Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/54

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44
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

discussion was then taken up by Sir John Evans, who at some length expressed his dissent from the views thus far presented, holding that nothing had yet been found in North America that would properly be called palæolithic in the Old World—i. e., presenting certain types of shaping, and associated with a properly extinct fauna. If the remains thus found and described are truly associated with glacial deposits, then we can only say that the neolithic period extends much farther back in America than it does in Europe. Professor McGee followed in a somewhat similar strain, questioning the age of the beds. Professors Putnam and Claypole responded; and the whole discussion was a battle of chieftains on both sides, of great interest, but with little definite result. The foreign archæologists are indisposed to admit the remote age of our American specimens; and it is plain that a great deal remains to be done ere archæeology in this country can be definitely adjusted to a recognized correspondence with that of the European continent.

In the department of Geography, the opening address of Prof. J. Scott Keltie, on the areas of the globe that are yet unmapped and awaiting the explorer, included an able summing up of geographical progress during the Victorian era, embracing not only the opening of the unknown interior regions of Asia, Africa, and Australia, but the whole science of oceanography, and nearly the entire history of polar and circumpolar exploration. A figure of much interest was the explorer and "mighty hunter," F. C. Selous, of Africa, well known to all the tribes from the Zambesi to the Cape, whose paper, On the Economic Value of Rhodesia, was one that attracted much attention. It is said that Mr. Selous is the original after whom Rider Haggard drew his character of Alan Quatermain. Another leading figure was Sir George Robertson, the defender of the Chitral forts in the contest of 1896, who occupied the first place after the president's address with an illustrated paper on Kafiristan and the Kafirs. It was of interest also to see Prince Krapotkin, who presented papers in both this and the geological section, illustrated with maps, which he remarked had been kindly sent him from Russia after his escape from prison! American geographical work had a prominent place among the papers and proceedings of this section, as may be seen from the following list: Mr. Marcus Baker, Institutions Engaged in Geographical Work in the United States; Prof. W. M. Davis, Geography as a University Subject, and The Coastal Plain of Maine; Prof. R. E. Dodge, Scientific Geography for Schools; Mr. Henry Gannett (communicated by General Greely), The Material Conditions and Growth of the United States; Mr. F. H. Newell, The Hydrography of the United States; Prof. T. C. Mendenhall, The Geographical Work of the United