May 26, 1893.] 



SCIENCE. 



291 



joining the botanists in the development of an accurate nomen- 

 clature. For while some sneer at nomenclature as a trivial mat- 

 ter and of no importance, it must be remembered that nomen- 

 clature is the expression of ideas, and ideas are of much import- 

 ance. Conway MacMillan. 

 UulversUy of Minnesota. 



Photographs of Scientific Men. 



A NOTE in your recent issue having to do with a request for 

 the photographs of American botanists suggests that an appeal 

 made through the columns of Science is likely to aid a collection 

 made by myself. Some six or seven years ago, finding great 

 difficulty in procuring tlie portraits of American scientists, I be- 

 gan gathering the photographs of the members of the National 

 Academy of Science, and last year deposited in the Smithsonian 

 Institution a collection of mounted portraits (with mounted auto- 

 graph letters) of every member of our academy save two. This 

 collection forms part, I believe, of the exhibit of the Smithsonian 

 Institution at the Chicago Columbian Exhibition. Tlie two por- 

 traits which are needed to make the set entirely complete are 

 those of John Henry Alexander (1812-1867) of St. James College, 

 Maryland, and later of the U. S. Coast Survey, and Jonathan 

 Homer Lane (1819-1880), long connected with the U. S. Coast 

 Survey and the U. S. Patent Office. I should be glad to obtain 

 photographs of the two scientists or to make arrangements for 

 the copying of any likeness of them known to exist. 



Marcus Benjamin. 



640 Madison Avenue, New York City, Jiay 18, 1803. 



The Palaeolithic Man in Ohio. 



In the second number of The Journal of Oeology, Mr. Wm. H. 

 Holmes has resumed his polemic against the evidence of the ex- 

 istence of palasolithic man in North America with a long article 

 upon '' Traces of Glacial Man in Ohio." Like his previous article 

 upon the Trenton finds, this, too, is characterized by the kind of 

 reasoning, which a correspondent of Science has called the argu- 

 ment ad ignorantiam, i. e., because he has failed to find palaeo- 

 lithic implements in a certain locality, therefore no one else has 

 ever found them there. The present article, however, exhibits 

 also a striking example of what might be called " the argument 

 by monopoly." Mr. Holmes produces two fanciful cuts to show 

 how the top of a gravel pit might have slid down so as to bury 

 Indian relics coming from the surface; but he cannot see any 

 sense in Professor Wright's preparing a plate to show precisely 

 wliere in the same gravel-pit Mr. Mills actually foundjthe object 

 in dispute. 



But tlie great difficulty about Mr. Holmes's discussion of Ibis 

 subject is that he has no correct appreciation of what a palaso- 

 lithic implement really looks like. This is not to be wondered 

 at when we reflect that his studies in "archaeology" have been 

 limited to investigations of the subject of "native art." He 

 says " close analogies of form between Indian rejects and some 

 varieties of European palasolithic objects are too common to per- 

 mit the attachment of much value to this feature of this or any 

 other similar find." Accordingly he proceeds to prepare a plate 

 containing, besides the object discovered by Mr. Mills, of which 

 he gives as good a copy as he can have made, four unfinished 

 Indian celts found by him fifty miles away. Of these objects he 

 says, "they correspond very closely in material and appearance 

 with the New Comerstown specimen, as will be apparent from an 

 examination of the plate. The figures are presented without 

 identification in order that the student may, by an effort to dis- 

 tinguish them, convince himself of the similarity of the supposed 

 paleolith to the quarry-shop rejects of the region." 



Now I undertake to assert that any competent student of pre- 

 historic archeeology who has studied the subject in the Old 

 World, where palaeolithic implements have been found in large 

 numbers, will have no difficulty in discriminating upon Mr. 

 Holmes's plate between the true palaeolithic implement and the 

 four unfinished Indian celts placed beside it. All plates, how- 

 ever, fail to give a fair representation of solid objects like these, 

 from the necessity of the case. They must be handled to be 



understood. The four unfinished celts resemble those previously 

 figured by Mr. Holmes in describing the objects he discovered 

 near Washington, where I have myself found similar objects 

 several years ago. I repeat here, what I have said in another 

 place, '• no trained archaeologist would hesitate for a moment to 

 pronounce that the objects figured in the article entitled 'A 

 Quarry Workshop' (American Anthropologist, Vol. III., plate 4) 

 do not bear the slightest resemblance to real palseolithio imple- 

 ments," 



I conclude this note with what I have already urged to the 

 readers of Science, that "only a jury of the acknowledged pre- 

 historic archaeologists of the world is competent to pronounce 

 judgment upon this question." Henry W. Haynes. 



Boston, May 13, 1893. 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



Mineral Resources of the United States. 1891. By David T. 

 Day. Washington, D. C, Department of the Interior, 

 Government Printing Office. 1893. 630 p. 



It is somewhat unfortunate that these volumes cannot be more 

 promptly ijroduced, the late date of their issue impairing mate- 

 rially the value of the statistics contained. But in spite of this 

 they are always welcome, and together — the present volume being 

 the eighth in the series — they form a valuable component of every 

 library. The arrangement is the same as in previous issues, and 

 we find the familiar names of Birkinbine, Kirchoff, Weeks, 

 Parker, aind others under their respective specialties. Mr. Par- 

 ker's statistical article on coal is exhaustive, occupying nearly 

 300 pages in all, and is supplemented by the articles on coke, 

 petroleum, and natural gas by Mr. J. D. Weeks. Mr. Wm. C. 

 Day continues his paper on stone from the "Resources" for 

 1889-90. An admirable and much-needed division appears upon 

 the clay materials of the United States, written by Mr. Robert T 

 Hill, and as this is in some respects the feature of the present 

 volume an outline may not be out of place. Beginning with de- 

 scriptive remarks, Mr. Hill passes on to the commercial classifica- 

 tion, the origin and natural classification, residual or rock 

 kaolins, and sedimentary or bedded clays. The sedimentary 

 clays of the geological formations are given in natural sequence. 

 The accessory minerals used in the clay industries are described 

 and then the occurrence of clay materials by States. 



Other interesting articles are those on natural and artificial ce- 

 ments, by Spencer B. Newberry, both descriptive and statistical, 

 on precious stones by the expert, Mr. Geo. F. Kunz, and Mr. 

 Packard's descriptive article on aluminum, the last including 

 several pages on bauxite, with analyses and a sketch of the 

 development in the South. Alabama, Georgia, and Arkansas 

 are mentioned as containing the mineral, but Tennessee with its 

 good promise, Virginia, and North and South Carolina are not 

 spoken of. 



An unfortunate slip of the binder has placed pages 49-C4 inclu- 

 sive between pages 33 and 33, but in other respects the book is all 

 that can be wished for. C. P. 



William. Oilbert of Colchester, On the Loadstone and Magnetic 

 Bodies. A translation by P. Fleury Mottelay. New York, 

 John Wiley & Sons. 

 A RATHER acrimonious discussion between Professor S. P. 

 Thompson and Messrs. Wiley & Sons has attracted even more 

 attention to this book than it would otherwise have received. It 

 will be remembered that the Gilbert Club was formed in England 

 a few years ago, and that one of the objects of their existence 

 was the publication by subscription of Gilbert's works. Professor 

 Thompson was one of the committee on publication, and the 

 matter seems to have been left mostly to him. From various 

 causes, one of which was possibly the fact that the latter is trans- 

 lating and editing a number of books on his own account, the 

 publication of the Gilbert Club has been delayed. Previous to 

 the determination of the club to undertake the publication of 

 Gilbert's work, Mr. Mottelay had been seized with the same idea, 

 and, as neither he nor his publishers were in any way infringing 

 on the rights of the Gilbert Club, the work has recently been 



