Geology and Natural History. 75 



134) : "All the observations made during the investigation 

 point to the conclusion that the division is not carried far enough 

 . . . Little knowledge and less observation are necessary to 

 throw together various homoeomorphous series under any one 

 name. It requires long and careful research to find the bases for 

 proper separation, which is not only much more satisfactory in 

 the end, but gives a better idea of affinities and a far truer pic- 

 ture of the methods of evolution." 



Of species figured there are 265, and of these 79 occur only in 

 India, the remainder being from Europe, and chiefly England. 

 The new forms from Burma total 64, those from Europe 80. 

 None of these results would have been attained had it not been 

 for the work of the geologists of India in burning the hard sandy 

 limestone lenses that occur in a red sandstone-shale series to get 

 out the fossils. They finally succeeded in getting about 1,000 

 specimens, -hard sandstone casts of the interiors. Accordingly, 

 Buckman had to take to burning off the shell of European species 

 in order to have similar material for comparison, and lo ! many a 

 homoeomorph was revealed, because of the varying and unsus- ( 

 pected specific and generic internal structures. The method of' 

 thus treating shells he has described in this Journal (vol. 32, 

 163, 1911, and vol. 33, 593, 1912). A preliminary list of the 

 new genera, with their genotypes, was published in 1914, in a 

 leaflet entitled "Genera of some Jurassic Brachiopoda, " and in 

 the Records of the Geological Survey of India, vol. 45, part 1, 

 75-81, 1915. 



Not a single species is common to Europe and India. There- 

 fore the attainment of the conclusion that the Namyau beds 

 appear to correlate best with the "Bathian near about the Brad- 

 ford clay," i. e., from Great Oolite to Cornbrash (Jurassic), 

 involved this detailed morpho genetic study, and it was abund- 

 antly worth while. It left Buckman, however, with the belief 

 "that the study of the European species from the point of view 

 of morphogeny is very much in arrear, that the number of species 

 which appear in literature is but a small proportion of a large 

 total, that the knowledge of those which have been illustrated is 

 gravely deficient on account of the lack of internal details, and 

 that little advance can be made until all species have been repub- 

 lished with full information of their internal characters — a long 

 task, but one absolutely essential" (p. 136). 



The kindergarten days of brachiopod knowledge are now gone, 

 and all future workers with these organisms, if they are to be 

 leaders, will have to be specialists, as has long been the case with 

 the students of ammonites. Doctor Buckman is to be congratu- 

 lated on having the courage, and the patience, to take a long step 

 in this direction. c. s. 



2. Systematische Petrographie auf genetischer Grundlage; 

 Band 1: Das System; by W. Hommel. Pp. 174, with 5 plates 

 and 5 text figures. Berlin, 1919 (Gebriider Borntraeger). — 



