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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 517. 



of nautical journals, the logs of Nearehus and 

 Androsthenes — Alexander's admirals — portions 

 of which have fortunately survived for 2,200 

 years.* All these ancient documents are re- 

 markable for their absolute fidelity to nature, 

 the accuracy of Theophrastus's descriptions 

 leaving little room, for doubt that this keen 

 observer personally accompanied the famous 

 expedition. 



Notwithstanding the earlier commentaries 

 of Scaliger, certain difiiculties peculiar to 

 Aristotelian writers have rendered Theophras- 

 tus largely unintelligible to modern students. 

 These hindrances are partly of formal nature, 

 partly due to the exceedingly colloquial style 

 of description employed, and in still larger 

 measure to the absence of illustrations and of 

 a definite nomenclature. All the more gratify- 

 ing is it, therefore, to find that most of the 

 obscurities vanish before the penetrating 

 analysis of philology, the original meaning 

 becoming once more revealed like a restored 

 palimpsest. The practical value of these re- 

 searches consists in their disclosure of a 

 means for identifying many of the species 

 mentioned by Alexandrian botanists, which in 

 turn provides us with important data in re- 

 gard to plant distribution at a period more 

 than two thousand years distant, together 

 with changes in climatal and geographical 

 conditions. Mention might" also be made in 

 this connection of Lenz's ' Botanik der alten 

 Griechen und Eomer' (Gotha, 1859), and of 

 his ' Zoologie ' (1856). A more popular re- 

 cent work is Watkins's ' Gleanings from the 

 Natural History of the Ancients (London, 

 1885). 



WHAT IS A BRICK? 



A BRICK is a rock. So a geologist has told 

 us. Construction bricks, gold bricks, coal 



* Theophrastus availed himself of both of these 

 itineraries in the preparation of his treatise, as 

 did also Strabo, Pliny and later writers. The 

 narrative of Nearehus owes its preservation chiefly 

 to Arrian, historian of the Macedonian invasion. 

 Several English translations of the text are ex- 

 tant, and the points at which the fleet touched 

 have been determined by Tomasehek and others. 

 Copious notes on these and other ancient itiner- 

 . aries are given in M'Crindle's ' Ancient India as 

 described in Classical Literature' (1901). 



briquettes — possibly even ice cream bricks — 

 all are rocks. Moreover, they belong to 

 particular kinds of rocks. Careful investiga- 

 tions into the nature of ' bricks, plaster, con- 

 crete, cement and all other rocks which receive 

 their characteristic features through man's 

 agency ' have enabled a writer in the Ameri- 

 can Geologist (33, p. 228, 1904) to dispel all 

 doubt in the matter. 



Among the clarifying conclusions reached 

 by this purist we note that burnt bricks, as 

 material, must be considered as asthobalic 

 bioclastics.' Sun-dried bricks, plaster and 

 cement fall harmoniously into the system as 

 ' biolutytes ' ; concretes are ' biorudytes,' their 

 texture being ' rudaceous ' ; and impure clay 

 rocks, from which brick material is derived, 

 are ' siliceous or calcareous anemoargillutytes.' 

 As for the pure anemoclastics (sic), these are 

 separated into ' anemosilicarenytes ' and ' ane- 

 mocalcarenytes ' as easily as falling off a log. 

 The whole scheme is adorably simple, and 

 simply ■ adorable — to all such as prefer new 

 and pedantic terms to common English ex- 

 pressions. 



"With becoming modesty the author suggests 

 that ' the compound terms here given may be 

 found useful in descriptive writing, especially 

 as they are almost self-explanatory.' That the 

 word almost may cover a multitude of sins is 

 apparent from the fact that over a score of 

 pages are consumed in explaining these mel- 

 lifluous compounds. It is a satisfaction to 

 find ourselves at one with the author in his 

 concluding observation, to the effect that 

 ' stratigraphers will scarcely need terms more 

 precise than those here given.' 



LITHOPHAGI. 



Homer and Herodotus have immortalized 

 the Lotophagi, Alexander's historians the Ich- 

 thyophagi ; and it has been reserved for Dr. S. 

 "W". "Williston (Science, No. 513) to leave 'not 

 a shadow of doubt ' that plesiosaurs belonged 

 to the Lithophagi. Evidence of collectors 

 seems to be convincing that pebbles were ac- 

 tually swallowed by plesiosaurs in large quan- 

 tities; but we are inclined to think that even 

 Swift's 'bold man that first eat an oyster' 



