192 Recent Literature. [ March, 
Why increase cares and anxiety? Why not let things move along 
as best they may? WHAT IS THE USE 
We fear that a feeling of apathy may fall upon the stronger and 
more zealous teachers, as it has already seized upon the average 
teacher, and is always found with the idle, careless, or incompe- 
tent ones. 
:0:—— 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
Dana’s MANUAL OF GEOLOGY, THIRD EDITION. —The merits of 
this work as a school-book are well known, and in the present 
edition they are decidedly enhanced. Thisis partly due to the in- 
troduction of the latest determinations in stratigraphic geology in 
the West. We observe with pleasure that Prof. Dana has ad- 
hered with impartial justice to the law of priority in the nomen- 
clature of the formations of the interior of the continent, in spite 
of the attempts made by some writers to introduce names of their 
ings, especially of those representing some of Prof. Marsh's dis- 
coveries in the West. It is true the author might have derived 
some aid from other sources, especially as regards the skull ot 
Coryphodon, of which he gives a figure which is quite inaccurate. 
We cannot speak in as high terms of the manner in which the 
palzontology of Vertebrata is represented in the new edition of 
the manual. It displays little acquaintance with what has been 
done in this field in North America since 1872, and that includes 
three-fourths of the entire subject. Thus the greater part of all the 
principal modern discoveries in the Permian, Triassic, Postcre- 
taceous, Suessonian and Pliocene faunz are not alluded to, while 
not a few of those in the Jurassic and Suessonian formations are 
attributed to other than the original discoverers. The nomencla- 
ture employed is that of the vertebrate paleontological papers 
published in the Asnerican Fournal of Science'and Arts, which is 
notoriously regardless of the rule that names must be ‘only pro- 
posed to represent work done, and may not be proposed to secure 
credit for work yet zo de done. It is discouraging to the student to 
be expected to remembér names which cannot be used either be- 
cause they are synonymes or do not refer to necessary descrip- 
tions. 
THE Rervrarion or DarwinisM2—This book is an excellent 
dHastetion if one were needed, of the futility of persons writing 
on the question of evolution who are not themselves experts in 
1 Manual of Geology, etc., with especial eyes to American Geological History. 
New York, Ivison, Blakema n. ter or & Co., 1880. 
2 The Refutation as Darwinism, Sagal prey converse theory of Develo, vp based ex- 
clusively upon Darw A i Soe net By T. WARREN O’ NEILL, member of the Phila- 
delphia Bar. J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1880. ; 
