596 



SCIEWGE, 



[Vol. IX., No. 228 



lent of the Oneida, the horizon to which Mather 

 referred it forty years ago, the limestone being 

 clearly of lower Helderberg age, while the slates 

 are shown to belong to the Hamilton group. The 

 Medina, Oriskany, and corniferous groups are also 

 recognized here, and the entire thickness of this 

 great outlier is estimated at 2,750 feet. 



Perhaps no formation in this country, equally 

 simple in origin and structure, has provoked so 

 much discussion as the triassic of the Atlantic sea- 

 board. The principal problems which it presents, 

 it is well known, are the monoclinal dips of the 

 strata, and their exact relations to the associated 

 masses of trap. As regards the first, geologists 

 are now pretty generally satisfied that the uniform 

 inclination of the beds is not due to their original 

 deposition on a sloping surface, but to faulting or 

 some "similar subsequent disturbance. But, while 

 the studies of Prof. W. M. Davis on the triassic of 

 the Connecticut valley have greatly strengthened 

 the view that the trap sheets of that region are 

 mainly contemporaneous lava-flows, regularly in- 

 terstratified with the sandstones, Professor Cook 

 is unable to accept this explanation for the trap 

 ranges of New Jersey, holding that they are main- 

 ly intrusive and subsequent to both the deposition 

 and disturbance of the sandstone. It is satisfac- 

 tory, however, to observe that both observers are 

 obliged to qualify the expressions of their views 

 by using the word ' mainly,' which really makes 

 the difference one of degree only ; and it may 

 very well be that the trap is more generally intru- 

 sive in the one field than in the other, or the ex- 

 posures of the trap may be more favorable for 

 showing its intrusive aspect in New Jersey and its 

 contemporaneous aspect in New England. 



The surface geology is described under the heads 

 of ' glacial drift ' and ' yellow gravel.' The former 

 characterizes the surface of the northern quarter 

 of the state, and the latter of the southern three- 

 quarters. The problems of the age and origin of 

 the yellow gravel are discussed at some length, 

 but not satisfactorily solved. 



The concluding chapters on economic geology 

 treat of the iron and zinc mines, the cretaceous 

 and tertiary marl-beds, water-supply, and drainage. 



CHALLENGER REPORT. 

 Theee enormous volumes, aggregating over 

 eighteen hundred pages and one hundred and 

 forty plates, represent the contribution of the 

 Challenger expedition to the scientific knowledge 

 of this attractive group. The reporter. Prof. E. 

 Haeckel of Jena, has devoted some ten years to 



Report of the scientific results of the exploring voyage of 

 the Challenger. Vol. xviii. : Radiolaria. London, Govern- 

 ment. 4°. 



the study of the collection, and his work forms 

 the largest single report of the whole series. 



The Challenger expedition found Radiolaria 

 universally distributed throughout the ocean, and 

 their skeletons nearly equally wide-spread over its 

 bottom ; their relative abundance and species dif- 

 fering in different localities, and these differences 

 being correlated with some of the most interesting 

 a ad intricate problems of general oceanography. 

 It was fortunate, as observed by Dr. Murray, that 

 so distinguished a naturalist should have been 

 willing to undertake a task so laborious and 

 lengthy as the examination of the thousands of 

 minute forms obtained by the Challenger. Pro- 

 fessor Haeckel, as will be seen by the most cur- 

 sory examination of the plates, was extremely 

 fortunate in having the co-operation of Mr. Adolf 

 Giltsch, who made all the drawings of the sixteen 

 hundred new ' species ' figured for the report. 



The Radiolaria are marine rhizopods, whose uni- 

 cellular body always consists of two parts, — an 

 outer calymma, which has no nucleus and from 

 which the pseudopodia extend ; and, separated 

 from this by a membrane, an inner capsule with 

 one or more nuclei, serving as the special organ of 

 reproduction and general organic centre. Diges- 

 tion and relations with the outer world in general 

 are attended to by the calymma, and the distin- 

 guishing feature of the class is fui-nished by the 

 constant capsule-membrane separating the two lay- 

 ers. The radiolarians are usually furnished with 

 a skeleton which presents the greatest beauty and 

 utmost variety of form, and is generally com- 

 posed of silica, or, in certain cases (Acantharia), of 

 an organic substance called ' acanthin.' The in- 

 dividuals are usually single : in only a small mi- 

 nority are the unicellular organisms united in 

 colonies or caenobia. 



A systematic catalogue, which forms the ter- 

 mination of the work, and includes all the Radio- 

 laria known up to 1884, contains twenty 'orders,' 

 eighty-five ' families,' seven hundred and thirty- 

 nine ' genera,' and four thousand three hundred 

 and eighteen 'species,' It is hardly necessary to 

 say that these groups have no such value in terms 

 of organization as those in common use by sys- 

 tematists for higher groups of animals. Professor 

 Haeckel's attitude toward systematic biology is 

 analogous to that of an anarchist toward the civil 

 law, and, like that, if adopted by. all naturalists, 

 would be likely to result in an indefinite number 

 of individual despotisms. The multiplication of 

 names and groups, apart from their value in rela- 

 tion to other organisms, is pretty well justified by 

 the enormous number of differentiable forms de- 

 scribed. It is more than probable, also, in the 

 absence of discriminative natural selection operat- 



