight 

 of ridicule that lay upon theirs. When the whole scientific world 

 had been stirred to its foundations and when the whole world almost 

 had been routed into paying attention to science by the awakening 

 genius displayed in the new exposition de rerum natura, 

 then, when it could best be done, Mr. Darwin turned ridicule 

 into renown, and made all who could even remotely claim to 

 have anticipated or shared his views participators of his fame. 

 Not those who scatter seed at random, but those who cultivate it 

 in chosen ground with indefatigable industry and prevailing skill 

 should, I imagine, be considered the chief benefactors of man- 

 kind ; and in like manner the fancy that may have fluttered use- 

 lessly through many brains becomes at last a fruitful hypothesis 

 or a wide-stretching theory when it falls beneath the cultivation 

 of undaunted genius. T. R. R. Stebbing \ 



Tunbridge Wells, February 7 



"Prehistoric Europe" 

 Will you kindly allow me a few words in reply to certain 

 statements made by Prof. Dawkins in his notice of my "Pre- 

 historic Europe." I shall not remark on the perplexing confusion 

 which he gravely puts forward as an outline of my general argu- 

 ment further than to say, in all sincerity, that I fail to recognise 

 in it any trace of what that argument really is. The Itvi obser- 

 vations I have to make shall be confined cliiefly to questions of 

 fact. 



1 . Mr. Dawkins states that I ask geologists to believe that the 

 mammaliferous gravels with Palasolithic implements, which 

 overlie the chalky boulder-clay of East Anglia, were covered 

 by an upper and younger boulder-clay, which latter "has been 

 removed so completely that no trace of it is now to be seen." 

 Now I do not believe that the gravels in question ever were 

 covered by boulder-clay, nor have I written anything which 

 could justify Mr. Dawkins in attributing to me an opinion so 

 absurd. 



2. The account I have given of Victoria Cave was written 

 after a careful perusal of all that has been said about it, and my 

 proofs were submitted to Mr. Tiddeman, who reported on the 

 explorations ; and therefore I have every reason to believe that 

 my description is correct. 



3. The so-called Upper Pliocene deposits at Mont Perrier are 

 described in detail by Dr. Julien, who shows that they are truly 

 interglacial, being younger than the great " pumiceous conglo- 

 merate " with its striated stones and blocks, and older than the 

 more recent moraines of the same neighbourhood. Dr. Julien 

 remarks : "La periode pliocene superieure doit disparaitre de 

 la science." He correlates the interglacial beds of Mont Perrier 

 with those of Diirnten. 



4. The lignites of Leffe and Borlezza, according to Prof. 

 Stopanni, who has carefully studied those closely-adjoining dis- 

 tricts, belongs without any doubt whatever to the glacial series ; 

 and his observations I have confirmed by a personal examination 

 of the ground. They are generally admitted by Italian and 

 Swiss geologists to be on the same horizon as the lignites of 

 Diirnten. 



5. I have not asserted the interglacial age of the so-called 



Pliocene of Olmo. The newer deposits in the Upper Val 

 d'Arno, which have usually been assigned by palaeontologists to 

 the Upper Pliocene, have been shown by Prof. Mayer, after an 

 exhaustive analysis of the evidence (as well stratigraphical as 

 pahxjontological) to belong to the Pleistocene ; and as their 

 mammalian fauna corresponds with the fauna of the lignites of 

 Leffe and Borlezza, I have said that this fact is "significant," 

 meaning thereby thai the beds in question may very likely be of 

 the same age as those near Gandino. 



6. Mr. Dawkins says that I deal with my subject not with 

 the impartiality of a judge, but as an advocate, and that I have 

 only called those witnesses which count on my side. I am 

 probably as well acquainted with the literature of the subject as 

 my critic, and after many years' careful reading and study must 

 confess that I have not encountered any evidence that contradicts 

 my views. Had it been my fortune to come upon such evidence 

 I feel sure that I should not have been so weak and foolish, or 

 so untruthful as to have ignored it. Doubtless I have met with 

 many forcible statements of opinion by Mr. Dawkins that he 

 does not agree with me ; but I may remind him (and not for the 

 first time) that mere expressions of opinion, however emphatic, 

 prove nothing save, as a rule, the sincerity of him who utters 

 them. 



7. My critic further ventures the statement that my classifica- 

 tion "is based on ice, and ice only." How very far this is from 

 being the case any candid person may see who shall take the 

 trouble merely to run his eye over the " contents" of my book. 

 Geologists rightly refuse to accept classifications which are 

 based upon so narrow a foundation as a single series of pheno- 

 mena, such, for example, as Mr. Dawkins's attempt to classify 

 the Pleistocene by reference to the mammalia alone — a classifi- 

 cation which, while it draws the line that separates Pliocene 

 from Pleistocene at the base of the glacial deposits in England, 

 would carry the same line, in France and Central Europe, 

 through the middle of the glacial series. Or, to put it another 

 way, if we accepted Mr. Dawkins's classification, we should be 

 forced to admit that the Glacial Period attained its climax in 

 France and Central Europe during Pliocene times, but that it 

 did not begin in England until after the Pleistocene had com- 

 menced. And this is the classification which, as may be 

 inferred from the tenor of my critic's remarks, I ought to 

 have adopted. 



Mr. Dawkins's remarks upon my views in regard to the 

 evidence of climatic changes I am sorry to say I do not under- 

 stand. All that I am sure of is that he has quite failed to grasp 

 my meaning — that he has attributed to me opinions which I have 

 done my best to refute — in a word, that he has strangely mis- 

 represented me. But I need not attempt to set him right, as 

 those who are sufficiently interested in the matter are not likely, 

 after this repudiation, to accept his travesty for a reliable 

 presentment of my views. James Geikie 



Perth, January 7 



On Dust, Fogs, and Clouds 



A CURIOUS confirmation of Mr. Aitken's theory of fog was 

 brought to my notice a short time ago. A friend of mine residing 

 in Streatham, struck with the perfection of the heating arrange- 

 ments in American residences, fitted up his house with a similar 

 contrivance. In the basement was a furnace and boiler \\hich 

 warmed pure air that entered from without, and circulated at a 

 regulated temperature throughout the house. A water-pipe that 

 was connected with the boiler became stopped by frost ; an 

 explosion ensued, and the house was filled with so-called steam 

 (hot fog, in fact) from top to bottom. Wherever a cold surface 

 (clock faces, metal fixtures, &c.) was found, even in the topmost 

 bed-rooms, the vapour condensed and left behind it black carbon 

 dust. Nowhere else was this dust found. 



Again, few persons who have read Mr. Aitken's paper can 

 have noticed the dejected appearance of the late beautiful snow 

 on the first morning of the welcome thaw \\ ithout thinking of 

 his theory. What on the previous evening was a clean dazzling 

 mass of exquisite white became a sooty speckled heap of dirty 

 snow. As the sparkling crystals liquefied into water which 

 drained away, they left behind the dust and carbon, around 

 which, according to Mr. Aitken, they originally formed, becoming 

 by multiplication molar and visible. In the streets of London 

 the masses of white snow rapidly became, as somebody remarked, 

 like streams of cold cafe au hit. The whiteness rapidly disap- 

 peared and left behind mere dirt. 



It may interest some of your readers to know that in 1537 



