362 GEOGRAPHIC LITER A TURE 



ascent, while exceedingly arduous, was made under most favor- 

 able conditions and many very fine photographs were secured. 

 The expedition of the Mazamas to the summit of Mount Rai- 

 nier — so long looked forward to — was made in the last week of 

 July, but of the large number of persons wlio started from Ta- 

 coma only a few reached the summit, and the lamentable death 

 of Professor Edgar McClure, who fell over a precipice during the 

 night of July 27-28, cast a gloom over the entire subsequent 

 proceedings. Professor McClure, who occupied the chair of 

 chemistry in the Oregon State University, was an experienced 

 mountain-climber, having scaled all the principal peaks of the 

 Cascade range. A valuable article from his pen on the Altitude 

 of Mount Adams, Washington, appeared in the April, 1896, 

 number of this magazine. J. H. 



GEOGRAPHIC LITERATURE 



The Founders of Geology. By Sir Archibald Geikie. Pp. x + 297. Lon- 

 don and New York : Macniillan and Company. 1897. |2.00. 

 " Had the study of the earth bei^run in the New World instead of the 

 Old, geology would unquestionably have made a more rapid advance 

 than it has done. The future progress of the science may be expected to 

 be largely directed and quickened by discoveries made in America, and 

 by deductions from the clear evidence presented on that continent." 

 Thus writes Sir Archibald Geikie, easily the foremost geologist of Great 

 Britain if not of Europe, in his preface ; and American geographers and 

 geologists cannot fail to be gratified by this appreciative expression con- 

 cerning their opportunities and their work. In the half dozen succeed- 

 ing chapters or "lectures," the kindly promise of the preface is fulfilled, 

 but with little further reference to the western hemisphere. It 



is singular that although geology is next to the youngest among the 

 sciences, no competent student has sought hitherto to write the record of 

 its growth; Lyell, indeed, made some essay in this direction, and our 

 own Marsh has taken up one aspect of the subject, but neither of these 

 masters professed to make his work both comprehensive and exhaustive. 

 Now comes Sir Archibald, with unprecedented facilities, with the com- 

 mendable desire of tracing without prejudice those efforts which con- 

 tributed most materially to the making of the science, and with a dispo- 

 sition to assign due meed of credit to every "founder." The task is 

 delicate and difficult, involving lai'ge reading, firm grasp of the science, 

 warm sympathy for pioneering even when of the crudest, and judicial 

 ability of a high order; yet it is done with such signal skill, with such 

 boldness and fairness, that the little book at once takes rank among the. 

 classics of science. Beginning with the cosmogonists. Sir Archi- 



bald soon passes to the naturalists ; and his review is specially noteworthy 



