Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/877

Rh Pa.: Chemical Publishing Company. Pp. 28. 50 cents.

Parker, T. Jeffery, and Haswell, William A. A Text-Book of Zoölogy. New York: The Macmillan Company. Two volumes. Pp. 779 and 683. $9.

Reprints. Blackford, C. M., Atlanta, Ga.: A Method of Teaching Histology. Pp. 8.—Dellenbaugh, P. S.: The True Route of Coronado's March. Pp. 36.—Evermann, B. W.: Notes on Fishes collected by E. W. Nelson on the Tres Marias Islands and in Sinaloa and Jalisco, Mexico. Pp. 3.—Galloway, D. H., M. D., Chicasro: What We Eat and What it Costs. Pp. 7.—Mariatt, C. L.: A Brief Historical Survey of the Science of Entomology, etc (President's Address, Entomological Society of Washington). Pp. 40.—Von Schrenk, Hermann. The Trees of St. Louis as influenced by the Tornado of 1896. Pp. 16, with plates.

Scripture, E. W., Editor. Studies from the Yale Psychological Laboratory. Vol. IV, 1896. Pp. 141. $1.

Smithsonian Institution Publications: Report of S. P. Langley, Secretary. Pp. 89.—The Astacidæ of the United States, etc. By Walter Paxton. Pp. 53.—Bibliography of the Metals of the Platinum Group, 1798-1896. By James Lewis Howe. Pp. 320.—Supplement to the Annotated Catalogue of (he Published Writings of Charles Abiathar White, 1886-1897. By T. W. Stanton. Pp. 16.—Contributions to Philippine Ornithology. By Dean C. Worcester and Frank S. Bourns. Pp. 80.

Stickney, A. B. The Currency Problems of the United States in 1897-'98. Pp. 33.

Titchener, E. B. A Primer of Psychology. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 314. $1.

United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Publications available for Distribution on June 30, 1897. Pp. 16.—Records of Observations made on Board the United States Fish Commission Steamer Albatross, during the Year ending June 30, 1896. Pp. 32—Notes on the Halibut Fishery of the Northwest Coast in 1896. By A. B. Alexander. Pp. 4.—Descriptions of New or Little-known Genera and Species of Fishes from the United States. By Barton W. Evermann and William C. Kendall. Pp. 8, with plates.—Observations upon the Herring and Herring Fisheries of the Northeast Coast, with Special Reference to the Vicinity of Passamaquoddy Bay. By H. F. Moore. Pp. 54, with maps.—The Salmon Fishery of Penobscot Bay and River in 1895 and 1896. By Hugh M. Smith. Pp. 12, with plate.

Ward, Lester F. Outlines of Sociology. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 301. $2.

 

The Origin of Coral Island Forms.—This much-discussed question has been raised again by the boring operation of Professors Sollas and David at the island of Funifuti. Their results, as far as they have been announced, seem to confirm Darwin's theory of subsidence. But now we have a letter (American Journal of Science, February, 1898) from Alexander Agassiz, who is at present with a scientific expedition in the Fiji Islands, announcing observations which seem to point toward elevation rather than subsidence. Professor David's bore hole at Funifuti was carried down six hundred and ninety feet, and a preliminary examination of the core indicated that the reef had been built up in the immediate neighborhood, at any rate, of growing coral. Portions of true reef were found in various positions throughout the whole depth. There seems, however, to be a possibility that the boring was situated on a very steep slope of volcanic rock, covered by a talus of coral débris from a reef on the summit. A further and fuller report from Professor David will no doubt clear up some of these uncertainties. The material received from Mr. Agassiz is only that contained in a private letter. Much to his own surprise, he found the general appearance of the islands to indicate, if not prove, that elevation rather than subsidence had taken place. After recalling Professor Dana's statement of the beautiful illustration which the Fijis gave of the gradual changes brought about by subsidence, he says: "My surprise was great, therefore, to find within a mile from Suva an elevated reef about fifty feet thick and a hundred and twenty feet above the level of the sea, the base of the reef being underlaid by what is locally called soapstone, probably a kind of stratified volcanic mud." Many other traces of extensive elevation were noted. At Tarutha, for instance, the coral limestone bluffs were probably eight hundred feet high. From a series of such observations Mr. Agassiz "is inclined to think that the corals of to day have actually played no part in the shaping of the circular or irregular atolls scattered among the Fiji Islands; furthermore, that they have had nothing to do in our time with the building up of the barrier reefs surrounding either wholly or in part some of the islands. I also believe that their modifying influence has been entirely limited in the present epoch to the formation of fringing reefs, and that the recent corals living upon the reefs, either of the atolls or of the barriers, form only a crust of very moderate thickness upon the underlying base.