yan.2,, 1874J 



NA TURE 



r8i 



apes, as they are termed, the peculiarities of the osteo- 

 logy of the Primates, and their soft-part anatomy, are 

 entered into in detail. From the facts thus obtained, 

 especially from the peculiarities of the liver and brain, it 

 is shown that the, at present accepted, notion that 

 the Gorilla is man's nearest ally, is not borne out 

 by anatomical investigation, and that the Chimpanzee, 

 the Orang, or the Gibbon can either of them claim a 

 closer relationship. The recapitulation of the many 

 different points in which man in some one or other 

 point resembles the various higher and lower apes, 

 leads the author to think that the laws of affinity 

 form a " network " or " tangled web " rather than a 

 "ladder," from which it is only possible to infer that in 

 the course of development there has been blood relation- 

 ship established between the different species of apes, 

 after their differentiation into distinct species, which is 

 hardly compatible with our notions of the definition of a 

 species. No decided opinion is given as to which ape 

 docs stand nearest to man, the various points of simi- 

 larity in each being considered as fairly balanced. How- 

 ever, there are two structural features at least that are not 

 mentioned, which, when added to those noted, go strongly 

 to support the placing of the Orang-Utang, as the 

 nearest ally to the human race. The first of these is an 

 osteological one ; in man and the orang the postero- 

 internal angles of the orbital plates of the frontal bone do 

 not meet and blend behind the cribriform plate of the 

 ethmoid bone, as they do in the gorilla and chim- 

 panzee. The second is in the soft part, the penis of the 

 orang being very similar in general proportions to that 

 of man, whilst in the chimpanzee at least, it is decidedly 

 different, being smaller proportionately, and with a 

 button-shaped glans. 



Mr. Mivart adds the weight of Gratiolet's bold attempt 

 to classify the monkeys by their cerebral convolutions, 

 to show more demonstrably that the gorilla is anything 

 but as high as he has been placed in the scale. Though 

 Gratiolet may have been correct in so displacing the 

 gorilla, nevertheless it is difficult to believe from their 

 general appearance, structure, and geographical range, 

 that, as he thought, the baboons and cercopitheci are far 

 separate from one another, that the Asiatic true 

 macaques and the African chimpanzee, are most closely 

 allied ; and that the affinities between the Entellus 

 monkey and the orang are very intimate. These some- 

 what shake our faith in the results that have as yet been 

 arrived at from the study of the cerebral convolutions. 



No animal seems more difficult to depict correctly 

 than the monkey, man alone e.xcepted, which may in 

 itself be considered to indicate a pomt of affinity ; the 

 illustrations accompanying Mr. Mivart's work, are, how- 

 ever, of the poorest description, many not being the least 

 worthy of their author ; old, and imperfect, inaccurate in 

 not in any way giving the expressions or correct attitudes 

 of the originals, we should have preferred to see them 

 omitted. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



Geology. By Prof. Geil<ie. Science Primers. (Macmil- 



lan and Co. 1S73.) 



This is a charming little book of 128 pages. It is well 

 arraTiged,we!lwritten,andwell illustrated, and is thoroughly 



well adapted for its purpose. Of course the geology in it is 

 unexceptionable, and therefore it follows that the only 

 thing with which a reviewer can quarrel at all is the selec- 

 tion of subjects for omission. Among small omissions he 

 might mention that of Darwin's theory of coral islands 

 as a " proof that a part of the crust of the earth has sunk 

 down." This is so beautiful an instance of an explana- 

 tion of the curious phenomena of coral islands, that it 

 never fails to interest boys. To lead them up to this 

 theory, and then test it as Darwin tested it, is an excel- 

 lent exercise in that peculiar kind of reasoning about past 

 causation which is of the essence of geology. A greater 

 omission is perhaps that of the history of geological sci- 

 ence. A sketch of this in half a dozen pages would 

 greatly interest boys ; it would show them how science 

 grows ; and they would infer that geology is not yet com- 

 pletely mastered, but that there is something left for them 

 to do. It strikes one also as an omission, of a very grave 

 kind, to say nothing at all about stratigraphical geology, 

 a few pages of it with a general description of the strati- 

 graphical structure of England would increase the value 

 of the book, and what is more, inspire the reader with a 

 desire to learn more. And lastly, one cannot but deside- 

 rate some sketch of the sequence of life on the earth as 

 the result of pateontology, for the same reasons. If all 

 these things were put in, the book would still be small, 

 and would really introduce the reader to the whole of 

 geology, and excite his curiosity. J. M. W. 



yakrl'iuh dcr kais. kijii. geolos,ische>i Rcichsanstalt. 



Band xxii. Nos. 3 and 4. 

 In the first of these numbers, perhaps the most interest- 

 ing paper to an English geologist is one by von Theodor 

 Fuchs, '■ On Peculiar disturbances in the Tertiary Forma- 

 tions of the Vienna Basin, and on a self-evident Move- 

 ment of Unconsolidated Earth-masses," which is accom- 

 panied by a number of ilkistrations and sketch sections, 

 taken chiefly from the cuttings of the railway at Marchegg. 

 The writer thinks that the contortions and displacements 

 witnessed in superficial deposits, and which have been 

 variously accounted for — some geologists supposing them 

 to be due to subterranean action, others to glacial 

 action, and so forth — have been induced by causes, which 

 have hitherto been either overlooked or treated as 

 insufficient. His studies have led him to conclude that 

 these superficial confusions and displacements are brought 

 about by a movementamongst the earth-masses themselves, 

 which, as a rule, beginning with some local slip of the 

 beds, becomes eventually converted into a movement of 

 the whole. The motion of the earth-masses, now rolling, 

 now gliding, can only be compared to the flow of a mud- 

 stream or that of a glacier. After the author's paper was 

 written, he became aware that he had been preceded in 

 his general conclusions by Mr. R. Mallet, whose paper 

 in the Journal of the Dublin Geological Society {" Some 

 Remarks on the Movements of Post-tertiary and other 

 discontinuous Masses," vol. v. p. 121) will no doubt be 

 known to many of our readers. It is not likely, 

 however, that glacialists will ever be got to believe 

 that their boulder-clays, &c., and scratched rock- 

 surfaces have been produced by the continuous 

 or intermittent slipping of loose material which 

 is in daily progress around all the ex sting coasts. 

 The other papers in this number are, " The Mountain- 

 land of South Ghna in Croatia," by Dr. Emil Tietze, and 

 " On the so-called gas-shales of Nyran and their flora," 

 by von Ottokar Feistmantel. Number 4 optns with the 

 second part of Professor Hochstetter s interesting paper 

 " On the Geology ot the easternparts of European Turkey." 

 Tnis part is accompanied by a geoiogical map of Central 

 Turkey, which shows the distribution of the rock-masses, 

 while several diagram sections scattered through the 

 paper enable us to understand more clearly their suc- 

 cession and relative position. Amongst primary rocks 



