472 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 403. 



ginning at the left, Cliateaubelair island, strait 

 and point, and the same repeated. The is- 

 land in the middle of this illustration is com- 

 posed of Chateaubelair point on the left and 

 Chateaubelair island on the right.* 



There are some statements in the article 

 which would not have been made by the au- 

 thor had he spent more time in the study of 

 the volcanoes which he was sent by the Na- 

 tional Geographic Society to investigate as a 

 scientist. 



It seems to the writer that Mx. Borchgre- 

 vinls should explain such very inaccurate state- 

 ments as those cited regarding four important 

 illustrations accompanying his article. These 

 corrections are particularly important at the 

 present time, because Mr.Borchgrevink is now 

 trying to raise funds for another expedition to 

 the Antarctic regions and the public should 

 be satisfied as to the scientific accuracy of 

 one who desires to undertake such enter- 

 prises. 



The writer feels qualified to make the pre- 

 ceding criticisms because he spent nearly 

 seven weeks on Martinique and St. Vincent 

 stiidying the phenomena of these eruptions. 

 Edmund Otis Hovey. 



American Museum of Natural History. 



patagonian geology. 



In a recent publication,t F. Ameghino gives 

 again a new table of the geological succession 

 of the different Cretaceous and Tertiary beds 

 found in Argentina. This scheme differs from 

 those published by him previously in several 

 respects, but, as in all his former publications, 

 he fails to give any evidence whatever for the 

 succession of the respective beds, and thus this 

 new scheme has only the same negative value 

 as all the previotis ones. 



Moreover, in some respects, the present 

 scheme is entirely opposed to some of the ob- 



* Compare this picture with the second one on 

 page 790 of September Century Magazine. 



t Ameghino, F., ' Cuadro Sinoptico de las for- 

 maciones sedimentarias, Terciarias y Cretileeas de 

 la Argentina an relacion con el desarrollo y descen- 

 denia de los Mamlferos,' Anales del Mus. Nac. de 

 Buenos Aires, vol. 8, 1902, pp. 1-12. 



servations made by J. B. Hatcher* in southern 

 Patagonia, and the results obtained by the 

 present writer in studying the Tertiary inver- 

 tebrates collected by Hatcher.f 



This discrepancy is most evident in Ame- 

 ghino's conception of the so-called Patagonian 

 formation, which is regarded by Hatcher and 

 the present writer as a geological and paleon- 

 tological unit of marine beds, while Ameghino 

 divides it into no less than six marine hori- 

 zons, which, in part, correspond to four conti- 

 nental horizons. 



The general trend of our demonstration that 

 Ameghino's divisions are untenable, is that 

 the so-called characteristic fossils of the latter 

 do not actually characterize them, but are 

 found associated in the same layers. 



It may be said that the fact that some of 

 the characteristic fossils are fotmd in more 

 than one of Ameghino's horizons does not al- 

 ter the general character of difference of the 

 various faunas. But I wish to emphasize here 

 that I have shown this not for some or a few 

 of the 'characteristic' species, but for prac- 

 tically all of them. The few exceptions are 

 formed by comparatively rare species which 

 are altogether unfit to be used for the dis- 

 crimination of horizons (see Ortmann, I. c, p. 

 284). 



But it is not only the lack of all evidence 

 for his views that we have to complain of in 

 Ameghino's paper, but it is the way in which 

 he treats some of the deposits that have been 

 closely investigated by us, by adding to and 

 taking away from the evidence given by us. 



I shall mention only the most striking in- 

 stances. 



The Cape Pairweather beds are placed by 

 Ameghino, in his table, in the Lower Pliocene, 

 between the Lower Tehuelche and the Ensena- 

 dense beds. He says of the fauna of these de- 

 posits that it contains 50 per cent, extinct mol- 

 lusks, and gives the following characteristic 

 fossils: Ostrea ferrarisi, Chlamys (Pecten) 

 actinodes, Turritella innotahilis, Trophon in- 

 ornatus, etc. 



* See Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. 4, 1897, pp. 327-3.54, 

 and ibid., vol. 9, 1900, pp. 85-108. 



t ' Rep. Princeton Univers. Exped. Patagonia,' 

 vol. 4, part 2, 1902. 



