s 5, 1
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��liihed licre, lUcy would tiiul In Uio i-tliiiic.il relalioDB such a btais at power, nnU acuurdiiiEly oblaiii sttch a Brill fo»tliol<l, Lhat tbelr cIUI(itIgem«iiI woulil Iw no easy task.
We Imve still to speak o[ the port nhicb Herat, for llie very reuon at tha wIvintageB referred lo above, liaa played hi the past. Herat is to-ilay. to »onie extent, llie centre r>[ irado between Iiidin, P(-rsia, anil central Aain, where new goods are excbauged. the package* are orerliaulud and re-arranged, and iba caravans spend some days, or even wt-eks, in resting tor iLeir farilier joiirueys. And so, in anti')- nily, Uemt was the point from which alniosl all the conouemrs of India and wealem Asia set out. Alex- ander the Great >topped there In 327 B.C. ; the Mnit- <;otians under Dshenijiz halted there in Vi-iO A.D., before goinc on to the Indus; Timur passed tbrough Herat on his uiarcli toward India in 13S1; Sbelbani Ktiati, ibe Ui'.liek prince, was intendlns, In the be- ginning of tli<^ sixteenth century, to start from Herat U> India; anJ Nadir Shab, In 1731, did not dare lo attempt the way toward southern Bindoatan until lie was in possession ol Herat.
History repeats itself everywhere with very simi- lar episodes. What the early Mobanimedan an<l Buddhist adventurers attempted when tbey crossed the Oxiis, and, attracted by the rich treasures of India, went towards the south, is Ibe some thing wbicli the present successors and representatives of the Tartar warrlon — viz., the liusslans — are aiming at; for they, too, have an eye upon the fields of India, however much ciais and ministers dUclaim the fact, orKussian scholars laik of the 'noble mis- sion of culture' fulBlled by the attempts of their army In Asia. If Ruasln had not already spent over four hundred million dollars In carrying out her policy iti central Asia, and If this central Asia were not such a useles? acquisilioo, which can never he a source of revenue, but always an expense, we might put some faith in these asserliotis; hut no one is so sioipie nowadays as to ascribe persecution on Ibe part of individuals or Wales to purely philanthropic iir unselfish motives. liussia wants the 'Gate of India' In order to reach India; and the essential difficulty In her plan consists In the fact that llii^ land on the Ganges and Indus Is controlled, not by effeminate Brahmins, or the degenerate succrssiirs iif Baber. but bylhe active, highly educated, and power- ful Briton, and that any agsressor at present, liK-lcad of carrying home the golden gates of the paiace of Somnath, as did Mahmud the Ohaznewid. would be much more likely to come off with a broken head.
��COPE'S TERTIARY VEItTEBRATA.
WiiEN this immense n-ork is completed by the issue of the seeond part, we shall have Ity t'ur the most extensive and valuable suiTey yet
��E. D. Vnn. Uodt 1. (Kip, Wn.liln?loD, CanmnU IfSt.
��'Tt
��allem|iteil of the terlifiry vi-rtt-biiili's, "likh have been dUcovered in uur western territoiies in such amazitig pioriision. Dr. Leiily's ex- cellent loliiniea now eovir but n small iwrtion of the groiiud, which has bt'en so greatly csctemled since they were nrittcn. In 1*10- fessor C'o[ie's new book, whidi looks as formi- d.nhlc as an nnabridgcd dictionary, one hiirdly knows whether the vast collections which be has bi'ought together, or the skill with which they have beeu worked up, ts most to be ad- mired : for this book is no mere wearisome compilation of deacriplive details, but a notable coBtfibmion to mori>bology and the theory of evolution.
After a general aeconutof the tertiary for- mations of the central United Stales, the iuiro- diiction proceeds to a much-needed discussion of the coiTCspondencea between the geological periods of Knrojje and North America. This baa often been attempted before ; but the new inntcrial lately obtained sheds much light upon thesc vexed and difficult qtiestions. In the paleozoic formations, these identificationB can in many cases be made easily and certainly; but in the mesozoic, and still more in the ter- tiary, deposits, they become very problematical. A alaiilng-point, however, seems to be given to us in the Wasatch of America, which seems to be the exact equivalent of the French Siies- sonian: later than that, the eorresiKindences seem lo be but general. Professor Cope still maintains his former view, that the Laramie (the great coal-bearing foiraation of the region west of the Missouri) ia of cretaceous age. Id this connection, it ia interesting to compare with Professor Cope's argumeuU those ad- vanced by Professor Lcsquereiix in his work on the cretaceous and tertiary flora, which has just been issued as volume vii. of ihis same series of re|>orts. Professor Lesquerenx at- tacks the problem chiefly from the botanical side, but.ntlcr reviewingall the evidence attain- able, protiounces emphatically in favor of the tertiary age of ihc l-araniie. It scema to us that Lesquereux makes out rather the better case, and that i»os&ibIy the Laramie may prove to be contemporary with the earliest eocene formation of this country, the Pnerco: the former being composed of swampy and estua- rine de|K)sit8, and the latter of lacustrine. This view is much strengthened by the recent discoveries of Laramie dinosaurs in the Fu- erco, and of marsupials like those of the Pnerco in the Laramie. Further evidence must, however, be awaited, before the hypoth- esis can he accepted.
It is to be regretted lhat Professor Cope
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