H. R. Hoicorth—Tho Loess. 353 



was a thin bed of clayey matter mixed with organic materials, from 

 a few inches to a foot or more in thickness, lying on the bottom, 

 and on the top of the Loess deposit. This clayey matter was 

 probably deposited there before the waters finally retired from the 

 old lake bed in which this soil originated" [id. pp. 270 and 271). 



How is it possible to account for such sheets of water under the 

 arid conditions absolutely required by Baron Eichthofen's fierce 

 winds and steppe climate ? The fact is, whichever way we approach 

 the problem, it seems to me that Baron Eichthofen's theory not only 

 fails to explain the facts, but is completely at issue with them. 

 His great name may give the theory a certain ephemeral importance, 

 but it will not bear the test of close criticism when we leave the 

 realms of general hypotheses, and come down to the grim, awkward, 

 tyrannical region of facts, and when we have turned it over in every 

 way with one result, we confess to feeling that there is some temerity 

 in its author speaking of the expose he has given in your pages as 

 refuting without any further discussion arguments which are not 

 even touched. 



Having said so much about the Baron's theory, I must now turn to 

 the justification of my own, which he characterizes with scant 

 courtesy as " views which could be pronounced at an early and 

 rather low stage of geological science, but are long since abandoned," 

 " suppositions which bear the character of the infancy of that science," 

 and of which he says again that he does not believe that any geolo- 

 gist will seriously take the trouble to argue against. I must at 

 once disabuse him of this view. If he had seen the letters on my 

 table from those whose reputation is not less than his own, he would 

 not have used these phrases, which are rather characteristic of the 

 amenities of scientific controversy of a former day. I can assure Baron 

 Eichthofen that, whatever the value of the views, they have certainly 

 secured the attention and received the approval of those whose 

 judgment I respect, and that they will need to be met by some 

 stronger arguments than those he has so far used. 



When it seemed clear to me that the Loess could not be explained 

 as a marine, lacustrine or fluviatile deposit, and that Baron Eichthofen's 

 view was equally inadmissible, it was necessary to frame some new 

 theory which would meet the facts. These were an explanation of 

 the origin of the Loess, and secondly of its distribution. In regard 

 to its origin, I suggested that it seemed to have great analogies with 

 the Moya or volcanic mud that is thrown out in certain volcanic 

 districts, and that its calcareous ingredients seemed to point to 

 a subterranean origin. Baron Eichthofen says dogmatically that 

 the Loess diifers completely in composition and structure from 

 all known kinds of volcanic mud, ancient or modern. This is a 

 strong assertion, and if it be indisputable, it goes some way to 

 discount what I have said. Now it is very strange that a few 

 weeks after my papers on the Loess were printed, I received a letter 

 from Professor Aughey, of Nebraska, calling my attention to the 

 important fact that in Nebraska, where the Loess is developed 

 on the largest scale of any district in America, it is found in close 



DECADE II. — VOL. IX. NO. VIII. 23 



