Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/55

 JutiFAsr 10, 18^-1

�� ��the discQsaions which foltoweil its prescnta- to the joint conimitteo.

A RBCENT number of the Indian gazette. Klein, who. with Dr. Gibbes, is now in In- dia investigating the cholera, attempts to throw fresh discredit upon the theory of the specific iinture of the comma bacillus of cbolern. The grounda for his objections are these. He ex- amined three hoiiaes in CalcutU where there had been a severe outbreak of cholera in No- vember. He found the water-supply of all of them good. Per contra, at some distance from these houses, and never ( ?) nsed by their occapants, were three tanks of water which were swarming with the comma bacilli. The natives in the immediate neighborhood of these tanks used the wat«r IVeely, and yet were prac- tically free from the disease. Therefore Dr. Ktoifi concludes against the specific nature of the comma bacillus. If this style of post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning is what we are to expect flx>m the English commission, conli- dence in their conclnsions will uot be readily given. Koch's position is simply that the cholera bacillus is a necessary condition to the occurrence of cholera, and this latest discovery of Dr. Klein proves nothing against it. It merely seems to show, what has already been granted, that the comma bacillus may be pres- ent without the occurrence of cholera. Cir- cumstances favoring its development arc, of course, necessary ; and a receptive condition of the system must be established in order to its growth, — a fact which is true of all forms of bacteria, so far as the}' have been otiser\-ed in relation to pathogenesis.

�� ��LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

romtpon^rnU arc rrymiltil la 4i- at Mf/ at pot'lbU. Tlu

"" "" ' '-. ill cuiei rc/uirrft an proo/ Bf aood /ailA.

Coal in the Chtco group of CaUfornia.

California geological survey reached the oon-

in Btal«d by Professor Whitney in Lbe preface

the aeconil volume on ibe pule ontology uf the

. p. xiii., that the Tejon group is the only coal-

luclng formiilion io Culiforni.i. In the Proceeti-

of tue Caiifomia academy ot Hciencea, Ur. J. G.

igper has recently published a number of notes

L the eoala of the state. After rcraarkliig (voi. v.

886) that the Vancouver coal, and others in that

are undoublediy of cretaceous age, he states

��Last summer, wliile engaged in thegeolc^ical survey of the Cascade Range, a numberof fossils were collect- ed from the cosl-liearliig strata in northern California, eieht raiies nortU-easi uE Trvlia, on the road to Link- viTie, Ore., and soutti of the cove at the Orenl Bend of Pit River, where considerable coai baa been found. The fossils have been examined by Dr. C. .1. White. wlio reports that they lielong to the Chico group, and thus removes the doubt tiiat ^ome of the coal in northern California properly belongs to the crela- ceons. J. S, Dit.i.kr.

tt.S. gemlogicaliutvc}', Wuhlngton. D.C.

Uan In the stone age.

In a contmunicntiou to Science (v. H) Dr. Brinton charges me with having forgotten what I read in de Mortlllet's ' Le prohistorique.' I am at a loss just how to characterise bis quotations from that work, which, itice

��De MortlllcL wrote (p. £48), " L'acciiraulalion de carai^t^res sinilens dans la race ite Nfandertb^ mon- tre clairement que I'homme prlmitif se rattache aux singes. S'il ne se relie pns directement aux anthro- poides aciuels, c'est qu'it manque entre eux et lul des Echelons. Certalnemenl il descend d'une forme ou d'uii type intennidiaire. JTous iiou* rrtroupoiui rfonc en prhienee de C anibropopiUitgvf, dont j'ai dhnon- trf I'e^Utmee (p. 102). II sulHt d'onvrir le* yeux et de reganler pour le voir I Les authropopitlitques ss sont montrds. se sont d^velopp^« el se sont ^t«lnt« pen- dant le terliaire. L'huniine' a ajiparu au comraeace- munt du quaternalre. Cethimime primitlf constitae la race de Neanderthal." Or this Dr. Urtiiton has chosen to qnote only what 1 have put in Italics. He quotes de Hortlllet as saying (p. 330) that the epoch of Moustier ' was characierii:ed by the race of anthro- popitheci.' What he actually says is, "L'homme de cette ^poque devait en majeure partie appartenir & la race de Neanderthal. " Again : lie says for theepochof SolutrS, de Mortillel " leavea the question open, deny- ing that any traces of man or anthropoid have been dis- covered (p. 3t)2)." His real language is, " II r^uite de tout ce qui pr^ci:de que nous n'avons aucun doc- ument ost^ologiqlie sur rbomme soiutr^D."

I cannot pretend to l>e so well informed as Dr. Brinton upon ' the language, religion, and social com- pacts' of paleolithic man. but I do cl^m to Imow soroetiiing aimut his viorlai; and it is not 'word- splitting to insist that the magnificent lance-beads of Volgu, in the museum of Chaions-sur-SaOne, are quite as much the work of man, priiperly so called, as any ' stemmed scrapers; ' nevertheless these belong to the epoch of Soiutr^.

lam well aware, that, in 1881,deMorti11etchoae to sulistitute the term chelUen tor anlieuleertHt, which he liiul suMffisted nine years previously. But the phrase ' ax« of the Sl Acheul type,' tor ihe implement pecul- iar to tltat epocli, has become too firmly fixed in the nomenclature of prehistoric science ever to be mlsan- derstood ; except, possibly, by one who could say that Robenhausen belongs to the 'first epoch of the ap- pearance of man on the globe,' disregarding ail the marveiions arUstic works of the cave-dwellers of Aqnitaine, who lielong to the preceding epoch of La Uailelnine. HKMBT W. &ATKBB.

Bonan, Jan. fi.

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