294 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
•which group upward there does not appear to he any trace of land-vege- 
tation in the whole North American continent until we reach the lower 
lignitic formation. 
A description of the new species of fossil plants is appended; the researches 
of the past year have added to the American tertiary flora about 100 species ; 
the whole number now amounts to nearly 860. The reports in the volume 
on recent zoology are very full and include notices of the Alpine insect 
fauna, the geographical distribution of the moths, the diptera, coleoptera, 
neuroptera, and myriapoda, chiefly collected by Lieut. W. L. Carpenter in 
1873, besides a report on the amphipod crustaceans by Mr. S. Smith, and a 
synopsis of the phyllopod Crustacea of North America by Dr. Packard. 
The volume with the concluding report on topography by Mr. T. Gardner 
is an important and valuable addition to the documents already published 
on the geology and geography of the western territories under the charge 
of Dr. Hayden. 
THE MOLTEN GLOBE.* 
rjlHE views brought forward in this book as to the form of the continents 
J- of the globe are a further continuation and expansion of those given in 
a paper published in the (t Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal ” for 1857. 
It is to be regretted both for the reader and author that this is only the first 
part of the work, as the hypothetical ideas here expressed may without the 
other parts render its pages not very intelligible to every reader. The pyra- 
midal form of the southern extremities of the continents has been remarked 
and discussed by Carl von Bitter Guyot, and other physical geographers, 
without any definite explanation. Again the different main direction of the 
two, broadly speaking, continental masses, the new and old worlds — one 
extended north and south, the other more in an east and west direction — are 
well-marked features. These bearings and the conical form of the southern 
lands seem to be at least partly influenced by the direction of the chief 
mountain ranges, as Professor Dana long ago pointed out with regard to the 
form of the North American continent. In his previous paper the author 
suggested the view that the pyramidal form of the outline of the southern 
extremities of the continents of the globe was the result of the conical super- 
ficial figure of the reliefs of the land entering the ocean at an angle to the 
spheroidal surface of the sea. Still more crystallographic as to the form of 
the land is the idea enunciated in the present part. Thus u a six-faced 
tetrahedron, supposed to be three-fourths covered by water attracted towards 
the centre of gravity of the figure, represents generally all continents and 
oceans on the globe in their actual relative positions. As there are four 
acute solid angles on the crystals, so there are four, and only four, continents 
or masses in relief on the globe ; and as there are four obtuse solid angles on 
the crystal, so there are only four grand depressions or oceans on the globe.’’ 
The author shows the astronomical and geological bearings on his tetrahedral 
* u Vestiges of the Molten Globe.” By W. L. Green, Minister of Foreign 
Affairs to the King of the Sandwich Islands. London. 1875. 
