232 Revieics — An English Edition of Zittel. 



of the generic and specific features are mainly based, are too 

 inconstant to be relied on. 



The varied forms of these sponges are very clearly shown in the 

 admirable plates, whilst figures of the remarkable flesh-spicules 

 are given in the text. 



This monograph is a worthy addition to the series of volumes 

 on the Palaeontology of the State of New York which, under the 

 authorship of the late Professor James Hall, have appeared during 

 the last fifty years, and it also furnishes a happy augury for the 

 further continuance of the series by his successor, Dr. J. M. Clarke. 



G. J. H. 



II. — Text-Book of Paleontology. By Karl A. von Zittel. 

 Translated and edited by Charles E. Eastman, Ph.D. Eevised 

 and enlarged. Vol. I. pp. viii and 706, with 1,476 woodcuts. 

 (London : Macmillan & Co., 1900.) 



OF recent years it has become more and more evident that it is 

 impossible for one man, however great, to write unaided an 

 advanced text-book dealing with all the branches of one science. The 

 only way in which an advanced text-book can be compiled so as to be 

 of real value is by the co-operation of a number of specialists under 

 the direction of a competent editor. This has already been done in 

 some sciences, and to this class of work we may refer the book 

 under consideration, which marks an epoch in palgeontological 

 literature. 



We had long envied our German colleagues the possession of 

 Zittel's Handhuch der Palaeontologie, for although it was for the 

 use of all palseontologists, still a work in a foreign language is 

 never quite the same as one in our own ; but now we feel that we 

 have the advantage over them, for in the present work we have 

 the foundation laid by Zittel with a superstructure by a number 

 of zoologists who, as specialists in the groups with which they 

 are dealing, possess worldwide reputations. We have only to 

 glance at the list of collaborators to see what an immense advance 

 this work makes on all other palseontological text-books. 



The only disadvantage which this type of work appears to us to 

 suffer from, is the fact that specialists are, after all, but human 

 beings, and consequently apt, in dealing wdth their favourite group 

 of animals, to give undue prominence to their own views, especially 

 in matters of classification and nomenclature ; consequently the 

 advanced student will do well to bear in mind that each chapter 

 is either written or revised by an ardent enthusiast, and not by 

 a cool and perhaps unprejudiced general palaeontologist. 



Looking at this work in more detail, we find that while the 

 chapters on the Protozoa and Ccelenterata stand essentially as in the Bj 

 original, those on the Molluscoidea, Molhisca, and Trilohita are ■' 

 entirely rewritten, and the remainder enlarged and revised. We 

 cannot help regretting that some of the short descriptions of the 

 sub-kingdoms were not revised along with the other matter, since 



