92 GEOGRAPHIC SERIALS 



The book has the attractive air due to the excellent editing, clear typog- 

 raphy, and j)hoto-mechanical illustrating adopted of late by The Mac- 

 millan Company. In matter it is eminently conventional, and in manner 

 of presentation thoroughly conscientious. It must appeal strongly to the 

 honest student of earth-making. In general, the author has abstracted 

 and condensed in admirable fashion the substance of the geologic litera- 

 ture of the last quarter-century ; thus there is nothing of the sensational, 

 and except in vertebrate paleontology little of the novel, between title- 

 page and index. Perhaps the chief weakness of the work — if weakness 

 it can be called — grows out of the author's desire to avoid exti*emes. On 

 mooted points both or all sides are stated judicially, and this even when 

 one interpretation is old or speculative and the other new or more directly 

 observational, so that many of the chapters smack of class-room rather 

 than field. An example will suffice: In discussing the distribution of 

 earthquakes it is noted that "The great earthquakes which shook the 

 Mississippi valley in 1811-'12 are among the very few instances of violent 

 and long-continued shocks in a region far from any volcano," and the 

 obsolete Humboldtian notion of connection with West Indian volcanoes 

 is quoted approvingly, while the notable shocks that have devastated both 

 sides of the Indian peninsula far from volcanoes, though about the deposit- 

 ing grounds of great rivers, and even our own Charleston earthquake — 

 which, through the studies of Dutton, threw more light on seismism than 

 any other recorded in history — ^are ignored ! It is chiefly on the dynamic 

 side, or the side of agency, that the old and the new are thus confused. 

 On the descrix^tive side the chapters are generally up to date, while in 

 paleontology, especially in connection with vertebrate fossils, the work 

 stands in the van of modern knowledge. On this ground alone it will be 

 invaluable to both classes for whom it is designed, since it is the first 

 general work to really vivify fossil skeletons and to compel readers to con- 

 ceive them as of living things. 



The main divisions are (1) Dynamical Geology, (2) Structural Geology, 

 (3) Physiographical Geology, and (4) Historical Geology. The classifica- 

 tion is one of the conventional features suggesting that the author's plat- 

 form is built of planks carefully selected from platforms of a dozen prede- 

 cessors. To escape consequent difficulties an excellent introduction, with 

 a chapter on rock-forming minerals, is prefixed. A useful classification 

 of animals and plants is appended, and the value of the book is multiplied 

 by an excellent index. As is usual in recent works, the author has drawn 

 freely on the common stock of current knowledge, and gives credit to a 

 score of contemporary geologists. W J M. 



GEOGRAPHIC SERIALS 



In " The Journal of School Geography " we welcome a new periodical in 

 the field of geographic literature. This journal, which is addressed par- 

 ticularly to teachers, is edited by Mr R. E. Dodge, Associate Professor of 

 Natural Science in the Teachers College, New York, with, as associates. 

 Prof. W. M. Davis, of Harvard ; C. W. Hayes, of the U. S. Geological 



