119 
EEYIEW OF REOEE'T GEOLOGICAL 
LITERATURE. 
The Earth and Its InMhitants. By Elisee Reclus. Vol. ii, Mexico, 
Central America and West Indies. New York, D. Appletou & Co. 
1891. 8vo, 504 pp, 227 illustrations, 40 plates and maps. This is a geo- 
graphical description of Mexico, British Honduras, Central America, 
Panama, Gulf of Mexico and Caribean Sea, Cuba, Jamaica, San Dom- 
ingo and Hayti, Puesto liuo. Virgin Islands, The Bahamas, Bermudas 
and the Lesser Antilles. A statistical appendix of population and areas 
is also given. For the first time we have collected in a single volume a 
clear and concise statement of the geographic and economic conditions 
of the southern half of North America. The work is a mast rly trea- 
tise from the pen of a scientific authority, and presents more solid in- 
formation concerning the orography, hypsometry, drainage, climate, 
floras, inhabitants, productivity and natural phenomena of the regions 
treated, than has hitherto been obtainable. The chapters on Mexico can 
be recommended as the most important reading to one who has a desire 
to become acquainted with that ciuintry. 
"Bosquejo de una Carta Oeologiea de la Repuhlica- Mexicana^'' compiled 
by a special commission, for the Secretary of Public Works, under the 
direction of professor Antonio del Castillo, Director of the National 
School of Engineers. 
This map is a grand contribution to North American Geologj^, and a 
credit to the fellow scientists of our sister republic. It is handson.ely 
printed on heavy plate paper, upon the scale of %^^-^, and is so har- 
monious in color and void of irrelevant detail that its story is told with 
a plainness that is surprising, for here we have spread before our eyes 
the general features of Mexico, which every student of American areal 
geology has long desired to know. Three colors stand out in conspicu- 
ous boldness — yellow, green, and red — Quaternary, Cretaceous and 
eruptive, and these are the chief chapters of Mexican Geology— (1) A 
sedimentary floor of basal Cretaceous (Comanche) rocks — the continua- 
tion of our Texan features, but broken into mountain blocks and plat- 
eaux; "(2) Great sheets of Quaternary sediments— the basin structure 
of Utah and Arizona, and the whole more or less covered by eruptive 
sheets. The Cretaceous is to Mexico what the Cambro-Silurian is to the 
United States- its fundamental sedimentary rocks, and this map shows 
the youthfulness of that region compared to ours, and the apparent mi- 
gration southward of conditions, i. c, the present basins, active vol- 
canoes of southern Mexico similar to those of late Quaternary time in 
the southwest United States. The utter absence of paleozoic rocks is 
indeed most important food for reflection. 
The critic might find cause for complaint in the absence of hypsome- 
tric data, but we must confess that in our opinion the chief virtue of the 
map is the omission of every possible line that would detract from its 
simplicity. 
