108 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 577. 



And more the look of stars dissolved it wears. 

 Volumes of heat, from its prodigious stores, 

 To endless space, it never ceasing pours. 

 Formless and void it seems, and yet it holds 

 A coming world within its hazy folds. 

 A sun lies spread within its depths and heights; 

 Planets are there, and all their satellites. 

 But still as yet they lie confused. and blent. 

 Like starry dust, lost in the firmament. 



A fine reproduction of the Spiral Nebula in 

 Canes Venatici made at the Lick Observatory 

 faces the second page of the book, and then, 

 celestial parturition having taken place. 



Loosed now are all the planets on their Avays; 

 Each with its burden of collected haze 

 To run a destined course; and left alone 

 Spins the main core, a glowing central sun. 



Here moves our planet, sun-held as the rest, — 

 Our mother Earth; but on her molten breast 

 No life as yet can dwell; and should the clouds, 

 Which gird her round with wind-swept vapour 



shroud, 

 Condense and pour their rains, no solid floor 

 Has she as yet on which to hold their store. 



The birth of unicellular life, when at last 

 the seas are formed, is told, and in. rapid suc- 

 cession the development from age to age of 

 the floras and faunas of the successive geologic 

 periods is depicted. The mutations of the 

 surface of the earth and the emergence and 

 subsidence of the land masses, particularly 

 those of Europe, are sketched, and the strange 

 forms of vegetable and animal life are por- 

 trayed, as the great drama of development 

 proceeds, issuing at last in the appearance of 

 man upon the scene. 



As an example of the manner of treatment 

 employed by the author in delineating the 

 main facts as to the animal life of the past, 

 the following lines, culled from that part of 

 the fourth canto which deals with the Jurassic 

 age, may be quoted: 



Great dinosaurs, like those of earlier days. 

 Still haunt Europa's woods and waterways; 

 And hold their own through all these Jura times, 

 In spite of lands wiped out, and changing climes. 



Whilst through Europa's land these monsters 

 range. 

 Upon Columbia's scenes are forms as strange. 

 Here himbers Stegosaurus on his fours. 

 With high-arclied back, a king of dinosaurs. 



But forms surpassing Stegosaurs are seen. 

 In point of size, and of as wierd a mien. 

 Some here there are that look like plesiosaurs 

 With elephantine legs, as on all fours they creep 

 along, 



and reference is then made to ' knobbed Cera- 

 tosaurs,' ' necky Brontosaurs ' and ' those long 

 yards of life, Diplodooi.' 



The illustrations of the book are particu- 

 larly handsome, and represent the latest views 

 of paleontologists of reputation. It would be 

 invidious to draw comparisons, but the writer 

 of these lines can not fail to express his pleas- 

 ure at the rather spirited drawing by Miss 

 Alice B. Woodward representing a Diplo- 

 docus, a beast with the bones of which the 

 reviewer possesses considerable familiarity. 

 Miss Woodward's sketches of Moeritheria, 

 Palwomastodon, and Arsinoitherium are re- 

 markably fine. There is great animation in 

 her drawings, and she has profited to some 

 extent, no doubt, by having at her elbow her 

 father, one of the most honored and distin- 

 guished of living paleontologists, and his col- 

 league Dr. C. W. Andrews, whose paleonto- 

 logical researches have given him a world- 

 wide reputation. Very meritorious are also 

 some of the drawings of Smit, which are based 

 upon the work of the well-known American 

 delineator, Charles K. Knight. The repro- 

 duction of the water-color sketch of ' A Frozen 

 Sea ' from the brush of Mr. E. A. Wilson, who 

 has recently returned from the Antarctic 

 voyage of the Discovery is appropriately in- 

 serted in that part of the poem which deals 

 with the glacial epoch. 



Upon the whole the book is most interesting 

 and suggestive, and is one of the most enter- 

 taining contributions to popular literature 

 dealing with paleontology and the doctrine of 

 evokition which has recently appeared. 



W. J. Holland. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



NEW YORK STATE SCIENCE TEACHERS' 

 ASSOCIATION. 



The tenth annual meeting of this body was 

 held at Syracuse, December 27-29. The offi- 

 cers for 1905 were: 



