146 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVlll. Xo. 448. 



by Lord Kelvin was evidently not selected 

 by him as specially appropriate or illum- 

 inating, but merely iised as part of a well- 

 known phrase or quotation. It is clear 

 that what our chief meant was that the 

 formation of a crystal, and such like, pro- 

 ceeded in accordance with the unsupple- 

 mented laws of ordinary mechanics ; where- 

 as the formation of an animal or plant 

 seemed controlled by something additional 

 —viz., the presence of a guiding principle 

 or life-germ, the nature of which neither 

 I nor any other physicist in the least un- 

 derstands. I shall be surprised if biol- 

 ogists claim that they really understand 

 it either. 



It is true that Loi-.d Kelvin employed 

 the popular phrase 'creative power'— a 

 phrase I should not myself use, because I 

 am unable to define it— and in other re- 

 spects his wording was more appropriate 

 to a speech than to a philosophic essay, but 

 nevertheless his speech as reported had all 

 the usual subjective interest attaching to 

 the freely-spoken personal convictions of a 

 great man, attained as the outcome of a 

 lifelong study of various aspects of nature. 



As to the little parting shot at me about 

 'telepathy,' it is true that I regard it as a 

 recently discovered fact, opening a new 

 and obscure chapter in science; it is also 

 ti'ue that Lord Kelvin, Professor Ray Lan- 

 kester and nearly all biologists disagree 

 contemptuously with this opinion. Well, 

 we shall see. Die Zeit ist unendlich lang. 

 Tours faithfully, 



Oliver Lodge. 



The TJNiVERSiTir of Birmingham, 

 May 19, 1903. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 Reports of the Princeton University Expedi- 

 tions to Patagonia, 1896-1899 ; I. — Narra- 

 tive and Geography. By J. B. Hatcher. 

 Princeton, The University. 1903. 4to. 

 Pp. xvi + 314 ; plates and map. 

 From the rather meager remains of verte- 



brates collected on the renowned voyage of 

 the Beagle and turned over to Richard Owen 

 by Darwin for study, paleontologists were first 

 made aware of what has proved to be prac- 

 tically a new world of animal life which, 

 though for the most part now extinct, was, 

 within times geologically recent, extremely 

 rich. 



The novelty and wealth of this extinct 

 fauna were fairly indicated by the discoveries 

 of Fitzroy and Darwin, but the interest then 

 aroused went little further until about 1887, 

 when Senor Carlos Ameghino accompanied 

 an expedition to southern Patagonia and 

 began that series of discoveries which has 

 since made him, and his brother Florentino, 

 famous. The new world brought to light by 

 them was totally unlike anything previously 

 known among vertebrate faunas either living 

 or fossil, and aroused the interest of paleon- 

 tologists, geologists and zoologists everywhere. 



Incidentally to the work of describing and 

 classifying these remarkable remains certain 

 hypotheses were advanced by the brothers 

 Ameghino which concerned the relations of 

 these fossil animals to those of the northern 

 hemisphere, and the age assigned to the strata 

 in which the fossils were found. These hy- 

 potheses were not generally accepted, and for 

 some time it has been regarded as most de- 

 sirable that an examination of the geology 

 should be made by experts trained in other 

 fields. This it was thought would harmonize 

 the conditions revealed by observation in 

 Patagonia with the results of expert work 

 elsewhere, and clear up the confusion which 

 seemed to have arisen in regard to the age 

 and succession of the Patagonian strata. 



It was for this purpose that Mr. Hatcher 

 organized and carried out the explorations 

 described in this volume, while he was curator 

 of vertebrate paleontology for the university. 

 Their primary object was to make observa- 

 tions and collections bearing on the geology 

 and paleontology of the region, while such 

 attention as circumstances allowed was from 

 time to time directed to other branches of 

 natural history. The cordial and effective 

 cooperation of Professor W. B. Scott, head of 

 the department of geology and paleontology. 



