124 The American Naturalist. [February, 



Duration of Niagara Falls and History of the Great 

 Lakes. 4 — This work contains the researches of the author which have 

 been published in America and Europe, on the Origin of the Great 

 Lake Basins; Changes of Continental Altitudes; Deformation of 

 Beaches ; Glacial Dams ; Births of Lakes Ontari6, Erie, Huron, etc. ; 

 Changes of River Courses; and the Hi. -Tory and ! Miration of Niagara 

 Falls. It is one of the most important works on geological science that 

 has been produced in this or any other country as an original research. 

 It furnishes a standard of estimation of postglacial history for this con- 

 tinent, which must always be referred to in all questions relating to the 

 antiquity of man, as well as those rel distribution 



of land and water. 



The text is fully illustrated with maps, section drawings, etc. One 

 of the fine page plates which accompany the work is a reproduction 

 from a camera obscura drawing made by Henry Ransford in 1832, the 

 oldest accurate picture of the Falls known to the author.- 



The author estimates that the period which has elapsed since the 

 falls were at Lake Ontario amounts to 32000 vears. 



Korean Games. 5 — In pursuance of a theory that games must be 

 regarded as survivals from primitive conditions, under which they 

 originated in magical rites and chiefly as a means of divination. Mr. 

 Stewart Culin has made an extensive study of the games of Korea. 

 He finds that there were two principal systems of divination in Eastern 

 Asia from which games arose, in both of which the arrow or its substi- 

 tute was employed as the implement of magic. Of the 97 games de- 

 scribed in his book, 23 are directly connected with some such use of the 

 arrow. A large number of the other games described consist of ath- 

 letic sports ceremonially practiced in the sacred pavilions of Korea, and 

 like the divatory tugofwar, still retain traces of their primeval divina- 

 tory character. 



The illustrations are almost entirely by native artists, and they 

 give the book a value altogether unique. They comprise 22 col- 

 ored plates and 135 figures in the text. The subject is a very curious 

 one, and as treated by Mr. Culin, it becomes an important guide to the 

 history of human migrations and human thought. 



at Lakes. By J. 



