June 10, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



805 



periphery thus marked out the earth's crust 

 sank, for instance in 1783, in the form of a 

 basin, and at the same time there were devel- 

 oped radial cracks converging in the Lipari 

 Isles. Near the center these lines are beset 

 with points of eruption. The perennial and 

 isolated volcanoes, such as ^tna, he thinks, 

 are located on the crossing of these radial frac- 

 tures with the peripheral line of faulting. 3rd. 

 Central America, where earthquakes are fre- 

 quent though not well studied, but where the 

 disposition of volcanoes is held to indicate 

 great fractures. These volcanoes may be 

 placed in two groups, or alignments, which join 

 at an obtuse angle in the Bay of Fonseca, be- 

 tween San Salvador and Nicaragua. The shift- 

 ing of vents here is towards the Pacific Ocean. 

 Suess thinks the fractures have opened down- 

 wards and that this region is sinking. 4th. 

 The western coast of South America, made 

 classical by the writings of Darwin. Darwin 

 has been for half a century the authority for 

 the belief that, during the earthquake of 1835, 

 the western coast of South America was ele- 

 vated at least nine feet. Suess's thesis leads 

 him to attack Darwin's conclusions. Our 

 author quotes contemporaneous records, known 

 to Darwin but set aside in his time, to show 

 that no elevation took place. Much of the 

 testimony is of a purely negative character. 

 Modern observers are cited to show no existing 

 evidence of the supposed change of level, and 

 Ly ell's admission that the coast appears to 

 have subsided to near its former level is 

 used to make it appear doubtful if there 

 was any uplift whatever. It is suggested 

 that the throwing up of jetsam by a seaquake 

 wave would give all the appearances of an 

 elevated beach which Fitz Roy and Darwin 

 describe. It is further pointed out that Darwin 

 mistook a kitchen-midden for an elevated beach 

 and may have been mistaken in his observa- 

 tions concerning the elevated beaches of 1835. 

 The statement by Darwin that barnacles were 

 found attached to the rocks at the elevation 

 claimed is not considered by Suess. Altogether 

 this section of the work does not convince one 

 that Darwin was mistaken in his belief that the 

 coast was elevated nine feet, however much it 

 may have sunk since 1835. 



Space does not permit a reference to all the 

 questions which Suess discusses. Concerning 

 deep-seated masses of igneous rocks, such as 

 laccolites, it is only necessary to remark that 

 he regards these as coming into the crust under 

 the influence of tangential pressures or as filling 

 cavities produced by the rupture of the crust in 

 the direction of one of its radii. 



In the second part of this volume the author 

 describes the general geology of the country 

 in front (north) of and in the rear (south) of 

 the Alps, defining the foreland as the area to- 

 wards which the mountain-built rocks have been 

 pushed. He shows that the folded strata of the 

 Carpathians have advanced upon the rocks of 

 the 'platform of Russia.' Farther west, in 

 Fi'anconia and Swabia, the country is broken 

 up into fault-blocks, the parts which stand up 

 forming 'horsts.' In the case of the Ries and 

 and Hohgau circular areas of depressed rocks 

 occur as if the crust had there been punched 

 downward. Such areas are supposed to be 

 bounded by several lines of faulting rather 

 than by a single circular fault. 



The direction of the Alpine system is found to 

 be that of a flattened down S, including the Car- 

 pathians, the Alps, the Apennines, Sicily, the 

 Atlas range of northern Africa, the Pillars of 

 Hercules and the mountains of the south coast 

 of Spain. The plateau of Bohemia, the region 

 of the Adriatic and the western Mediterranean 

 are held to be comparable areas characterized 

 by depression. Special chapters are devoted 

 to the evidence of their structural likeness. 

 So much of this evidence is found in the region 

 of the Mediterranean Sea that an essay, one of 

 the most instructive in the work, is devoted to 

 the geological history of this water-body. Its 

 several stages of enlargement and curtailment 

 of area, and the changes of level it has under- 

 gone, with its variations in salinity, are fully 

 treated, together with a synopsis of the several 

 groups of deposits marking its development. 



One of the astonishing results of the author's 

 studies is his conclusion that in the second stage 

 of the Mediterranean its shore-line was from 440 

 to 450 meters above the present sea-level. This 

 stage corresponds in age with the Upper Miocene. 

 The reason Suess assigns for this conclusion is 

 apparently found in the statement (p. 412), 



