NOTES AND LITERATURE 



PAT TEX ON THE ORIGIN OF VERTEBRATES, AND 

 THE GENERAL QUESTION OF THE VALUE 

 OF SPECULATIONS ON THE PHYLOG- 

 ENY OF ORGANIC BEINGS 1 



From the standpoint of range of topics covered, amount of 

 work performed, and time devoted to its execution, this work by 

 Patten may without exaggeration be spoken of as monumental. 

 Many of the facts set forth are original observations by the au- 

 thor and his students, and of those not original a large propor- 

 tion have seemingly been personally studied by him. Further- 

 more, nearly all the large number of figures are either original 

 or bear the stamp, by way of modification of borrowed figures, 

 of Patten's well-known skill as an illustrator. 



A list is appended comprising 26 titles of papers and ad- 

 dresses by the author or the author in collaboration with his 

 students; but unfortunately references to the works of other 

 investigators drawn upon are rather few, often somewhat in- 

 definite, and not well set out in the text. In a book so abound- 

 ing as is this one in argumentation, many of the main conten- 

 tions of which are open to debate, sources due to authority ought 

 to be given exactly and without stint. 



Frequent as is the occasion in scientific books to estimate 

 worth from the two viewpoints of facts presented and theories 

 defended, rarely is the importance of keeping the two distinct 

 so great as in this case. Many of the chapters, notably V to 

 XII and XVI to XX, are veritable magazines of recorded ob- 

 servation to which workers in the field will, it would seem, find 

 it profitable to turn for years to come. This remark applies par- 

 ticularly to the sections dealing with the central nervous sys- 

 tem of IAmulus; with the cutaneous, olfactory, and optical or- 

 gans of "Cerachnids" and Anthropods ; with the dermal skeleton 

 of Limulus; with the endoskeleton of Arachnids; with the nerve 



'"The Evolution of the Vertebrates and their Kin," by Wm. Patton, 

 486 pp. and 309 figures, P. Blakiston's Son & Co., 1912. 



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