274 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1025 



tific museum or natural-history museum dare 

 attempt, for a children's museum is for chil- 

 dren rather than for nature or art. 



Free organ recitals are given twice a week 

 at the Museum of Science and Art in Glas- 

 gow, and these recitals have had a direct 

 effect in increasing the sale of good music in 

 competition with poor music. The Bulletin 

 of the John Herron Art Institute in Indian- 

 apolis announces a musical program for Sun- 

 day afternoons in January. There may be 

 other museums of science or art that have 

 undertaken something similar. 



There might be other kinds of museums 

 than those in which people get benefit only 

 through their eyes. Most of us have four 

 other senses, hearing, feeling, tasting and 

 smelling. I am not sure that I would as yet 

 advocate a museum of odors, but a museum of 

 sound might be not only interesting, but 

 valuable. It might start with a victor-victrola. 

 The records might include not only samples 

 of the best music of the world by the world's 

 great artists, but samples of the music of 

 various kinds of instruments, of various kinds 

 of mankind, as for instance, of the Negro, the 

 Eskimo and the Chinaman, and of great ora- 

 tory. On the other hand, there might be 

 records for the city dweller who has never had 

 a chance to hear such things as the lowing 

 kine, the rattle of the rattlesnake, the yelp of 

 the coyote, the songs of birds, rare or other- 

 wise, the hum of a swarm of bees, the roar of 

 the waves, the jingle of the chains of a wagon 

 freight train, and the creak of ox carts. Bird 

 songs are probably of as much interest to 

 museum visitors as bird skins. Such a mu- 

 seum would probably be as attractive to the 

 average citizen as a flower-garden or an art 

 museum is to the European immigrants, who 

 throng our great museums on Sundays and 

 holidays to the noticeable shame of the lack 

 of appreciation of many of the American born, 

 who prefer a different recreation. It would 

 be a great boon to some humble lovers of 

 music to have a chance to hear, free of charge, 

 examples of classical and the best modern 

 music. 



Hahlan I. Smith 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



The Quaternary Ice Age. By W. B. Wmght, 

 member of the Geological Survey of Ire- 

 land. Illustrated. London and New York, 

 Macmillan and Company. 1914. Pp. xxiv 

 and 464. Price $5.00. 



The volume is opened by brief discussions 

 (46 pp.) of glaciers and ice sheets and the 

 glacial drift. Then follow in succession the 

 glacial and associated features of the British 

 Isles (56 pp.), the glaciation of the Alps 

 (31 pp.), of northern Europe (25 pp.) and of 

 North America (15 pp.), attention being given 

 in each case to centers of ice dispersion and to 

 general characteristics of the drift with more 

 or less attention to relative amounts of 

 weathering and erosion. The lakes of the 

 great basin of the western United States are 

 given a chapter of 23 pages. Then follow dis- 

 cussions of the loess (24 pp.), of the Quater- 

 nary Mammals (30 pp.), and of Quaternary 

 Man (42 pp.). Two chapters, 33 pages, deal 

 with theories of the Ice Age, and the insuffi- 

 ciency of any and all is declared. Four 

 chapters, 101 pages, are devoted to the late 

 Quaternary oscillations of level (interpreted 

 in the light of the isostatic theory) in Eenno- 

 Scania, in the British Isles, and in North 

 America. Following this and concluding the 

 work are brief remarks on post-Glacial 

 changes of climate in northwest Europe, on 

 attempts at correlation of glacial drifts in 

 the several fields, on the cause of loess deposi- 

 tion, on coincidence of present and preglacial 

 sea level, and on low sea level during the 

 Glacial Period with its effect on the Medi- 

 terranean and Straits of Gibraltar. The press 

 work is good and the photographic illustra- 

 tions excellent. 



The author states in the preface that this 

 volume was written because there is no general 

 work in English to guide the geologist to 

 the glacial literature and give him a grasp 

 of the leading features of the subject. Yet 

 no bibliography of the literature is appended 

 and in only a few cases is full reference made 

 to other writers. The author has seen, as yet, 

 insufficient evidence in his study of the drifts 



