Apbil 29, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



669 



Appendix B lie furthermore makes an exami- 

 nation of Antarctic disturbances from Oc- 

 tober, 1902, to March, 1903, simultaneous with 

 those discussed by Professor Kr. Birkeland in 

 Vol. I. of " The Norwegian Aurora Polaris 

 Expedition 1902-3." While he finds corre- 

 spondences, his examination also discloses cer- 

 tain disagreements from the effects predicted 

 by Birkeland, thus showing the directions in 

 which the latter's theory requires amplifica- 

 tion. 



It is a pity that a work of such importance 

 as the volume before us should not be better 

 indexed or at least better arranged so that one 

 could readily turn to any desired topic. A 

 more liberal introduction of subsections, sub- 

 divisions, etc., would have been helpful. In 

 the mathematical analysis it might have been 

 better also to have followed a notation now 

 commonly in use. 



L. A. Bauer 



Traits de Geographie Physique. Par E. de 



Martonne. Paris, Armand Colin. 1909. 



The present book is divided into five main 

 parts: Notions generales, Climat, Hydro- 

 graphie. Belief du Sol and Biogeographie. 

 The reviewer does not propose to discuss the 

 whole voluminous work, but restricts himself 

 to the last part, the biogeographical, and a 

 special chapter (chapter VIII.) of the fourth, 

 namely, that on paleogeography. 



A general treatise on biogeography is a 

 hazardous undertaking at the present time; 

 the science of the geographical distribution 

 of the life upon the earth has undergone, 

 during the last two decennia, such a revolu- 

 tion, and is still progressing at such a rapid 

 rate, with much to be yet investigated, that 

 we can not expect to be able to obtain a gen- 

 eral view of the present state of our knowl- 

 edge, which could be embodied as something 

 final in a text-book. 



M. de Martonne has fully realized this fact, 

 and has avoided certain difficulties with great 

 skill. In fact, he does not give a complete 

 treatise of the science of biogeography accord- 

 ing to the pattern, as laid down, for instance, 

 by Wallace, and his book is by no means a 



compendium of distributional facts brought 

 into a more or less satisfactory scheme; in- 

 stead of this, he gives the general principles 

 and laws, which govern the distribution of 

 organisms, drawing from these the inferences 

 with regard to the different groups of the 

 latter, and illustrating them by selected 

 examples. 



Thus his treatment of biogeography is 

 chiefly an account of the relations of the 

 organic world to the physical conditions pre- 

 vailing upon the earth, and might be called a 

 general " Ecology." Three of the chapters 

 (I., II. and IV.) are principally devoted to 

 this side. For the rest, he discusses the dis- 

 tribution of plants and animals from this 

 standpoint, dividing them into ecological 

 classes, for which he gives the distribution 

 upon the earth. He avoids by this, for in- 

 stance by treating the different marine and 

 terrestrial groups of animals separately, the 

 difficulty of the association of creatures with 

 different " habitats " into one scheme, which 

 was the chief stumbling block of the older 

 zoogeographers. 



A very good illustration of the consequences 

 of the author's method is seen in the map he 

 gives for the distribution of the continental 

 faunas (Fig. 390, on p. 852). This map dif- 

 fers greatly from the usual maps given for the 

 distribution of land animals, but it is very 

 well to keep in mind that it is not intended 

 to represent the actual distribution of any 

 animal, but is drawn to express, so to speak, 

 the possihilities of animal distribution with 

 relation to the distribution of the factors con- 

 trolling the various types of animal life, in 

 fact, it is an ecological map of the continents. 

 For the reality of the divisions laid down upon 

 this map examples are introduced, but, of 

 course, only a limited space could be reserved 

 for them. 



The author insists that these relations of 

 the organic world to their environment are 

 of prime importance for the distribution of 

 life upon the earth, and in this he certainly 

 is right. But he also admits that the geo- 

 graphic history of the earth plays an essential 

 part in this question. 27ie historical develop- 



