January 16, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



43 



in the discussions which followed its presenta- 

 tion to the joint committee. 



In a recent number of the Indian gazette, 

 Dr. Klein, who, with Dr. Gibbes, is now in In- 

 dia investigating the cholera, attempts to throw 

 fresh discredit upon the theory of the specific 

 nature of the comma bacillus of cholera. The 

 grounds for. his objections are these. He ex- 

 amined three houses in Calcutta where there 

 had been a severe outbreak of cholera in No- 

 vember. He found the water-supply of all of 

 them good. Per contra, at some distance 

 from these houses, and never ( ?) used by their 

 occupants, were three tanks of water which 

 were swarming with the comma bacilli. The 

 natives in the immediate neighborhood of these 

 tanks used the water freely, and 3-et were prac- 

 tically free from the disease. Therefore Dr. 

 Klein concludes against the specific nature of 

 the comma bacillus. If this style of post hoc 

 ergo propter hoc reasoning is what we are to 

 expect from the English commission, confi- 

 dence in their conclusions will not be readily 

 given. Koch's position is simply that the 

 cholera bacillus is a necessary condition to the 

 occurrence of cholera, and this latest discovery 

 of Dr. Klein proves nothing against it. It 

 merely seems to show, what has already been 

 granted, that the comma bacillus may be pres- 

 ent without the occurrence of cholera. Cir- 

 cumstances favoring its development are, of 

 course, necessary ; and a receptive condition 

 of the s} T stem must be established in order 

 to its growth, — a fact which is true of all 

 forms of bacteria, so far as they have been 

 observed in relation to pathogenesis. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*** Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The 

 writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



Coal in the Chico group of California. 



The California geological survey reached the con- 

 clusion stated by Professor Whitney in the preface 

 to the second volume on the paleontology of the 

 state, p. xiii., that the Tejon group is the only coal- 

 producing formation in California. In the Proceed- 

 ings of the California academy of sciences, Mr. J. G-. 

 Cooper has recently published a number of notes 

 on the coals of the state. After remarking (vol. v. 

 p. 385) that the Vancouver coal, and others in that 

 region, are undoubtedly of cretaceous age, he states 



that "there is still some doubt as to those of Califor- 

 nia, which may be partly or entirely above the creta- 

 ceous strata." 



Last summer, while engaged in the geological survey 

 of the Cascade Range, a number of fossils were collect- 

 ed from the coal-bearing strata in northern California, 

 eight miles north-east of Yreka, on the road to Link- 

 ville, Ore., and south of the cove at the Great Bend 

 of Pit River, where considerable coal has been found. 

 The fossils have been examined by Dr. C. A. White, 

 who reports that they belong to the Chico group, and 

 thus removes the doubt that some of the coal in 

 northern California properly belongs to the creta- 

 ceous. J. S. Diuler. 



U. B. geological survey, Washington, D.C. 



Man in the stone age. 



In a communication to Science (v. 3) Dr. Brinton 

 charges me with having forgotten what I read in 

 de Mortillet's ' Le prehistorique.' I am at a loss just 

 how to characterize his quotations from that work, 

 which, like 



" The adventure of the Bear and Fiddle, 

 [Begin] but break off in the middle." 



De Mortillet wrote (p. 248), " L' accumulation de 

 caracteres simiens dans la race de Neanderthal mon- 

 tre clairement que l'homme primitif se rattache aux 

 singes. S'il ne se relie pas directement aux anthro- 

 poides actuels, c'est qu'il manque entre eux etlui des 

 echelons. Certainement il descend d'une forme ou 

 d'un type intermediaire. Nous nous retrouvons done 

 en presence de V anthropopitheque, dont fai demon- 

 treV existence (p. 102). II suhitd'ouvrir les yeux etde 

 regarder pour le voir ! Les anthropopitheques se sont 

 montres, se sont developpes et se sont eteints pen- 

 dant le tertiaire. L'homme a apparu au commence- 

 ment du quaternaire. Cet homme primitif constitue 

 la race de Neanderthal," Of this Dr. Brinton has 

 chosen to quote only what I have put in Italics. He 

 quotes de Mortillet as saying (p. 339) that the epoch 

 of Moustier ' was characterized by the race of anthro- 

 popitheci.' What he actually says is, "L'homme de 

 cette e'poqiie devait en majeure partie appartenir a la 

 race de Neanderthal." Again : he says for the epoch of 

 Solutre, de Mortillet " leaves the question open, deny- 

 ing that any traces of man or anthropoid have been dis- 

 covered (p. 392)." His real language is, "II resulte 

 de tout ce qui precede que nous n'avons aucun doc- 

 ument oste'ologique sur l'homme solutreen." 



I cannot pretend to be so well informed as Dr. 

 Brinton upon 'the language, religion, and social com- 

 pacts' of paleolithic man, but I do claim to know 

 something about his works; and it is not 'word- 

 splitting ' to insist that the magnificent lance-heads of 

 Yolgu, in the museum of Chalons-sur-Saone, are quite 

 as much the work of man, properly so called, as any 

 ' stemmed scrapers; ' nevertheless these belong to the 

 epoch of Solutre. 



I am well aware, that, in 1881, de Mortillet chose to 

 substitute the term chelleen for acheuleenne, which he 

 had suggested nine years previously. But the phrase 

 ' axe of the St. Acheul type,' for the implement pecul- 

 iar to that epoch, has become too firmly fixed in the 

 nomenclature of prehistoric science ever to be misun- 

 derstood ; except, possibly, by one who could say that 

 Robenhausen belongs to the 'first epoch of the ap- 

 pearance of man on the globe,' disregarding all the 

 marvellous artistic works of the cave-dwellers of 

 Aquitaine, who belong to the preceding epoch of La 

 Madelaine. Henry W. Haynes. 



Boston, Jan. 5. 



