NATURE 



545 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 1907. 



RESEARCH /.Y CHINA. 

 Research in China. In three volumes and Atlas : 

 vol. i. in 2 parts. Part i. Descriptive Topography 

 and Geology. By Bailey Willis, Eliot Blackwelder, 

 and R. H. Sargent. Pp. xiv. + 354 + .\vi. (Wash- 

 ington, D.C. ; Published by the Carnoj^ie Insti- 

 tution, 1907.) 

 THE title of this volume recalls the great pioneer 

 work of the illustrious Baron von Richthofen, 

 to whom science is indebted for the first broad and 

 masterly sketch of the physiography and geology of 

 the Celestial Empire. His volumes, unfortunately 

 left still incomplete at the time of his lamented 

 death, form the basis on which all later explorers 

 will build. He indicated some of the great problems 

 which remain to be solved by a more prolonged and 

 minute survev than it was in his own power to 

 achieve. But even where he left questions in doubt, 

 his trained powers of observation sometimes enabled 

 him to see so far into them, and to leave so many 

 pregnant suggestions concerning them, that the paths 

 for subsequent exploration have been indicated by 

 him to his successors. 



One of these paths lay in the further investiga- 

 tion of the great series of ancient sedimentary 

 deposits, to which Richthofen gave the name of 

 " .Sinisches " (Sinesian or Sinian) system. He col- 

 lected from what he regarded as the higher parts of 

 this system a number of fossils, which proved the 

 strata containing them to be of Cambrian age. As 

 these sedimentarv accumulations appeared to be thou- 

 sands of feet in thickness, they seemed to offer at least 

 a possibility that, in their lower members, traces might 

 be found of a still older or pre-Cambrian fauna. The 

 great interest which would attach to the discovery of 

 any recognisable remains of that primjBval biological 

 period had long drawn the attention of geologists 

 to the desirability of following up the suggestive 

 observations of the German explorer. The opportunitv 

 of undertaking this investigation came at last when 

 the Carnegie Institution of \\'ashington was founded 

 in ii)02, with ample funds for the purposes of scien- 

 tific research of every kind in all quarters of the globe. 

 Mr. C. D. Walcott, then the energetic Director of the 

 United States Geological .Survey, whose contributions 

 to Cambrian paleeontology have given him a world- 

 wide reputation, suggested the sending out of an 

 expedition to China, one of the objects of which 

 should be the further elucidation of the fossil con- 

 tents of the oldest Palaeozoic rocks of the country. 

 He succeeded in planning and organising a scientific 

 mission for the purpose of investigating the strati- 

 graphy, palaeontology, structure, and physiography 

 of the regions to be visited. The first grant was made 

 by the Carnegie Institution in the autumn of the year 

 igo2, but it was not until July of the following year 

 that the mission sailed for Europe. The party con- 

 sisted of two geologists, Mr. Bailey Willis, an active 

 member of the staff of the United States Geological 

 Survey, to whom the chief charge of the expedition 

 NO. IQ/I, VOL. 76] 



was assigned, and Mr. Eliot Blackwelder, of the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago. They were subsequently joined in 

 China by Mr. R. Harvey Sargent, of the United States 

 Geological -Survey, who acted as tojxigrapher, and 

 produced the series of maps which forms the Atlas. 



The observers reached Pekin late in September, 

 1903, and spent about two months of the autumn of 

 that year in the geological investigation of certain 

 parts of the province of Shan-tung. The 'irst five 

 and a half months of 1904 were devoted to the ex- 

 ploration of Central China, and the journey of in- 

 vestigation came to an end at I-chang, on the Yang- 

 tzi-kiang, on June 9. The time occupied by the re- 

 search was thus little more than seven months in all. 

 During this brief period the party must have worked 

 hard. Their topographical surveys by graphic plane- 

 table triangulation went on at an average rate of 

 nearly fifty square miles a day, and an area of 2,900 

 square miles was mapped in fifty-eight days and a 

 half. While the topographer was thus active, the 

 geologists were simultaneously busy with their ob- 

 servations and collections. The results of this com- 

 bined labour are intended to fill three massive volumes 

 and an atlas of maps. The first part of the first 

 volume which, w-ith the Atlas, has just been issued, 

 forms a bulky quarto of more than 350 pages, with 

 upwards of fifty plates, consisting of photographic 

 views of landscapes, maps, and geological sections. 

 The second part is to include .systematic petrography, 

 zoological notes, and a syllabary of Chinese sounds. 

 The second volume is intended " to summarize the de- 

 tailed presentation of our results, and to combine 

 them with the work of others in a systematic dis- 

 cussion of the geology of south-eastern Asia." The 

 third volume is to be devoted to Palaeontology. The 

 Atlas contains some forty sheets of maps, sections, 

 and photographic views, most of the maps being on the 

 scale of 1/125,000, or two miles to the inch, engraved 

 and coloured in the excellent style to which the United 

 States Geological Survey has now accustomed us. 



We willingly record our appreciation of the energy, 

 skill, and success with which this expedition has been 

 conducted. But we feel sure that the question will be 

 asked bv manv not unsympathetic onlookers — were 

 the few months of rapid and necessarily imperfect and 

 incomplete observation suflicient to justify the addition 

 of all these volumes to the ever-growing mass 

 of geological literature? It has long been a charac- 

 teristic of American geological explorers that they 

 cannot simply describe what they have seen, but must 

 launch out into theoretical disquisitions and system 

 atic discussions, for which there has often been but 

 slender basis in their own work. The various pioneer- 

 ing and other surveys have thus built up a pile of huge 

 quartos, in which the really valuable original observ- 

 ations are often practically buried out of sight. The 

 books are heavy alike for the hand and the head. 

 They take up a large amount of space on library 

 shelves, where they are now, we fear, comparatively 

 seldom consulted. 



The volume now before us is a conspicuous illus- 

 tration of the American habit here referred to. We 

 venture to think that all that was new and important 

 among the results of the expedition might easily have 



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