tion, and the work is accompanied by diagrams, and a magnetic chart of Russia. Investigations in this direction have been very active recently in Russia. Besides the work of Tillo, Miller, Scharnhorst, etc., Schwartz has recently published in the 'Russki invalid' important researches on the magnetics of Turkestan, especially of the observatory at Tashkent.

Charles Rabot has finished a reconnoissance of the Norwegian glacial region, known under the general name of Svartisen. This work is the result of several years' explorations, during which the author received the kindly co-operation of the Norwegian general staff. It is based on a series of triangulations, with the details filled in by means of sketches, and photographs taken at determined angles and azimuths. The result shows a region about 125 kilometres long by forty-five kilometres wide, and divided by mountains into four principalg lacial bodies, but which, on the latest charts, is shown as covered by a single dome of ice.

The Military geographical institute of Italy has published a memoir on the mensuration of the area of the kingdom, and a new essay at the same. The figures are as follows in square kilometers:

This is about ten thousand square kilometres less than previous official figures, and two thousand less than Gen. Stebnitski's estimate.

The ethnography of the Austrian litorale has been deduced by Baron Carlo von Czoernig from the census of Dec. 31, 1880. The total is six hundred and eleven thousand in round numbers, of which 45.03 per cent are Italians, 32.27 Sloveni, 20.21 Croats, 0.35 Rumanians, and 2.14 German-Austrians, and others. Ethnographically, therefore, these coasts are Slavo-Italian.

Dr. Zélandt has just finished his great work on the Kirgiz, which will be soon published by the west Siberian section of the Imperial geographical society. It is divided into seven heads, treating of the history and archeology of Semirechinsk; of the resources of the central Tian-shan; of the life of the nomadic Kirgiz; of their social, commercial, and political institutions; of their ethnic relations; and of their temperament and culture. This work is supplemented by Katanaieff's recent memoir on the progressive movement of the Kirgiz of the Middle Horde, toward the Siberian frontier. A new chart of Russian-Turkestan, scale 1:42000, has just been issued at Tashkent.

It is announced that the work on the commercial geography of China, by Isidore Hedde, has been interrupted by the illness of the author, who has devoted twenty years to it, and was formerly a commercial agent of France in China. Two volumes still remain in manuscript, and will be printed if a sufficient number of subscriptions are received

by Paul Perny, care of the Société de géographie, Paris.

Dr. Ten Kate has just sailed for Surinam, with the intention of ascending the river of that name, crossing the Tumuc-kumac mountains, and descending to Brazil by the affluents of the Amazon River.

The recent expedition of Professor Chaffaujon on the Orinoco has been heard from. He had reached Caicara, and had prepared a map of the Orinoco and the region closely adjacent to its banks. In this work he was able to obtain much geological information, and discovered numerous pictorial and graphic aboriginal inscriptions, some of which seemed to be of the nature of writing. An immense mass of ethnological and natural-history collections had been made. Travelling was very expensive, and a large number of men were required to carry on the work.

Father T. Gaujon writes that Vidal Senèze, who had undertaken an exploration in the Chincha Islands, died at Guayaquil, and his collections were dispersed. The notes of his previous journey from Zumba to Bella Vista, reviewed by several residents of the region, had a certain importance; and the traveller, though without much training, had a spirit and an energy which make his death a loss to science. A. Chaigneaux is about to take part in an expedition sent out by the Chilian government to the region where Crevaux lost his life, in Bolivia.

A CRAB INVASION.

AN interesting occurrence, that should be placed on record, has been recently reported by Mr. L. S. Foster of New York, superintendent of the Spanish American district of the American ornithologists' union. It consisted in the sudden appearance of countless myriads of young crabs on the seashore at Cape San Antonio, the western extremity of the Island of Cuba, where it was observed by Francisco Baritista y Ovenes, keeper of the lighthouse at that place. Specimens of the crabs were sent to the U. S. national museum by Mr. Foster, accompanied by the following extract from a letter by the lightkeeper, dated June 14, 1885:

"After the light of the lighthouse had been extinguished in the morning of April 3, 1885, we went out on the gallery and saw at the edge of the shore, and at intervals farther out, large and small floating patches, of a reddish color, of what appeared to be wood, gulf-weed, or some other vegetable product of the sea. To our surprise, upon inspecting them more closely, we found these patches to consist of small living and moving bodies, belonging to the crabfamily, being of that shape. I proceeded to measure the piles that were forming on the shore, and many of them exceeded one and one-half metres in size [probably diameter]. At eight o'clock in the morning, as more of the patches floated in shore, some of the piles increased to two metres. This multitude of marine animals came from the south-west, the wind and tide being from that direction; and the same phenomenon was repeated on April 9, and May 2 and

5. They approached the shore mostly during the night, the movement continuing, however, somewhat into the early morning hours. They invaded the houses and the yards, and the tower of the lighthouse up to a certain height, so that we had to brush them away with brooms and shovels, and finally to close the doors and windows, and cover the openings of the water-tanks with canvas and sacking. We lost three tanks of water corrupted by these little creatures. After sunrise they were nearly all killed by the heat, becoming whitish. A few that escaped to the shade lived a few days without growing any larger."

Prof. S. I. Smith of Yale College, to whom the specimens were referred, reports as follows respecting them:

"The very small crabs from Cape San Antonio, Cuba, are too young and imperfect for precise determination, but are evidently the young, changed from the free-swimming megalops stage of some Grapsoid crab, probably a species of Sesarma. The four specimens are evidently all of the same species. They measure between four and five millimetres in width of carapax." R. RATHBUN.

TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY.

DR. MARTINEAU (it is a pleasure to remember that this country had the honor of giving him his title) has already reached his fourscore years, yet his work shows no sign either of labor or of sorrow. Its characteristics are indeed precisely the reverse of these: they are facility and optimism. There is the same dignified eloquence which made George Eliot write, in 1853, "James Martineau transcends himself in beauty of imagery." There is the same calm faith which has always possessed him in the outcome of the philosophical controversies of the time. For forty years he has stood quite alone among English theists in his breadth of sympathy and his sweep of style; and there is much pathos to many a grateful student in the words with which he dismisses this work, hoping to deal with further problems, "in case the evening twilight of life should linger a little longer with me, and leave my powers of industry still unspent.'

It is impossible to review such a book as this with any completeness, within the limits which must be here observed. It is the ripened fruit of a lifetime, and it must be recognized, as has been done by the Spectator, as the most important ethical work of this generation. It traces the great types of ethical theory, advancing with "many com

Types of ethical theory. By JAMES MARTINEAU, D.D., LL.D. 2 vols. Oxford, Clarendon press, 1885.

panions, stately or keen, severe or facile, mystic or humane," until the view of the author is set in final and striking contrast with that of the so-called English school. Here, to most readers, is the central interest of the book. It is Kantian ethics in the hands of a master of style over against the laborious inadequacy of Mr. Spencer. Nothing can be more delightful than the ease and brilliancy of this discussion, or more honorable than its recognition of the worth of the opposing school. "The representative writers of this school," Mr. Martineau concludes, "have in truth theorized in one language, and felt in another, and have retained ideal conceptions of a scale of good, and admirations for types of character, for which their doctrine can find no corresponding place. Nor is this an accident of their individual presentations of the theory. So long as it sets itself to find the moral in the immoral, to identify the order of right with the order of strength, to repudiate any study of what ought to be except in studying what has been, is, and will be, it totally shuts the door in the face of all conception and possibility of duty, and by naturalizing ethics reverses the idealizing process which rather ethicizes nature. It subjugates character to science, instead of freeing it into religion."

Two sources of embarrassment are here hinted at, which are felt throughout the work. The one is the loyalty of the writer to the terminology of the school in which he has been reared. This is so marked in the presentation of the author's own theory, that the hasty reader may fancy that he is dealing once more with that analysis of faculties which used to satisfy the writers on ethics, and which made the study so dreary. "The virtues and vices, the appetites, emotions, and affections," some one has said of that earlier school," stood each in its appointed corner, and with its appropriate label. Never before had human nature been so neatly dissected, or so ornamentally packed up." It is not until one has penetrated through this somewhat repelling method, that he discovers the wealth of insight which Dr. Martineau's treatment exhibits. The other source of embarrassment is more serious. It is the obvious conviction of the writer that the principles of ethics cannot be finally described apart from their relation to religion. After all is said and done, human nature remains, as Mr. Bradley most forcibly points out in his Ethical studies,' a contradiction whose solution compels one to the religious attitude. Dr. Martineau constantly hints at this necessary incompleteness; and

his preface promises that the philosophy of religion shall be his next task. How the relation of ethics to faith would be developed by him may be seen in his very remarkable lecture on this subject, delivered in 1881. Here his spirit has its natural flight, unhindered by controversy or by ethical limitations.

We turn, finally, from these very insufficient suggestions of the contents of the work to a single element in it which will be novel to most readers, and interesting to all. Dr. Martineau is led in his preface to describe the personal experiences which gave its character to his work, and in so doing he offers us a most fascinating and instructive glimpse of his own intellectual autobiography. It seems that he was originally trained to be a civil engineer, and his first philosophical studies were controlled by scientific conceptions. "So self-evident appeared the maxims of mechanical causality, that in my heart I deemed it blindness if any one professed a different vision." ... "It is no wonder, that, in skimming over my notes of work in those distant years, I seem to be communing with some tight-swathed, logical prig, in whose jerky confidence and angular mimicry I am humbled to recognize the image of myself." It was the discipline of teaching these subjects which changed his views; yet the change was not so obvious to himself as it was to his friend, J. S. Mill. "Though he saw to the bottom of my apostasy, he did not cut me off as a lost soul." Finally, under the guidance of Professor Trendelenburg and the inspiration of Greek philosophy, he gained what he describes as a new intellectual birth.' "It was as if the stereoscope through which I had looked at Plato or Aristotle had had its double picture, Greek and English, with distorted halves, producing only a blurred and overlapping flat; while now the slide of true correspondence was there, and the eye, after a momentary strain of adaptation, beheld the symmetrical reality in all its dimensions." . . . "The metaphysic of the world had come home to me; and never again could I say that phenomena, in their clusters and chains, were all." To many a student there will be nothing of more value in these volumes than these suggestions of what the author calls "the transitions of his thought, and the testing crises of his life." FRANCIS G. PEABODY.

WORK OF THE CHALLENGER EXPEDITION-III. GEOLOGICALLY VIEWED.

THAT the work of a dredging and sounding expedition should add much to our knowledge

of the geology of dry land, except by inferences from submarine formations, is hardly to be expected. Nevertheless, this report contains many facts and observations useful to geologists. Several of the phototype plates are extremely striking illustrations of geological phenomena, showing more on one sheet than many pages of text would do. Such, for instance, are the plates illustrating glacial markings in Nova Scotia (i. p. 158), the trap-hills of Kerguelen (p. 338), and the wonderful lava cascade of Kilauea.

Only two of the series of special reports, actual and projected, treat of essentially geological matters; one already printed being on the petrology of St. Paul's Rocks, by Prof. A. Renard. These rocks, far removed from any continent, consist of a number of small islets separated by deep chasms, through which the ocean unceasingly pours and rises into breakers. The rock-mass, according to Professor Renard, is peridotic; and, while admitting the possibility of the volcanic origin favored by analogy, he has been led, rather, to presume that the rocks are a remnant of upheaval of an orographic character. This view has been opposed by Professor Geikie, and in this jour nal by Mr. Wadsworth (Science, i. 1883, p. 590), and would seem yet unestablished.

The second report referred to is that of Dr. Murray, on the deposits of the deep-sea bed. One of the most attractive plates in the work before us is that (p. 926) illustrating the ooze formed by the diatoms, radiolarians, foraminifera, and other organic remains on the seabottom, as seen under high magnification. After the removal of the calcareous portions, and the determination of the carbonic acid, the remainder is divided by Dr. Murray into mineral matter, the débris of siliceous organisms, and fine sediment. The material found in inland seas and along continental shores consists in large part of terrigenous deposits, the different colored muds and sand, and volcanic débris of inorganic origin; while corals and corallines afford sand and mud of organic origin. The abyssal deposits, on the other hand, in large part, seem to consist of ooze derived from remains of minute animals, such as pteropods, diatoms, etc., and especially of a red clay such as results from the degradation of the ooze and of decomposed pumice. The transition between the former and the latter is gradual, but in the great deeps the clay almost exclusively predominates. The terrigenous deposits reveal the equivalents of chalks, green sands, marls, or shales, but in the deep-sea deposits, according to Dr. Murray, differ pro

foundly from the series of rocks known in the geological formations. The latter present no analogies to the red clays and oozes, in which, for instance, quartz may be said to be practically absent. The deduction from this is made, that the deeps are of great antiquity. In order to account for such vast accumulations as were there discovered, it is necessary to suppose that these basins have remained the same for a vast period of time.

From the red clays south of the equator, quantities of ear-bones of whales, sharks' teeth, etc., were obtained, which were embedded in nodules of peroxide of manganese, derived from the salts of that metal contained in the seawater. Some products of volcanic eruptions also occurred, and, more interesting than either, certain spherules for which a cosmic origin is confidently claimed. These are mostly extremely small (not more than a millimetre or two in diameter), and may be collected from the dry and powdered ooze by a magnet. These contain sometimes a centre of meteoric iron coated with magnetic oxide, sometimes what seems to be an alloy of cobalt and nickel : others are chondritic, and appear to consist of bronzite or enstatite. All these are characteristically meteoric minerals; and it is indeed remarkable that the investigations of a Nordenskiöld in the arctic snows, should, in their proof of the gain of this planet by the deposit of cosmic material, be upheld and augmented by an investigation of the abysmal ooze of the great deep.

To the narrative are appended, among other documents, a bibliography, sufficiently exact for general purposes, of papers and publications, official and otherwise, to which the voyage has given rise. There is a list of the special reports already printed (more than forty), and of nearly as many more to follow. The concluding part will include an index to the whole, which it is to be hoped will be intrasted to a competent person for preparation. There is a science of indexing, to which we are confident the person who indexed this narrative never served an apprenticeship. Considering the importance, variety, and multitude of facts recorded in these pages, and that there is no systematic arrangement of them in the text, a really thorough, sensible, and scientific index was indispensable. The The one which exists, though voluminous enough, is far from meeting the least of these requisites. In this particular, and a few others, we have, as it were, indicated a few spots upon the sun; but we should do much less than justice to the editors, and to the authorities who have sanctioned the

work, were we to omit a distinct enunciation of the opinion that it, and the series it is intended to introduce, as a whole, form the most magnificent contribution to natural science, and monument of enlightened research, which has ever been given to the world in any age or by any country.

THE CHALLENGER REPORT ON THE STALKED CRINOIDS.

THIS magnificent work, which has just been issued by the British government, is beyond question the most important contribution to the literature of the living crinoids since the days of Johannes Müller. When Müller wrote his classical work, Ueber den bau des Pentacrinus caput medusae,' in 1841, but a single species of stalked crinoids from the existing seas was known. Carpenter now describes six genera, with thirty-two species, of which two genera and eighteen species were brought to light by the Challenger. In the present report he describes also the remarkable comatulid genus, Thaumatocrinus, obtained from a depth of eighteen hundred fathoms, which has underbasals, and interradial plates interposed between the first radials, and a row of anal plates, thus combining, in a measure, the characters of recent and paleozoic crinoids.

The work, though primarily a report upon the crinoidal collections of the Challenger expedition, is, in fact, an almost complete monograph of all recent stalked crinoids known to this time. The descriptive part and illustrations are so excellent and copious as to leave nothing to be desired in this particular.

A large portion of the volume is devoted to comparative discussions of the morphological relations between recent and ancient crinoids, to which he has brought all the resources of a mind equipped with the most varied and accurate knowledge of both living and extinct forms. The importance of this portion of the work in stimulating further researches cannot be overestimated.

In his classification, Carpenter follows Leuckart, and separates the stalked echinoderms from the remainder of the group, under the name' Pelmatozoa,' which he makes a branch' of the phylum' Echinodermata, with three

classes, Crinoidea, Cystidea, and Blastoidea. The Crinoidea are the strictly brachiate Pelmatozoa, for which Burmeister, in 1856, proposed the name Brachiata,' taking rank with

Report on the Crinoidea dredged by H. M. S. Challenger during the years 1873-76. Part i. General morphology, with descriptions of the stalked crinoids. By Dr. P. HERBERT CAR

PENTER.

the Anthodiata,' under which he placed the Cystidea and Blastoidea as sub-groups. The Blastoidea, no doubt, are readily separated from the true Crinoidea; but the two groups are so closely linked together by the Cystidea, that it is extremely difficult to assert whether certain forms are crinoids or cystids, or whether others are cystids or blastoids. For instance: Caryocrinus and Porocrinus have well-developed free arms, but possess calicine pores; while Hybocystites, on the contrary, has cystidean arms and no calicine pores. Similar transitions connect the Blastoidea with the Cystidea; and it is scarcely doubtful that crinoids sometimes have hydrospires. These difficulties do not seem to be wholly met by Carpenter's arrangement, nor indeed, it must be confessed, by any other as yet devised.

6

Dr. Carpenter's discussion of the relations of the Neocrinoidea to the Palaeocrinoidea should be studied by every paleontologist who aims at something more than mere empirical descriptions. He ranks the two groups as distinct orders, and points out very clearly their structural differences. In the course of these discussions he directs special attention to the oral plates of the Palaeocrinoidea. These plates, he thinks, are represented by the socalled proximals,' or ring of plates surrounding the central piece, which he regards as corresponding to the basals in the abactinal system. He calls the central plate the orocentral,' and considers it an actinal representative of the dorsocentral,' the terminal plate of the column. From one point of view, this theory appears plausible, considering that there is a dorsocentral in ophiuroids and starfishes enclosed within the ring of basals; but it is difficult to understand what function such a plate could have had in the oral system, since it is to be compared with the base of the column in crinoids, while no echinoderm, at any period of life, or in any group, was ever attached by the oral side.

The limits of this notice do not warrant further mention of the details of the book, much less discussions; but the work challenges admiration in almost every requisite of a scientific treatise. Dr. Carpenter's style is clear, vigorous, and incisive. Those who venture to cross swords with him in scientific disputation will do well to carefully measure their strength; for they will find a most formidable antagonist, fully armed at all points, vigilant to discover, and quick to strike at the weak points of an argument. With all this, it is a pleasure to observe the eminent candor and fairness of his treatment of controverted questions. Those who

dispute with him are not allowed to forget that the ultimate aim of all such discussion is not a victory of words, but the discovery of the truth.

NOTES AND NEWS.

THE Chesapeake zoological laboratory, as the marine station maintained by the Johns Hopkins university is designated, is established for the present summer session at Beaufort, on the coast of North Carolina. Dr. W. K. Brooks, the director, who was prevented last year by ill health from giving as much time as usual to the laboratory, is fortunately quite restored to his usual strength, and is in full activity at his post. Twelve collaborators are with him,Messrs. Andrews, Bruce, Haldeman, Hemmeter, Herrick, Howell, Jenkins, McMurrich, Mills, Morrell, Nachtrieb, and Shimek. Several of these are already teachers in various branches of zoological science, and all of them are well prepared to make use of the opportunites which are afforded at this station. An unusual number are engaged in original researches. On account of the limited accommodations, the director was unable to receive three other persons who applied for admission. The season of 1885, although uncomfortably hot, has thus far been exceptionally favorable for collection. The weather has been calmer than heretofore in June and July, and specimens were found in June which have usually not appeared until the middle of August. The company, notwithstanding their personal discomfort from the heat, have maintained their full enthusiasm in the work upon which they are engaged; and it now appears as if the eighth session of the laboratory would be more fruitful in results than its predecessors, good as they have been. It is too early to speak of the investigations which are in progress, but reports will be made upon them in one of the Johns Hopkins university circulars to be published in the early autumn.

— A cable message to Harvard college observatory, from Dr. Krueger, at Kiel, announces the discovery at Nice of Tuttle's comet (1858) on its expected return. The position received is as follows: August, 9 6124d., Gr. M. T.; R. A., 7h. 23m. 43.18.; Decl., +28° 1' 24".

- Prof. J. E. Hilgard, who has just resigned from his position as superintendent of the U.S. coast-survey, was born in Zweibrücken, Germany, in 1825. His father, a lawyer by profession, emigrated to Illinois in 1835, with a family of nine children, and was a man well known for his writings on social questions. J. E. Hilgard was educated as a civil engineer, and in 1845 entered the coast-survey: he was specially interested in geodetic methods and the tides and terrestrial magnetism. In 1863 he was made a member of the National academy of science, and in 1872 took an active part in the international metric commission in Paris, and was made one of its permanent committee; and it was in that year he