38 Reviews — Dr. Sieinmann's Palceontology. 



III. — A Text-book of Pal^eontologt. 



EiNFiJHEUNG IN DIE Palaontologie, von Dr. GusTAV Steinmann, 

 Ord. Professor cler Geologie und Palaontologie an der TJniversitat 

 Bonn. Zweite, vermehrte und neubearbeitete Auflage, mit 902 

 Textabbildungen. Leipzig: Wilbelm Engelmann, 1907. Price, 

 marks 15.2U, bound. 



rpHE first edition of this work (not to be confounded with Steinmann 

 X and Doderlein's " Elements der Palaontologie," 1890) appeared 

 in 1903, and consisted of 466 octavo pages with 818 figures. The 

 second edition consists of 542 pages (9A X 6^ inches) with 902 figures. 

 In the new edition 62 pages are devoted to Palseobotany, of which 

 7 deal with Dicotyledons, which occupied half a page in the first 

 edition. Insecta, to which only two-thirds of a page were allotted 

 previously, are now described by A. Handlirsch, of Vienna, in 14 pages ; 

 Eeptilia occupy 29 as compared with 23, and Mammalia 53 as compared 

 with 38i pages. 



Since the late Professor Karl A. von Zittel wrote his great 

 " Handbuch" and his smaller " Grundziige der Palaontologie," the 

 fault of most text-books of palaeontology has been that they are often 

 little better than systematically arranged descriptive catalogues of 

 fossils, written with very little reference to evolution, by drawing 

 attention to which the dry bones may have some living interest 

 imparted to them. The distinguishing feature of the present work is 

 the attention which the author draws to the probable phylogeny of 

 the forms described, although the arrangement remains systematic for 

 facility of reference. Whether one agrees with the author or not, his 

 views on the relationship of genera (and higher groups) to their 

 supposed ancestors and descendants are always interesting. Perhaps 

 the most remarkable of his suggestions is that the Tertiary marine 

 mammalia are descended from the Secondary marine reptilia, viz., 

 the Delphinidoe from the Ichthyosauria, the Physeteridae from the 

 Plesiosauria, and the Mystacoceti from the Thalattosauria (Pythono- 

 morpha). Professor Steinmann read a paper on this subject before the 

 Seventh International Zoological Congress at Boston in August last. 

 In a final summaiy (in his book) Professor Steinmann draws attention 

 to the supposed frequent sudden extinction and equally sudden first 

 appearance of some of the important groups of animals, and arrives at 

 the conclusion that the usual systematic arrangement of plants and 

 animals has nothing to do with the phylogenetic connection between 

 the separate forms, but rather obscures it, because the systematic do 

 not coincide with the genetic lines, but cut across them. 



Among fossil plants, he says, if we regard the mode of reproduction 

 on which the systematic arrangement is based as a feature which may 

 undergo change, and the purely morphological characters of mode of 

 branching, form, venation, and arrangement of leaves as relatively 

 persistent characters, groups are arrived at which are much less forced 

 than those based on systematic arrangement. So also, if the four 

 classes of quadrupeds Amphibia (-j- Stegocephalia), lleptilia, Aves, and 

 Mammalia are regarded, not as phylogenetic units, but as different 

 stages of organization which have been reached or passed through in 



