126 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 240 



not ; right or left handedness ; the number of hours of sleep and 

 the time of going to bed ; whether dreams are frequent, sleep is 

 deep, and so on. 



The pathological section aims to record any serious diseases, and 

 especially of the nervous system, through which the person has 

 passed ; the disease of which he died, if the record is of a deceased 

 person ; the number and sex of his children, and the periods of 

 their birth ; the occurrence of congenital defects, and whether they 

 were transmitted to the offspring, and so on. The moral charac- 

 teristics are more difficult to describe : the plan here followed is to 

 give the recorder the choice between opposite epithets, and at times 

 to include a neutral group. Is the temper of the subject of inquiry 

 joyous, sad, or changeable ; calm, or violent ? Is he independent in his 

 opinions, or easily led by others ? Is he vain, or modest ; remarkably 

 truth-loving, or weak in this respect ; credulous, or suspecting ; selfish, 

 or generous ; harsh, or gentle ; timid in society, or bold ; aggressive in 

 his opinions, or mild .' Has he any special talent for music, poetry, 

 the fine arts, science, etc. ? Has he pronounced religious sentiments ? 

 Is he active, regular in his habits, or sluggish and fitful .' Is he in- 

 tellectually inclined, miserly, or spendthrifty, materialistic, or not ? 

 Such is the range of inquiry included in this scheme. The intel- 

 lectual traits are of a similar nature. The maximum of intellectual 

 work, the manner of working, the nature of the occupations ; the 

 strength of the attention, of his logical powers, of his imagina- 

 tion, of his insight, of his memory (and in particular of memory for 

 forms, places, dates, numbers, names, tunes, prose, or verse), of his 

 generalizing power, his classifying talents, and the scope of his mental 

 tension ; the soundness of his judgment, the ease of speech, the 

 degree of precocity — these form the last of the group of questions. 

 Throughout, any characteristic specially hereditary, either from the 

 parents to the subject of the description, from the latter to his chil- 

 dren, or in a collateral branch of the family, is to be especially noted 

 as such. 



To accurately fill out such a blank is by no means an easy 

 matter ; it is only of one's most intimate friends (one's family and 

 kindred) that any thing Uke a complete list can be hoped for. The 

 society does well in asking that where no definite answer is possible 

 the question should be left unanswered ; they do not want mere 

 guesses, or phrases that say nothing. M. de Candolle, who has 

 been influential in arranging this list, is much at home in this field 

 of research ; and in his seventy-ninth year states that there are 

 thirty-one persons about whom he would be willing to draw up 

 such records. This is an unusual number, and the average scien- 

 tific observer is doing well if he can furnish ten such records. But 

 even at this rate the society has good opportunities of contributing 

 a valuable addendum to our information on the heredity of mental 

 traits. It would be easy to criticise many points in the arrange- 

 ment of the questions, and point out omissions and ambiguities, 

 but the main point is the manner in which such answers are used : 

 after the results of this inquiry are published, such criticism will be 

 serviceable in making the next inquiry more thorough and valuable 

 than this. 



Recent writers have called attention to the important step in 

 human evolution that occurs when the principles of development 

 pass from the stage of being unconsciously intuited and uncertainly 

 followed, to the stage when they are explicity expressed and pur- 

 posely aided. If, as many believe, the future of the race is largely 

 in our hands, the knowledge that such researches as those here 

 noticed will furnish, must form the groundwork on which conscious 

 and scientifically-conducted advance will be based. 



The Duck's Brain. — It is well known that the destruction of 

 the cerebral hemispheres of a bird's brain reduces the animal to a 

 mere automaton. While the functions are all capable of action, all 

 spontaneity is gone. It is a ' sleep without dreams.' M. Ch. 

 Richet has recently called attention to the change in these appear- 

 ances when on\y a po?'h'on of the cerebrum is injured. He uses 

 ducks because the division of their brain is more distinct and the 

 animal less liable to fatal injury by the operation than in pigeons. 

 Only such animals are included in the observation as have recov- 

 ered from the injuries of the operation. In order to detect the ab- 

 sence of a function as a result of the cerebral lesion, one must 

 know the normal functions of the duck. In the language of the 

 duck, M. Richet detects six cries, associated with pain or fright, with 



being separated from a companion, with the recognition of a com- 

 panion, with joy, with taking food, and with being chased by a 

 dog. Add to this the actions occurring in attracting one an- 

 other and the list is about complete. M. Richet finds that a duck 

 whose cerebrum is partly destroyed acts exactly as a normal duck : 

 an accurate observer could probably not tell which is which. The 

 only difference that was found is this : when a normal duck is 

 driven into a corner, it tries to escape by going to the side of the 

 pursuer ; a duck with an injured cerebrum huddles against the 

 wall, and makes no such attempt. M. Richet thinks that this 

 method of escape is really the only intelligent act a duck performs, 

 and that the injury of the cerebrum has thus impaired the highest 

 function ; all the rest of a duck's actions are almost entirely auto- 

 matic, and are performed by lower centres. The experiments ac- 

 cent the importance of correlating the effect of a lesion with the 

 normal intelligence of the animal acted upon. 



BOOK -REVIEWS. 



On the Relation of the Laramie Molluscan Fauna to that of the 

 Succeeding Fresh- Water Eoce7ie atid other Groups. By 

 Charles A. White. (U. S. Geol. Surv., Bull. No. 34.) 

 Washington, Government. 8°. 



Although it is not distinctly indicated in the title, this is really 

 an important contribution to Eocene paleontology. Twenty-six 

 invertebrate species from the Wasatch group, or lowest division of 

 the fresh-water Eocene beds of Utah, are described and figured. 

 The stratigraphic and geographic range of each species is pre- 

 sented in a table, which Dr. White has made the basis of some im- 

 portant conclusions concerning the relations of the Cretaceous, 

 Laramie, and Eocene strata. 



The intimate stratigraphical relation of the Laramie group to the 

 marine Cretaceous series beneath it has been recognized by every 

 field geologist who has studied those strata, and it is this fact, in 

 addition to the discovery of dinosaurian remains in the Laramie, 

 that has led them to range that group as a member of the Cretaceous 

 series. While there seems no reason to doubt that sedimentation 

 was continuous, not only through the marine Cretaceous series, 

 but also from that series into and through the Laramie, it is true 

 that there was at the beginning of the Laramie period a compara- 

 tively sudden change in the character of the previously existing 

 molluscan fauna over the whole area which was then occupied by 

 the Laramie waters ; that is, at a certain horizon in the unbroken 

 succession of strata there is an abrupt disappearance of all dis- 

 tinctively marine forms, and an equally abrupt accession of brackish- 

 water and fresh-water forms which continue through the whole 

 Laramie group. 



On the other hand, similar evidence of continuous sedimentation 

 from the Laramie into the Wasatch group has not hitherto been 

 publicly announced. And wherever later strata have been discov- 

 ered resting upon those of the Laramie group they have been found 

 to be free from all fossil forms which can be reasonably referred to 

 even a slightly saline habitat, while the Laramie strata contain 

 many brackish-water forms throughout their vertical range. 



But Dr. White has been able to show that such unconformities as 

 exist between the Laramie and Wasatch groups are local and un- 

 important. And, starting with the hope that, although the physical 

 changes attending the deposition of the last of the Laramie beds 

 resulted in the extinction of all the brackish-water moUusca of that 

 group, certain of the fresh-water species would yet be found to 

 have continued their existence into the Wasatch epoch, he has 

 proved that this is actually the case. 



In other words, we seem to have conclusive proof that there is a 

 complete and unbroken stratigraphical series in that western re- 

 gion, extending from the Middle Cretaceous to the top of the 

 Eocene, and aggregating nearly or quite two miles in thickness. A 

 remarkable fact connected with the production of this great series is 

 that, while sedimentation was evidently not materially interrupted in 

 at least a large part of the area within which those deposits are now 

 found, the aqueous life was changed first from that of a purely 

 marine character to that of alternating brackish and fresh waters, 

 and finally to that of a purely fresh-water character ; that is, the 

 waters in which this series of strata were deposited were first 



