920 REVIEWS 



the present site of Commerce to where Gray's Point now stands. As a 

 result of this, the Mississippi abandoned the Advance lowland at its 

 eastern end and assumed its present course. 



Other cases of capture of smaller streams are described in detail, 

 which make interesting reading for the student of physiography. 



The time of the lowland formation was the interval between the 

 first and second glacial epochs. 



Altogether it is an admirable piece of work. There are two points 

 of courtesy, however, upon which the paper is open to some criticism : 

 The discrediting of the published views of Dr. Branner upon the sub- 

 ject of the paper, and the underestimating of the maps of the region, 

 published by the Mississippi River Commission. When in 1895 the 

 author advocated a different theory regarding this drainage, 1 Branner's 

 views were duly considered and promptly upset ; now that Branner is 

 found to be correct, his theory of the origin of Crowley's Ridge is 

 spoken of as being " merely a statement of the popular view." The 

 true theory of the ridge's history may be the popular one in Missouri, 

 but the present writer has reason to believe that it is not the popular 

 one in Arkansas even today. Again, Professor Marbut says that Dr. 

 Branner's statements "lay no claim to scientific completeness." This 

 is true ; but it should be noted that Dr. Branner published his ideas, 

 not in the body of the report on Crowley's Ridge, but in the preface 

 to the report. The report itself was written by Professor Call, an 

 assistant on the Arkansas Geological Survey, with whose ideas as to 

 the origin of the ridge Dr. Branner did not agree ; and not agreeing, 

 justice to himself required him to say so, but at the same time good 

 taste and expediency forbade a full discussion of the matter at that 

 time and place. The present writer happens to know that the data 

 collected by the late Arkansas survey on the history of Crowley's Ridge 

 would fill a good-sized volume. While Dr. Branner's treatment of the 

 subject made no pretense of being exhaustive, his statements were 

 based upon a large amount of data at his command. The author like- 

 wise says that when he undertook the work on the region "no sort of 

 topographic map of this part of the lowlands was in existence." The 

 map published with the Crowley's Ridge report of the Arkansas Geo- 

 logical Survey, and the map of the Mississippi River Commission from 

 which the Arkansas map was largely compiled, so far as their por- 

 trayal of the physiographic history of the region goes, are in all essen- 



1 Loc. cit. 



