800 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 490. 



The obvious interest of the foregoing letter 

 is in its testimony that the writers were keenly 

 alert as to transformism at this early date 

 (1796), and that they had even marked out 

 an important line of inquiry — comparison of 

 old world species with new world species, and 

 a study of the variation of those forms which 

 had been introduced and allowed to run wild 

 for a considerable period, possibly a hundred 

 years. In other words, they are seeking ' a 

 more exact knowledge on the nature of the 

 species and even of the species in general.' 

 And they clearly assume the importance of 

 evolution, when they aim to measure the 

 amount of change (degeneration) which trans- 

 plantation has caused in the economy of 

 mammals. Especially conspicuous is the im- 

 portance which is apparently attributed to the 

 BufEonian factor : ' we also desire some species 

 of quadrupeds from your climates' " It is 

 incredible what variety these animals offer to 

 the attentive eye." There is even a crude 

 notion of parallelism in the remark that 

 ' many analogous forms are taken for species.' 

 Noteworthy also is their interest in the paleon- 

 tological evidence, for the bones from salt 

 licks are expected to yield important evidence 

 as to ' the theory of the earth.' And we may 

 conclude that Lamarck had evidently his 

 Hydrogeologie (1802) as well as transformism 

 in mind in his search for evidences as to dis- 

 tinctness of species widely separated geo- 

 graphically when he theorizes as to the ancient 

 outlines of continents, and maintains that no 

 species of the ancient continent exist in the 

 new. 



The present paper, moreover, narrows the 

 probability that Lamarck borrowed his trans- 

 formism from Doctor Darwin. For Lamarck 

 is not known to have had evolutional tend- 

 encies before about 1799, and it has accord- 

 ingly been stated that the Zoonomia (1794) 

 was the slowly working cause of his con- 

 version. By the present evidence, moreover, 

 he was enterprisingly investigating the nature 

 and variability of species, as early as the 

 spring of 1796, i. e., less than two years after 

 the publication of Darwin's work, and possibly 

 before it was circulated abroad. Indeed, even 

 in England there is little reference to it be- 



fore 1798, and Paley's attack upon Darwinism 

 did not appear till 1802. Of certain interest 

 is the literary partnership of Lamarck and 

 Geoffrey in philosophical matters at this early 

 date. Geoffroy was then but twenty-four 

 years of age, and this is, as far as I am aware, 

 the earliest record of his interest in the origin 

 of species. It antedates by several years his 

 studies on the mummied fauna of Egypt; and 

 we may naturally query whether he may not 

 already have had in mind to test the possibil- 

 ities of variation by comparison of the early 

 and late ' productions ' of the valley of the Nile 

 before Napoleon had laid his plans for an 

 actual invasion? Bashford Dean. 



Columbia University. 



the nature of the pelee tower. 

 The recent publication of a note by Pro- 

 fessor Lacroix (Comptes Bendus, March 20, 

 1904) on the production of quartziferous rocks 

 in the course of the actual eruption of Mont 

 Pelee, and the stated conclusion arrived at by 

 the distinguished French geologist that rocks 

 of this character (and by analogy, other 

 igneous rocks of more clearly marked figure, 

 such as microgranulite and even true granite) 

 may be formed superficially and do not re- 

 quire in their construction deep-seated pres- 

 sure — conditions which have long since been 

 recognized, even if the processes of formation 

 had not before been observed — afford, perhaps, 

 a sufficient reason for me to state my belief 

 that the giant obelisk of rock, which at the 

 time of its greatest development, the close of 

 May of last year, towered out of the crateral 

 opening of the volcano to a height of nearly 

 1,000 feet (and, had there been no summit, 

 breakages would probably have risen a full 

 thousand feet higher), had not the structure 

 that was assigned to it by Lacroix — namely, 

 that it represented an exceedingly viscous 

 acidic lava which solidified immediately on its 

 extrusion and rose vertically under volcanic 

 stress instead of flowing off in the manner 

 of the normal lava-streams. This seemingly 

 simple explanation of one of the most remark- 

 able structural forms of the earth's surface 

 has apparently been accepted by most geolog- 

 ists, and my own earlier studies led me to the 

 same conclusion. A later critical examina- 



