532 



SCIENCE, 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 224. 



his wide- reaching suggestions have found so 

 little favor among later naturalists. 



" In order to prove that natural history 

 is a language which we learn and listen to, 

 to our entertainment and profit and in- 

 struction, he holds it essential to prove that 

 it is nothing but a language ; that the rela- 

 tions between living things and the world 

 about them, being ideal relations, cannot 

 possiblj^ be physical ones also; that our 

 ' laws of biology ' are not • necessary ' but 

 ' arbitrary.' " 



The belief in Monism which Haeckel 

 places first in his articles of scientific faith 

 naturally wakens in Dr. Brooks little re- 

 sponse. It is a philosophical expression 

 wholly unrelated to reality. Whether it is 

 the highest of all possible human gener- 

 alizations or a mere play on words, science 

 has no means of deciding, and man has no 

 other court of appeal save his own experi- 

 ence. 



I have already reached the limit of my 

 space, while the majority of the passages I 

 had marked for quotation are still un- 

 touched. The stones which Dr. Brooks has 

 chosen as ' Foundations of Zoologj' ' will re- 

 main there for centuries, most of them as 

 long as human wisdom shall endure. The 

 volume is a permanent contribution to hu- 

 man knowledge, the worthy crown of a life 

 of wise thought as well as of hard work and 

 patient investigation. If there are anjr 

 errors in statement or conclusion, from one 

 end of the book to the other, the present 

 writer is not astute enough to find them 

 out, and Dr. Brooks' logic may permit him 

 at least to doubt their existence. 



The biologists of America have long since 

 recognized Dr. Brooks as a master, and this 

 volume, the modern and scientific sequel to 

 Agassiz's ' Essay on Classification,' places 

 him in the line of succession from the great 

 interpreter of nature, whose pupil and 

 friend he was. David Stare Jordan. 

 Stanfoed University. 



FIELD-WOEK OF THE JESOP NORTH PACIFIC 

 EXPEDITION IN 1S98. 



The Jesup ISTorfch Pacific Expedition was 

 organized in 1897 by Mr. Morris K. Jesup, 

 President of the American Museum of Nat- 

 ural History, for the purpose of investi- 

 gating the ethnology and archaeology of the 

 coasts of the North Pacific Ocean between 

 the Amoor River, in Siberia, and Columbia 

 River, in North America, the whole ex- 

 pense of the expedition being defrayed by 

 Mr. Jesup. 



During the year 1897 the field-work of 

 the expedition was confined to the coast 

 and interior of British Columbia. In 1898 

 the work was taken up on a more extended 

 scale. Parties were in the field on the coast 

 of the State of Washington, in the southern 

 interior of British Columbia, on the coast of 

 British Columbia, and on the Amoor in 

 Siberia. On both continents ethnological 

 work as well as archaeological work has 

 been done. While the parties in charge of 

 the work on the American continent re- 

 turned with the beginning of the winter, 

 the work in Asia is being carried on. 



The collections made by the various field 

 parties of the expedition in 1897 are now 

 on exhibit in the American Museum of Nat- 

 ural History. These collections represent 

 the results of archteological work in the 

 interior of British Columbia and on the 

 coast. The ethnological collections are 

 particularly full in regard to the tribes of 

 Thompson River, of northern Vancouver 

 Island, and of the central parts of the coast 

 of British Columbia. The Museum has 

 commenced the publication of the scientific 

 results of the expedition in the form of 

 memoirs. Up to this time two numbers 

 have been issued — ' Facial Paintings of the 

 Indians of Northern British Columbia,' and 

 ' Mythology of the Bella Coola Indians,' 

 both by Franz Boas. Other results of the 

 explorations in 1897 are in preparation, and 

 will be issued in the course of the year. 



