January 15, 1892.] 



SCIENCE. 



39 



The two cmslomeiates named above are iJenfcical with tlie 

 Upper and Lower Conglomerates of Professor Safford of Tennessee. 

 They are usually some twenty-five to thirty feet apart, thougli 

 sonretimes separated by a hundred and fifty feet of other strata, 

 and sometimes in direct contact with each other. Tlie lower con- 

 glomerate is usually the harder of the two, and is often called 

 the "Mill-stone Grit." In the north-eastern part of the region the 

 most important coal-bearing beds are below this lower conglom- 

 erate, and have an average thickness of fifty feet, but there are 

 places -where the sub-conglomerate measures have a thickness of 

 seven hundred feet or more, as in parts of Blount County. 



The principal seam of coal in the sub conglomerate measures is 

 the ClifiE Seam, immediately under the lower conglomerate or 

 cliff rock. Its thickness, like that of all these lower coal seams, 

 is extremely variable, ranging from a few inches to five or six 

 feet. Fifteen or twenty feet below the Cliff Seam is the Dade or 

 Eureka Seam, likewise very variable in thickness, passing, within 

 limited areas, from a few inches to twelve or fourteen feet. This 

 great variability in the thickness seems generally to be due to 

 undulations in the strata forming the floor of the beds, though in 

 some cases to variations in the root or cover. While there ai-e 

 two or three other seams below these, the two just named have 

 furnished most of the coal mined in the plateau region, and of this 

 the Cliff Seam has yielded the greater part. Between the two 

 conglomerate? there is another good workable seam, the Sewanee 

 Seam, from two to three feet in thickness. 



While the upper conglomerate forms generally the surface rock 

 over the Plateau Region, there are in many places, and especially 

 as we go south westward, overlying strata with their coal seams, 

 none of which, however, have been worked in this section, but 

 which become more and more important in the direction of the 

 Basin above mentioned, and yielding all the coal there mined. In 

 that direction also the sub-conglomerate coals lose their impor- 

 tance, being mined nowhere in Alabama except in the north- 

 eastern portion of the Plateau Region in Madison, Jackson, and 

 DeKalb Counties. 



In these lower Coal Measures there are, very generally, beds of 

 clay iron-stone (carbonate), and of black band, which may some 

 day come into use. 



Homilies of Science, By De. Padl Caeus. Chicago, Open Court 

 Pub. Co. 13°. $1.50. 



This book consists of articles on various topics in science, re- 

 ligion, and morals, contributed at intervals to the Open Court 

 newspaper, of which Dr. Carus is editor. He tells us in his preface 

 that in early life he intended to be a preacher in the Christian 

 churcb ; his inclination toward the religious life being partly due 

 to his native disposition, and partly, no doubt, to the example of 

 Ms father, who was a doctor of theology and an oflicer in the 

 church of eastern and western Prussia. But his studies led him, 

 as they have led many others in our time, to doubt the truth of 

 many of the Christian doctrines, and ultimately to complete re- 

 ligious and philosophical scepticism. He therefore abandoned his 

 intention of entering the chtjfch, and after a time became a 

 preacher of the new doctrines that he had adopted, the most con- 

 spicuous of which is a blank materialism — a materialism which 

 is not in the least disguised by calling it "monism." But while 

 abandoning all distinctly religious views. Dr. Carus has held fast to 

 the supremacy of the moral law and the need of moral improve- 

 ment in personal and social life, and the earnestness with which he 

 preaches these truths constitutes the main interest of this book. 

 His remarks on God and immortality will be far indeed from 

 pleasing religious minds; but what he says on ethical subjects, 

 though containing nothing particularly new, will find au echo in 

 the hearts of good men of every creed. He is wholly uninfected 

 with the socialistic heresies now so widely prevalent, and he sternly 

 rebukes those free-thinkers who regard morality with indifference, 

 and scoff at its requirements. 



In all that he says about the need of moral improvement and 

 the dignity of man's moral nature, it is needless to say that we 

 cordially agree with him ; but we are by no means prepared to fol- 

 low him in his rejection of all religious belief. We do not believe 

 that the world will abandon theism, though it will undoubtedly 



abandon many of the traditional dogmas of Christianity, if it has 

 not already abandoned them. Nor can we agi-ee with Dr. Carus 

 in thinking that the views set forth in his book are the last word 

 of science and philosophy on religious themes. On the contrary, 

 we regard the present as emphatically an age of ti'ansition in re- 

 ligion and philosophy; and we believe ihat the religion of the 

 future will be quite different from the doctrine of Dr. Carus, 

 widely prevalent as his views undoubtedly are at the present time. 

 But as an example of existing tendencies, as well as by its moral 

 earnestness, this book will interest the reader. 



AMONG THE PUBLISHERS. 

 In St. Nicholas for January Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, favor- 

 ably known as a writer on Japanese subjects, tells of '' Two Queer 

 Cousins of the Crab " — the giant crab and the little mask-crab 

 that carries the impress of a human face upon its shell. 



— John Wiley & Sons have in preparation a work by Simpson 

 Bolland, entitled "The Iron Founder." 



— " It would be a wise and timely move," says Outing for Jan- 

 uary, " to prohibit the sale of grouse of all kinds and quail for, 

 say, a period of at least three years. This would give a fair idea 

 of just how much the market-shooters are responsible for the de- 

 crease of our game, and should so lessen the annual slaughter as 

 to give the birds every chance to increase." 



— Charles Scribner's Sons have now ready "The Real Japan," 

 studies of contemporary Japanese manners, morals, administra- 

 tration, and politics, by Henry Norman, with seventy illustrations 

 from photographs taken by the author; also "The Development 

 of Navies During the Last Half Century," by Captain Eardley- 

 Wilmot, which forms a volume in the Events of Our Own Time 

 Series. 



— Macmillan & Co. will publish in the course of January Mr. 

 Henry Jephson's account of the " Rise and Progress of the Politi- 

 cal Platform." The work is in two volumes, of which the first 

 deals with the long struggle for the rights of public meeting and 

 of free speech during the reigns of George HI. and George IV. 

 The second volume follows the progress of the platform from the 

 agitation for the first reform bill to that which preceded the re- 

 form act of 1884. Mr. Jephson finally treats of the position and 

 power of the platform in the present day. 



— A unique experiment will be tried in the February issue of 

 The Ladies' Home Journal. The entire number has been con- 

 tributed in prose, fiction, and verse by the daughters of famous 

 parentage, as a proof that genius is often hereditary. The work 

 of thirty of these " daughters " will be represented. These will 

 comprise the daughters of Thackeray, Hawthorne, Dickens, James 

 Fenimore Cooper, Horace Greeley, Mr. Gladstone, President Har- 

 rison, William Dean Howells, Senator Ingalls, Dean Bradley of 

 Westminster, Julia Ward Howe, General Sherman, Jeffei'son 

 Davis, and nearly a score of others. Each article, poem, or story 

 printed in this number has been especially written for it, and the 

 whole promises to be a successful result of an idea never before 

 attempted in a magazine. 



— The Quarterly Journal of Economics for January contains an 

 important article by Hon. Carroll D. Wright on the " Evolution 

 of Wag^s Statistics," showing the gradual process by which the 

 statistics of labor have been perfected in the last twenty years, the 

 United States leading the way. S. M. Macvane writes on "Capi- 

 tal and Interest," and H. Bilgram of Philadelphia on " Bohm- 

 Bawerk's Positive Theory of Capital." J. A. Hill makes a careful 

 study of the recent "Prussian Income Tax," and W. B. Shaw 

 presents his annual review of "Social and Economic Legislation 

 by the States in 1891." Various notes and memoranda and the 

 usual careful bibliography for the preceding quarter make up a 

 number having great variety of contents and of interest. 



— The Chautauquan for February presents the following table 

 of contents : The Battle of Monmouth, by John G. Nicolay ; Do- 

 mestic and Social Life of the Colonists, V., by Edward Everett 

 Hale; Trading Companies, II., by John H. Finley; States made 

 from Territories, II., by Professor James Albert Woodburn ; Sun- 

 day Readings, selected by Bishop Vincent; Physical Culture, I., 



