238 Davis — Framework of the Earth. 



names, the location of which had doubtless become famil- 

 iar to the erudite author by long study ; they must become 

 similarly familiar to the student-reader before he can 

 fully acquire Suess's meaning; for of what avail are 

 Simferopol, Hierlatz, Matchin, Dobrogea, and Theodosia, 

 which occur on one single page, and Tummo, Tassili, 

 Azdjer, Mouydir, Issaouan, Temassinnin, Ahnet, Gou- 

 rara, Tin'ret, and Homra, which occur on another, so 

 long as their relative positions are unknown. Evidently 

 if the spacial relations of the formations and structures 

 here described are to be correctly visualized all these 

 place names must be looked up and identified on maps. 



It is the same with names of fossils, such as Ceritium 

 concinnum, Proto rotifer a, Ostrea longirostris, and with 

 names of rocks, such as ophrite, tonalite, tephrite, and 

 stronalite, and with the names of formations such as 

 Lutetien, Rhetien, Hercynian, and Westphalien; for all 

 these words are likely, from whatever language they may 

 be derived, to be Greek to most students, unless the 

 reading of the text in which they are so plentifully strewn 

 is interrupted long enough to learn their real signifi- 

 cance ; and significance they surely have, otherwise they 

 would not be introduced. But after their significance is 

 learned by patient plodding, the student will do well to 

 present to his associates a general statement of the 

 matters at issue, and to omit from this statement as 

 many local and technical names as possible. 



A winter's campaign of the kind here suggested would 

 surely profit those who carried it through ; but it is not 

 as a text-book for even the most advanced university 

 classes that "La Face de la Terre" best serves. The 

 book is a compendium of earth structure for the use of 

 mature geologists ; it represents the most advanced line 

 of professional research, from which a general forward 

 movement by experts the world over should be made 

 upon regions not yet occupied. The study of its learned 

 pages will inspire the exploring geologist to new efforts. 

 The Andes, for example, as already said, remain incom- 

 pletely treated for lack of records. How impatiently must 

 we older workers wait for the results of new researches 

 there by our younger colleagues of whatever nation ! How 

 welcome would be a research fund, administered nation- 

 ally or internationally, from which support could be given 

 to well equipped and well-directed geological enterprise 



