Geology. 245 



SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 



I. Geology. 



1. Explorations in Turkestan with an account of The Basin 

 of Eastern Persia and Sistan. Expedition of 1903, under the 

 direction of Raphael Pumpelly. 4to, 324 pp., 6 pis., 174 figs in 

 text. Washington, D. C. (Published by the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion of Washington. Publication No. 26. April 1905.)— This 

 publication contains the following five papers: Archeological and 

 Physico-Geographical Reconnaissance in Turkestan by Raphael 

 Pumpelly ; A Journey across Turkestan by William M. Davis ; 

 Physiographic Observations between the Syr Darya and Lake 

 Kara Kul, on the Pamir, 1903, by Raphael W. Pumpelly ; A 

 Geologic and Physiographic Reconnaissance in Central Turkes- 

 tan, by Ellsworth Huntington ; The Basin of Eastern Persian 

 and Sistan, by Ellsworth Huntington. 



Professor Pumpelly states in the introduction that "At the 

 end of 1902 the Carnegie Institution voted a grant to me 

 'for the purpose of making, during the year 1903, prelimi- 

 nary examination of the Trans-Caspian region, and of collecting 

 and arranging all available existing information necessary in 

 organizing the further investigation of the past and present 

 physico-geographical conditions and archeological remains of the 

 region.' 



"The investigation was proposed because (1) there is a school 

 that still holds the belief that central Asia is the region in which 

 the great civilizations of the far East and of the West had 

 their origins ; and (2) because of the supposed occurrence in that 

 region, in prehistoric times, of great changes in climate, result- 

 ing in the formation and recession of an extensive Asian Medi- 

 terranean, of which the Aral, Caspian, and Black seas are the 

 principal remnants. 



" It had long seemed to me that a study of Central Asian arche- 

 ology would probably yield important evidence in the genealogy 

 of the great civilizations and of several, at least, of the dominant 

 races, and that a parallel study of the traces of physical changes 

 during Quaternary time might show some coincidence between 

 the phases of social evolution and the changes in environment ; 

 further, that it might be possible to correlate the physical and 

 human records and thus furnish a contribution to the time scale 

 of recent geology. 



" At my request Professor William M. Davis assumed charge 

 of the physico-geographical part of the preliminary reconnais- 

 sance." 



In concluding he remarks that " We have shown that the 

 recent physical history of the region is legibly recorded in glacial 

 sculpture and moraines, in orogenic movements, in valley cutting 

 and terracing, in lake expansions, and in the building up of the 



