314 
GEOLOGICAL CRITICISM 
One may well compare this wild outburst of intemperate, im¬ 
politic and unjustifiable buflfoonry with those calm statements, con¬ 
spicuous for their sane, judicial equipoise, of the late W J McGee, 
on passing on a submitted memoir of mine, which brief Dr. E. O. 
Hovey, Secretary of the Geological Society of America, after¬ 
wards sent to me. In his youth McGee practised law, which fact 
may account, in a measure, for some of the particularly judicial 
trend of his comments. The fair-mindedness and supreme disin¬ 
terestedness of argument is only fully appreciated and admired 
when it is recalled that the entire paper was directed against the 
very things for which he himself had long contended, and des¬ 
truction of his own most cherished theses was involved. 
Doctor Keyes' paper, “Deflative Scheme of the Geographic Cycle in an 
Arid Climate,” reached me duly, and opportunity has just been presented 
for reading it critically. Please find it herein, and I answer the conven¬ 
tional catagoric inquiries here rather than on the blank. 
Taken in connection with Doctor Keyes’ earlier papers on substantially 
the same theme, the scientific matter presented in this paper is original 
and of value — I incline to say of decided value. 
The general arrangement of the matter is satisfactory, and the presen¬ 
tation neither over-full nor unduly concise; the graphic illustration is 
certainly not redundant, and I think might well be increased. Yet in this 
connection I have the feeling that the paper as a whole betrays either 
some haste in preparation or incompleteness in general coodination. It 
seems to me that as whole the paper is hardly thought out with that de¬ 
gree of fullness desirable in the summary expression of a series of papers 
designed to make a contribution to knowledge concerning a subject dis¬ 
tinct from that now incorporated in text books, yet measurably parallel 
with the latter. I have the feeling that Doctor Keyes might with advan¬ 
tage to himself and with benefit to students re-write some of the matter 
in such manner as to bring out definitely parallels and contrasts evidently 
clear in his own mind yet not fully expressed in the manuscript. Per¬ 
haps on this point I do injustice to the‘author, and should be pleased if 
the manuscript were sent some other censor for judgment on this point. 
The literary execution per se is good, so that the paper can be pub¬ 
lished with little more than formal editorial revision. 
Accepting the scientific value of the contribution, I am moved to offer 
suggestions which might aid the author in a revision which seems to me 
desirable; these follow later. 
Subject to revision with respect to the matters of fact considered in 
following paragraphs (and despite the question in my mind as to whether 
the matter is so fully thought out as might be desirable), I recommend 
the publication of the paper. ^ 
