232 Recent Literature. [ April, 
To sum up, then, in brief: It is proposed to ascend a well- 
known and practicable channel to an equally well-known point 
where exploring parties have previously wintered, and there 
form a colony. From the post so formed no time will be spent 
in needless quests along the shore either east or west, as surveys 
there have already been completed; but starting afresh, the 
point of our beginning being the closing point of former expedi- 
tions, with all the information of our forerunners to commence 
with, better provisioned, equipped, and disciplined, with better 
means of intercommunication, thoroughly acclimated, and with- 
out the refuge of the ship to paralyze energy and sow the seeds 
of discontent and slothfulness. In other words: to use alike the 
partial successes and the partial failures of others, added to the 
utmost foresight, experience, and scientific aids to form the ful- 
crum of the Archimedean lever which shall move the Arctic 
world. 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
WALLACE’S GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION or ANIMALS — Ål- 
though a complete work on this subject by a single writer — and the one 
under consideration applies, as the author intended it should, almost ex- 
clusively to land animals of a comparatively few orders — would in the 
present state of our knowledge be an impossibility, we know of no one, 
next to Mr. Darwin, who is better fitted for the task, by training both in 
the field and in the study, than Mr. Wallace. The work is comprehensive 
in scope and apparently accurate in details, while the subject is pre- 
sented in the attractive, clear style of the distinguished author of the 
Malay Archipelago and the Contributions to the Theory of Natural 
Selection. It is written, as it should mainly be, in the light of the recent 
uniformitarian views in geology and the theory of evolution, though with 
occasional disregard of zoégeographical laws laid down by Humboldt, 
Brown, Schouw, Schmarda, Decandolle, Agassiz, Dana, and others whose 
names are not even mentioned in the work before us, no historical 
sketch of the subject being presented, an omission of considerable 1m- 
rtance. 
The work is divided into four parts: I. The Principles and General 
Phenomena of Distribution. II. On the Distribution of Extinct Ani- 
mals. III. Zoölogical Geography ; a Review of the Chief Forms of Hr 
in the Several Regions and Sub-Regions, with the Indications they afford 
1 The Geographical Distribution of Animals. -With a Study of the Relations of Livwg 
and Extinct Faunas as elucidating the Past Changes of the Earth's Surface. BY oes 
FRED Russet WaLiace. In two vols. With Maps and Illustrations. New York : 
Harper & Brothers. 1876. 8vo, pp. 503, 607. $10.00. 
