DR. EMIL SCHMIDT'S RECENT WORKS.

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DR. EMIL SCHMIDT, of Leipzig, is favorably known to anthropologists by his many practical contributions to their science. His text-book on physical anthropology is the best manual extant. Quite lately I referred to his investigations into the pre-Columbian history of the United States (see SCIENCE, p. 256). These were a chapter of his large volume, Vorgeschichte Nordamerikas, im Gebiet der Vereinigten Staaten' (pp. 216, Braunschweig, 1894). This is divided into four parts, one on the very oldest relics of man in the area of the United States; the second on the prehistoric copper implements of North America; the third on the prehistoric Indians of North America east of the Rocky Mountains; and the fourth on those in the southwestern portions of the United States. These topics are treated with a thorough knowledge of the best authorities and a calm judgement. The book will, I hope, have a translation into English.

In another work, 'Reise nach Südindien' (pp. 314, Leipzig, 1894), Dr. Schmidt gives the results of his own observations and investigations into the native tribes of southern India. It is written in popular style, abundantly enriched with illustrations of the natives and of the scenery, and replete with valuable information.

holy cities and the earliest centers of civilization.

A most valuable contribution to the study of its earliest geography and ethnography, as understood by the ancient Egyptians and preserved in their writings, appeared a little over a year ago from the pen of Professor W. Max Müller, now of Philadelphia (Asien und Europa nach altegyptischen Denkmälern, pp. 403, Leipzig, 1893). It is very abundantly illustrated with copies of the ethnic types found on the Egyptian monuments and with texts in the hieroglyphic script of the Nilotic scribes. As the author is one of the most accomplished Egyptologists living, his translations of the hieroglyphs are peculiarly valuable to the ethnographer, since few students of that specialty have paid attention to ethnic descriptions. A map appended to the volume locates from Egyptian sources those troublesome people, the Hittites, this time, in Cappadocia, as well as the Mitanni, the Kilak, and other little known tribes. The numerous drawings of the faces, costumes, armors, etc., of these former inhabitants, as well as the profound linguistic analysis of texts, render this volume one of exceptional value. D. G. BRINTON.

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

CORRESPONDENCE.

A CARD CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE.

EDITOR OF SCIENCE-Dear Sir: I presume that there is no doubt of the existence of considerable demand among workers in, and writers upon, various branches of science for an index catalogue of the books and papers relating to the subjects in which they are interested, and that an accurate card catalogue, each card to be promptly furnished as soon as the book or paper is published, will best meet this demand. It is also desired that each card should contain a brief summary of the contents of the article.

A large number of investigators and writers would be glad to have their work done for them by some automatic or mechanical means, as far as possible, up to a point just short of the conclusions or results. These, of course, they prefer to prepare and state themselves. Those who like literary research would be pleased to have coöperative laboratories established in which, for a moderate annual subscription, they could have any experiments made which they might suggest, the results to be reported to them for their use. Others would prefer to do the experimenting themselves, and have some one else tell them everything that other people have done and written about the matter. And if each party is able and willing to pay for the assistance he requires, and can find persons competent to give that assistance and willing to do the work merely for the pay offered, every one will agree that it is a good thing, and will furnish new channels of employment and remuneration for experts, for which channels the need is steadily increasing.

It is, however, not clear that the benefits to science and to humanity, which would result from a complete card index of science up to date and available for every one who would like to consult it, would be so great as to make it the duty of any existing scientific body or institution to incur the great expense of taking charge of the matter or to contribute largely to its support.

Physicians meet with some cases for which it is desirable that the food should be carefully minced and partially digested before it is given, and sometimes it is necessary to push this food far back on the tongue to make sure that it will be swallowed, or even to forcibly inject it, but in most cases this benefits no one but the patient.

There is a very considerable number of men now engaged in preparing abstracts and summaries of what is known in various

branches of science, and publishing them as monographs, monthly reviews, year books, etc.; and in medicine, at all events, the supply of this kind of material is quite equal to the paying demand for it.

Moreover, it is not certain that the investigator who wishes to know everything that has been suggested with regard to the subject which he has under consideration will be much happier when he gets his card index up to date, if he has not made it himself. He will find references to articles by Smith, and Schmidt, and Smitovich; but where are the books containing these articles? Very probably, after a week's hunt and correspondence, he finds that there are one or two of them that are not in any library accessible to him, and then he is decidedly worse off than he would be if he did not know that they existed.

It is probable that such complete card catalogues with abstracts would be the means of adding largely to the bulk of scientific literature, as the Index Catalogue of the National Medical Library and the Index Medicus have done to the literature of medicine. The bibliography and the abstracts will be published over and over again in successive papers by different writers.

The expediency of having such card indexes prepared depends upon the cost, and upon whether the money could be used to better advantage in promoting the increase and diffusion of knowledge in other ways. I should suppose that $25,000 a year would be a moderate estimate for providing 25 copies of such a card index for all branches of science, and to bring the cost within this limit would require careful selection.

If each author were to make his own abstract, and every article thus abstracted is to be indexed, probably $50,000 a year would be required. Much might be done for the advancement of science with a fund of $25,000 per annum.

I do not wish to be understood as opposing the preparation and furnishing of an universal card index; the schemes proposed are beautiful in the glow and shimmer of their optimism-reminding one of Chimmie Fadden, " Up t' de limit an' strikin' er great pace t' git on de odder side of it," but they must be looked at from the practical business point of view by those who are to defray the cost, and who have, I feel sure, other important uses for their money and for the skilled brains required for such work, and more definite information is wanted with regard to the number of titles, etc., which must be indexed annually upon such a scheme before a wise decision can be made. For general Biology, Morphology, Physiology, Bacteriology and scientific Pathology, and other subjects of scientific importance connected with medicine, I think that about 10,000 cards a year would be sufficient if all second-hand matter and hash were carefully excluded.

SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE.

The Great Ice Age and its Relation to the Antiquity of Man. By JAMES GEIKIE, LL. D., D. C. L., F. R. S., etc. Murchison Professor of Geology and Mineralogy in the University of Edinburgh, formerly of H. M. Geological Survey of Scotland. Third Edition, largely rewritten, with maps and illustrations. New York, D. Appleton & Company. 1895. 8vo., xxviii + 850. Twenty-two years ago the first edition of this book appeared in England. The author then endeavored to give a systematic account of the Glacial Epoch, with special reference to its changes of climate. In so doing he entered first quite fully into the geological history of glacial and post-glacial Scotland, presenting many elementary matters, and taking more than half the book

for this purpose. Afterwards he discussed the glacial phenomena as exhibited in England, Ireland, Scandinavia, Switzerland and North America. A newly acquired view with him related to the age of the paleolithic deposits of southern England— all of which he referred to inter-glacial and pre-glacial times. It was this book that first called the attention of many geologists to the doctrine of several periods of cold in the ice age separated by as many times of milder conditions. Like the early doctrine of Agassiz and Buckland that the drift phenomena were to be explained by the agency of glaciers, so this theory of a series of cold and warm periods has been vigorously contested by geologists, but bids fair to be as generally accepted as the former. In 1877 a second edition of the book appeared. The author remarks in its preface that great additions to our knowlege of the facts had been made, above those first presented, all of which strengthened his argument that the epoch was not one continuous age of ice, but consisted of a series of alternate cold and warm or genial periods; while the ancient cave-deposits cannot be assigned to a later date than the last genial interval of the ice age, and some of them were probably still older. Among the more important alterations he notes a change in the use of the terms till and boulder clay. Instead of calling one purely glacial and the other partly marine, both are referred more or or less directly to the grinding action of glaciers, and are strictly synonymous terms. Likewise he modifies his view of the kames; none of them are now regarded as of marine origin. There has been no great submergence of Scotland since the close of the glacial epoch, and thus the Scotch deposits are brought into much closer relationship with those of England. In the interim he made many personal studies of the English phenomena until able to say positively that after the deposition of the ossiferous gravels

and Cyrena beds, a great ice-sheet stretched south as far as the valley of the Humber, thus proving the existence of a later ice incursion. In the first edition the term kames was not differentiated from esker and åsar, and all of them were believed to have been of marine origin; now he separates the kames from the esker and åsar and adopts Hummel's river theory of the origin of the latter, besides disowning the necessity of any marine agency in the formation of the kames. The accounts of the glacial phenomena in Europe and America are given with greater fullness in the second edition. The second edition attained a bulk of xxx + 624 pages and a larger size of page than the first, which had xxv + 524 pages.

The third and present edition shows a similar increase in size above its predecessor, but not so great a modification in the fundamental principles. About one-fourth of the subject-matter, or that relating chiefly to Alpine, Arctic and Scottish parts has been revised; but the other three-fourths have been entirely rewritten. The glacial and interglacial deposits of the continent are treated with a fullness that was impossible before. Many sections of it have been visited personally and the results of others verified. Aid has been received from a multitude of friendly fellow laborers. Necessarily because of the astonishing increase in the literature of Surface Geology, many important contributions are unnoticed. does not profess to write the history of the rise and progress of glacial geology, but simply to sketch its present position. Nowhere, he says, has glacial geology been more actively prosecuted in recent years than in America. While he has endeavored to keep abreast of this, he preferred to have a summary of the American evidence prepared by a recognized authority; and hence called upon Professor T. C. Chamberlin, of Chicago, to furnish him with a digest of this material; which is of great service to every

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one, since we have been awaiting almost with impatience the announcement of some general statements here first presented to the public. Professor Geikie also expresses his great gratification that his conclusions should essentially agree with those of Professor Penck, of Vienna, in respect to the glacial phenomena of the Alpine lands, the Pyrenees and Auvergne.

The following is a summary of the glacial succession in Europe as determined by Professor Geikie from a consideration of all the facts:

1. Older Pliocene.-Before the advent of the cold the sea occupied considerable tracts in the east and south of England, in Belgium, Holland, northern and western France and the coast lands of the Mediterranean, and boreal forms are just beginning to make their appearance.

2. Newer Pliocene-First Glacial Epoch.The Weybourn crag and Chillesford clay of England with their pronounced arctic fauna represent a part of the evidence for this time of cold; also the bottom moraine near the Baltic sea, in southern Sweden, where the movement was from the southeast to the northwest. Arctic animal remains have also been detected in East Prussia at a similar horizon. Hence it is suggested that a gigantic glacier occupied the basin of the Baltic sea, and the mountainous parts of Scandinavia and the British Isles were snow clad. In the Alps the snow line was depressed for 4,000 feet or so below its present level, and all the great mountain valleys were filled with glaciers which left behind terminal moraines at the foot of the chain. In central France very considerable glaciers descended from the great volcanic cones of Auvergne and Cantal.

3. First Interglacial Epoch. Latest Plio

Rhine flowed across this land. A temperate A temperate flora, much like that now existing in England, prevailed; and among the land animals were elephants, hippopotami, rhinoceroses, horses, bison, boar, deer, machærodus, hyæna, wolves, glutton, bear, beaver, etc. In other parts of Europe similar genial conditions prevailed. A luxuriant deciduous flora occupied the valleys of the Alps, attaining heights greater than the present limits of the same vegetation. Elephants

existed with the flora in northern Italy. From the amount of river-erosion effected during this epoch it would appear that the stage was one of long duration.

4. Second or Maximum Glacial Epoch.—The mountains of Scandinavia seem to have been the center of dispersion of the ice at this time, and the glaciers extended easterly so as to become confluent with the Ural system in western Siberia, southwesterly into the basin of the Volga, southerly into the basin of the Dnieper, Poland, Saxony, Belgium, southwesterly to the British Islands, excepting a small part of southern England, and to the westward 600 feet below the present surface of the Atlantic ocean, from off Ireland to the Arctic sea. Both the Baltic and North seas were covered by ice, and erratics from the Scandinavian hills were strewn more or less over this entire area. They were also transported from lower to higher levels in the British islands, to a height of 3500 feet in Scotland, and the highest peaks may have projected through the ice as Nunatakker, like the bare spots thus designated in Greenland. This area is rudely elliptical in shape, 2700 miles long and 1600 miles wide. In Switzerland the Alpine glaciers reached their greatest extension, the snow line extending 4700 feet. lower than it is at present, the ice being 4000 feet thick in the low grounds, and immense blocks of stone were carried across to the Jura Mountains to an elevation of 3099 feet above Lake Geneva. In connection

with the presence of this ice, Arctic-Alpine plants and animals occupied the low grounds of Europe, extending even to the Mediterranean. This epoch constituted the beginning of the pleistocene or quaternary period.

5. Second Interglacial Epoch.-The return of the temperate flora and fauna in north Germany and central Russia is suggestive of a milder and less extreme climate than is now experienced in those regions. Britain must have been connected with the continent and Italy with North Africa. The rivers of this epoch eroded their valleys to great depths.

6. Third Glacial Epoch.-An extensive ice-sheet overwhelmed most of the British Islands and much of the continent. The northwestern limits are much the same in the edges of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, but to the east it extended about a hundred miles beyond St. Petersburg, and just reached Berlin to the south. From the Alps glaciers descended to the low grounds, dropping conspicuous moraines, which extend in curving lines between the highly denuded moraines of the earlier epochs, and the associated extensive fluvio-glacial gravels.

7. Third Interglacial Epoch.-The youngest interglacial beds of the Baltic coastlands belong here, with both arctic and temperate marine faunas-as the mammoth, wooly rhinoceros, hare, urus and Irish deer. It is probable that a considerable portion of the old alluvial deposits of Britain and Ireland, hitherto classed as post-glacial, belong here.

8. Fourth Glacial Epoch.-The ice-sheets of the British Islands are now local and entirely separate from the Scandinavian mass. In Scotland the snow line did not exceed 1600 feet in elevation above the sea; the land was 100 feet higher than now, and an arctic marine fauna occupied the coasts. The Scandinavian peninsula supported an ice-sheet of more importance,