Davis — Framework of the Earth. 227 



fers fundamentally from the most advanced and most 

 voluminous text-books of geology; they proceed syste- 

 matically through accounts of the constitutents which make 

 up the crust, of the processes by which the crust is modi- 

 fied, of the formations which the processes have pro- 

 duced in historical sequence, and of the organic records 

 therein preserved. The author of "Das Antlitz der 

 Erde" began where even the greatest of the text books 

 end; and with the expertness attainable only by the 

 long-continued application of a powerful intellect to a 

 great subject, compressed into his treatise a masterful 

 account of the external anatomy of our planet. His vol- 

 umes are at once so profound and so comprehensive that 

 their pages can be fully appreciated only by geological 

 experts of wide training. Among these the present 

 writer does not venture to range himself; for while the 

 conclusions which Suess reached are of much interest and 

 importance to geographers as well as to geologists, a 

 geographer cannot, even if he has the needed prepara- 

 tion, take the time required for the thorough reading and 

 digestion of all the analytical and synthetic pages in 

 which Suess 's conclusions are set forth; although like 

 more devoted students of the great work, he must admire 

 the profusion of learning and the breadth of treatment 

 that the many pages represent. 



Every reader of these volumes must be impressed with 

 the vast accumulation of good material upon which they 

 are based; an accumulation that is certainly creditable 

 to geological science. Naturally enough, it is not com- 

 plete. Observations in certain regions are still insuf- 

 ficient to serve as the basis for safe generalization; for 

 example, large parts of the Andes are frankly left over 

 for future discussion in the absence of competent records 

 now available. No one can realize these deficiencies so 

 fully as the masterful author must have done while pur- 

 suing his researches. Nevertheless the great number of 

 well-certified records already published regarding the 

 larger part of the continents suffices to reveal the main 

 structural elements of the earth's framework; and this 

 is truly gratifying for a science that is but little over a 

 century old. Hutton's " Theory of the Earth, " Play- 

 fair's "Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory," and 

 William Smith's "Strata Identified by Organized Fos- 

 sils" are famous British examples of the beginnings of 



