June 5, 1SS5.] 



SCIENCE. 



467 



lished here, they would find in the ethnical relations 

 such a basis of power, and accordingly obtain such a 

 firm foothold, that their dislodgement would be no 

 easy task. 



We have still to speak of the part which Herat, for 

 the very reason of the advantages referred to above, 

 has played in the past. Herat is to-day. to some 

 extent, the centre of trade between India, Persia, 

 and central Asia, where new goods are exchanged, 

 the packages are overhauled and re-arranged, and 

 the caravans spend some days, or even weeks, in 

 resting for their farther journeys. And so, in antiq- 

 uity, Herat was the point from which almost all the 

 conquerors of India and western Asia set out. Alex- 

 ander the Great >topped there in 327 B.C. ; the Mon- 

 golians under Dshengiz halted there in 1220 A.D., 

 before going on to the Indus; Timur passed through 

 Herat on his march toward India in 1381; Sheibani 

 Khan, the Uzbek prince, was intending, in the be- 

 ginning of the sixteenth century, to start from Herat 

 to India; and Nadir Shah, in 1731, did not dare to 

 attempt the way toward southern Hindostan until 

 he was in possession of Herat. 



History repeats itself everywhere with very simi- 

 lar episodes. What the early Mohammedan and 

 Buddhist adventurers attempted when they crossed 

 the Oxus, and, attracted by the rich treasures of 

 India, went towards the south, is the same thing 

 which the present successors and representatives of 

 the Tartar warriors — viz., the Russians — are aiming 

 at; for they, too, have an eye upon the fields of 

 India, however much czars and ministers disclaim 

 the fact, or Russian scholars talk of the 'noble mis- 

 sion of culture' fulfilled by the attempts of their 

 army in Asia. If Russia had not already spent over 

 four hundred million dollars in carrying out her 

 policy in central Asia, and if this central Asia were 

 not such a useless acquisition, which can never be a 

 source of revenue, but always an expense, we might 

 put some faith in these assertions ; but no one is so 

 simple nowadays as to ascribe persecution on the 

 part of individuals or states to purely philanthropic 

 or unselfish motives. Russia wants the 'Gate of 

 India' in order to reach India; and the essential 

 difficulty in her plan consists in the fact that the 

 land on the Ganges and Indus is controlled, not by 

 effeminate Brahmins, or the degenerate successors of 

 Baber, but by the active, highly educated, and power- 

 ful Briton, and that any aggressor at present, in.-tcad 

 of carrying home the golden gates of the palace of 

 Somnath, as did Mahmud the Ghaznewid, would be 

 much more likely to come off with a broken head. 



COPE'S TERTIARY VERTEBRATA. 



When this immense work is completed by 

 the issue of the second part, we shall have by 

 far the most extensive and valuable survey yet 



The Vcrtebrata of the tertiary formations of the icest. By 

 E. D. Cope. Book 1. (Rep. TJ. S. geol. eurv. terr., vol. iii ) 

 Washington, Government, 1884. 1,009 p., 135 pi. 4°. 



attempted of the tertiary vertebrates, which 

 have been discovered in our western territories 

 in such amazing profusion. Dr. Leidy's ex- 

 cellent volumes now coVer but a small portion 

 of the ground, which has been so greatly 

 extended since the}- were written. In Pro- 

 fessor Cope's new book, which looks as formi- 

 dable as an unabridged dictionary, one hardly 

 knows whether the vast collections w r hich he 

 has brought together, or the skill with which 

 they have been worked up, is most to be ad- 

 mired ; for this book is no mere wearisome 

 compilation of descriptive details, but a notable 

 contribution to morphology and the theory of 

 evolution. 



After a general account of the tertiary for- 

 mations of the central United States, the intro- 

 duction proceeds to a much-needed discussion 

 of the correspondences between the geological 

 periods of Europe and North America. This 

 has often been attempted before ; but the new 

 material lately obtained sheds much light upon 

 these vexed and difficult questions. In the 

 paleozoic formations, these identifications can 

 in many cases be made easily and certainly ; 

 but in the mesozoic, and still more in the ter- 

 tiary, deposits, they become very problematical. 

 A starting-point, however, seems to be given 

 to us in the Wasatch of America, which seems 

 to be the exact equivalent of the French Sues- 

 sonian : later than that, the correspondences 

 seem to be but general. Professor Cope still 

 maintains his former view, that the Laramie 

 (the great coal-bearing formation of the region 

 west of the Missouri) is of cretaceous age. 

 In this connection, it is interesting to compare 

 with Professor Cope's arguments those ad- 

 vanced by Professor Lesquerenx in his work 

 on the cretaceous and tertiary flora, which has 

 just been issued as volume vii. of this same 

 series of reports. Professor Lesquerenx at- 

 tacks the problem chiefly from the botanical 

 side, but, after reviewing all the evidence attain- 

 able, pronounces emphatically in favor of the 

 tertiary age of the Laramie. It seems to us 

 that Lesquereux makes out rather the better 

 case, and that possibly the Laramie may prove 

 to be contemporary with the earliest eocene 

 formation of this country, the Puerco ; the 

 former being composed of swamp}- and estua- 

 rine deposits, and the latter of lacustrine. 

 This view is much strengthened by the recent 

 discoveries of Laramie dinosaurs in the Pu- 

 erco, and of marsupials like those of the 

 Puerco in the Laramie. Further evidence 

 must, however, be awaited, before the hypoth- 

 esis can be accepted. 



It is to be regretted that Professor Cope 



