Alerander Winchell. 145 
the truth that ‘‘to make sound progress all who profess to be 
geologists must first become mathematicians, physicists and chem- 
ists. 7 
In this respect Alexander Winchell was an exception to the 
rule. Without claiming rank as an eminent mathematician, a 
standing which few working geologists can ever attain, he fully 
appreciated the immense advantages which his favorite science 
might obtain from the labors of her sister, and not a little of the 
fascination that attracted and held his hearers may have been due 
to this willingness and ability to follow the mathematician in his 
reasonings, and even in his speculations on the past and the future 
of the earth. 
Among the works that came from the pen of our lamented col- 
league no one in our opinion will take and hold a higher place 
than ‘* World Life.” In making this remark we do not intend 
to imply any comparison to the disadvantage of his other writings. 
These are and will long be of immense value, especially in awak- 
ening an interest in the study of geology among those who have 
not previously directed any attention thereto. but others have 
written, and written well in the same way, and with the same re- 
sult. We are not however aware of any systematic work in the 
English language that covers the field chosen by Alexander Win- 
chell in his ‘‘ World Life.” Largely drawn, as he himself is the 
first to acknowledge, from the writings of others too numerous to 
name, the data and the deductions are here thrown into a con- 
nected whole, so far as is yet possible, and with these scattered 
fragments of material the author has succeeded in laying the 
foundations of a new science—one in which the geologist no longer 
limits his attention to the earth, his home, but grasping as a cen- 
tral and cardinal principle the consanguinity of the universe, rises 
from terrestrial details to cosmical generalizations, and enlisting 
in his service the astronomer, the chemist, the physicist and the 
mathematician, deduces from their data the conclusions to which, 
given time and the continuance of nature’s present order, they 
must inevitably lead For these reasons we regard the work as 
the author’s master-piece, and in spite of all its defects and errors 
which the future must supply or correct, we look on it as a monu- 
ment which will long testify to the high mental qualities and wide 
intellectual grasp of the man and the geologist. 
