REVIEWS 
The Diuturnal Theory of the Earth; Or, Nature’s System of Construct- 
ing a Stratified Physical World. By WiLL1aAM ANDREWS. 
Published by Myra Andrews and Ernest G. Stevens. New 
York, 1899. 8vo, pp. 551. 
The consideration that might naturally be awakened by the evi- 
dences of great labor under manifest limitations embodied in this 
posthumous book is well nigh forstalled by the bad taste and absurd 
presumption of the preface by Mr. Stevens in which Mr. Andrews is 
styled ‘the greatest scientist America has produced” who “left com- 
paratively little to be accomplished,” and so forth. 
“The Diuturnal Theory of the Earth” consists essentially of the 
assumption that “the north terrestrial polar point is taken within 30° 
to the south siderial polar point, and returned to within 60° of the 
point under the north star, from whence it started,” and that the 
essential features of geological history are due to this. This polar 
movement is assumed to have taken the form of a spiral migration 
involving “‘ six polar transitions’”’ across the eastern and western hem- 
ispheres. There is no serious attempt to show that such a movement 
was a fact either by inductive evidence or deductive theory. The 
author’s method seems to have been the pre-scientific one of develop- 
ing a conception essentially ex mzhilo and of interpreting the phe- 
nomena by means of it. The book is interesting as an exhibition of 
great labor enthusiastically devoted to the broad themes of geology 
under limitations that precluded either the mastery of the facts needed 
for induction or the dynamic principles necessary for deduction. If 
the filial regard which has given it to the world a dozen years after 
the author’s death had been content to rest it on the modest basis of 
the thoughtful efforts of a studious man working under conditions that 
precluded success, it would have been wiser than to put it forth with the 
pretentious assumption of having ‘“‘made the patchwork of geology 
into a complete science.” 
Cane 
76 
