318 Scientific Intelligence. 



exist not only would it have to originate and evolve into some- 

 thing higher than primordial forms under atmospheric conditions 

 incompatible with life as we know it, but that the conditions of 

 temperature would likewise appear to preclude such a view. 

 While our knowledge of lunar temperatures has been in times 

 past very imperfect, it may be well to quote Professor Very's* 

 more recent and carefully ascertained results. "In conclusion, it 

 seems to me reasonably certain that a large part of the Moon 

 experiences daily great vicissitudes of temperature. Its rocky 

 surface at midday, in latitudes where the sun is high is probably 

 hotter than boiling water; and only the most terrible of Earth's 

 deserts, where the burning sands blister the skin, and men, beasts, 

 and birds drop dead, can approach a noontide on the cloudless 

 surface of our satellite. Only the extreme polar latitudes of the 

 moon can have an endurable temperature by day to say nothing 

 of the night, when we should have to become troglodytes to pre- 

 serve ourselves from such intense cold." 



Although as Professor Very remarks, the noontide tempera- 

 ture may be lower and the life conditions in that regard possibly 

 more favorable than if the moon possessed an atmosphere com- 

 parable to our own in density, scientists in general and biologists 

 in particular will be loath to accept a belief in life of any sort 

 upon the moon until at least all other and inorganic hypotheses 

 have been exhausted. 



It is regretable that when a scientific volume is put forth for a 

 public who are not specialists, that such doubtful interpretations 

 should be stated as though they were well established and well 

 accepted scientific truths. 



The plates show in a systematic manner all visible portions of 

 the moon's surface under five different degrees of illumination, 

 on a scale of 5 // =l mm , giving a lunar diameter varying from 14 to 

 16 inches. As pointed out on p. 97, this is the only complete 

 photographic atlas of the moon in existence, and not only so but 

 it covers the whole visible surface of the moon five times. As 

 the scale is rather small, however, the plates are chiefly useful 

 in studying general features of the moon. 



2. Cretaceous Deposits of the Pacific Coast ; by Frank M. 

 Anderson. Vol II, No. 1, 3d Series, California Academy of 

 Sciences, 146 pp., 12 pis. — The Cretaceous deposits of the Pacific 

 Coast of North America lie within a narrow continental border 

 mainly to the west of the Great Basin and the northern Cordillera. 

 Southward the only deposits of the Pacific province known are 

 isolated ones in Mexico and Chili. In the description of these 

 beds there are given for the first time in a connected account the 

 essential faunal and physiographic facts. The divisions recog- 

 nized in the Sacramento Basin are : 



(1) The Knoxville horizon, several thousand feet in thickness 

 and extending to the upper limit of known species of Aucellas, 



* The Probable Range of Temperature on the Moon, The Astrophysical 

 Journal, vol. viii, Dec, '98, p. 286. 



i 



