yet it seems hardly worth while, for the verdict of approval by those for whom the report was undertaken had been <riven long before this notice appeared; indeed, the demand by teachers and educators for this "overgrown volume" and for its predecessor is so much greater than the supply that the closing reference to "so many copies going back unread to the paper vat" falls rather flat to those who know the facts; of course, however, the falsehood, which is there implied as a truth applicable to this particular publication, helps to damn book and author in the opinion of the ingenuous and gullible reader.
| I. Edwards Clarke. |
| Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education, Washington, April 29, 1893. |
[We have never received a protest which furnished us quite so much evidence in support of our own position as does this letter of Mr. I. Edwards Clarke. In his first paragraph ~he shows that we discriminated between the well-digested part of his second volume and the gatherings of his drag-net. In his second paragraph he states that his purpose has been to get together "all the material" on his subject, which involved the reprinting of much "ephemeral" literature, such as "speeches, papers, addresses, and local reports." He does not show that the purposes of a "work of reference," as he calls his report, necessitate the reprinting of these speeches, etc., in full, nor does he seem to see that the reason why such compositions are ephemeral is that they are not sufficiently condensed to be suitable for permanent preservation. We are gratified to learn that our reviewers of Mr. Clarke's two volumes arrived independently at the same opinion of his work, for we find that the person who noticed the second volume did not know what another writer had said of the first in the Monthly seven years ago. We are also gratified to find ourselves in accord with such an able critical authority as The Nation. It is not surprising that a great many teachers and educators have wanted the book enough to ask for it. We stated in our notices that it contains much valuable material, and complained only of the quantity of chaff among the wheat. Mr. Clarke has evidently done his work conscientiously, but he needs the wholesome, bracing atmosphere which surrounds the writers of books that must pay their own expenses, and which the Government bookmaker is protected from. Finally, if any more evidence of his tendency to diffuseness were needed, it would be afforded by the length of the letter above.—Editor.]
THE TRACING OF THE PENNSYLVANIA GLACIAL MORAINE.
We have received the following letter from Mrs. H. Carvill Lewis, in reference to some remarks recently made in The Popular Science Monthly concerning the work of the late Prof. Lewis and Prof. G. F. Wright in tracing the glacial moraine across Pennsylvania. Having given our authority in the editorial (Correspondence Department) in the April number for the statements made in the article Recent Glacial Discoveries in England, in the December number, we publish the letter without further comment:
Editor Popular Science Monthly.
Dear Sir: In reference to your editorial on Recent Glacial Researches in England, Popular Science Monthly, March, 1803, and to my statement that "it was only over the last third of the work (i. e., in the tracing of the terminal moraine across Pennsylvania from June to October, 1881) that Prof. Carvill Lewis had the pleasure and benefit of Prof. Wright's companionship," may I take the liberty of calling your attention to the inclosed letters, which will explain themselves?
The question as to whether Prof. Wright has on one or more occasions seen the whole or "three fourths" of the moraine in Pennsylvania does not seem to me the point at issue. It is simply this:
Is the statement in Mr. Warren Upham's sketch of Prof. H. Carvill Lewis's life and work, as quoted by yourself, that in "the following year (1881) Profs. Lewis and Wright together traversed the southern border of the drift from Belvidere on the Delaware" etc., "to the line dividing Pennsylvania and Ohio," correct?
To this question an exact knowledge of the facts of the case compels me to answer "No," and in support of this opinion I inclose you two letters, the latter of which was published by Prof. Wright himself.
The matter itself is of little consequence, but as the accuracy of my statement is for the general reader of the Monthly apparently controverted by the abstract you have given from Mr. Upham's article, I feel it best to produce proof of its correctness.
With regard to the map of the glaciation of England, which prefaced your article in the December number of The Popular Science Monthly, I regret to say that it does not "represent Prof. Lewis's work as completed in England by Prof. Kendall." I most heartily wish that it did!
The map in question has in its main features been copied from some of the leading English authorities—possibly from one of the maps in Geikie's Great Ice Age, to which it bears a strong resemblance.
Over this older map, which is quite at variance with my husband's leading conclusions, the tracks followed by Scotch and Lake District erratics, as traced by Prof. Kendall, and the moraine line across England and Wales only, as traced by my husband, have been drawn. The moraine line is tolerably accurate.
