60 GEOGRAPHIC LITERA TURE 



it is adapted to youth and because it fills a need not quite met by any 

 previously issued text-book. 



After an introductory chapter the work is divided into three parts, viz., 

 (1) Structural geology, (2) Dynamic geology, and (3) Stratigraphic geol- 

 ogy. Professor Tarr half apologizes in his preface for the space given to 

 the second of these divisions ; but he might well have spared the expla- 

 nation and even doubled this eminently practical and useful part of the 

 treatise. The third " part" might better have been divided in name, as 

 it is in fact, into paleontology, or the history of life on the globe, and the 

 geographic development of the continents ; for the treatment is essen- 

 tially historical and not at all stratigraphic. Then it would have been 

 in accord with the general method of the book, whicli is the emphasis of 

 the actual and the near, to give relatively more space to the life of the 

 later ages ; also, and more especially, to explain the earlier stages in 

 geographic development of North America in terms of the later stages. 

 Unfortunately these later stages, which are in themselves of great inter- 

 est and are now well understood, receive but little attention. The chief 

 imperfections in the work lie in incompleteness of the treatment from 

 the point of view of the geographer, and are due to the fact that it is a 

 complement to the same author's " Elementary Physical Geography." 

 In the main, the facts and principles of geology are well generalized and 

 happily expressed. W J M. 



The Lessons of Erosion Due to Forest Destruction. Chart. The U. S. Depai-t- 

 ment of Agriculture. Washington, 1896. 

 A pai-t of the exhibit made by the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture at the International and Cotton States Exposition held in Atlanta 

 during the autumn of 1895 was a series of three models representing (1) 

 the soil destruction consequent on the removal of forests, (2) the processes 

 required for reclamation in the same tract, and (3) the same tract as re- 

 claimed and restored to pristine fertility and productiveness. These 

 models were carefully executed by Howell, under the direction of Bern- 

 hard E. Fernow, Chief of the Forestry division, with the co-operation of 

 several geologists, particularly W J McGee. These models attracted 

 much attention, and their exhibition in the region in which old-field 

 erosion is particularly active was undoubtedly productive of much good. 

 Recently the features of the models have been reproduced by chromo- 

 lithography in the form of a large wall-chart, for distribution among 

 agriculturists and others. The reproduction, unhappily, is not equal to 

 the models in accuracj^ of representation, and will hardly be serviceable 

 for educational purposes save in a single direction, viz., in attracting at- 

 tention to a subject of. great economic importance in many parts of the 

 country. W J M. 



Preliminary Report on the Income Account of Railways in the United States for 

 the Year ending June 30, 1896. Interstate Commerce Commission. 

 Pp. 68. Washington, 1896. Prepared by the Statistician to the Com- 

 mission. 

 During the fiscal year 1895-96 the railways of the United States, having 



an operated mileage of 172,369 miles of line, earned in gross $1 ,123,646,562. 



