Critique et géologie by Emmanuel De MargerieReview by: George SartonIsis, Vol. 38, No. 3/4 (Feb., 1948), pp. 263-264Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/226138 .

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Reviews 263 EMMANUEL DE MARGERIE: Critique et

giologie. Contribution a l'histoire des sciences de la terre (I882-1942). Tome 2, pp. XXV-

xxxix + pp. 66I-iI56, figs. 25I-385; Tome 3, pp. xlv-lviii + PP. 1157-1714, figs. 386-553. Paris: Colin, 1946.

The first volume of this monumental publica- tion, dated I943 (I944), was warmly reviewed in Isis 36, 74-75. In that review I expressed my wonder that such a large volume, beautifully printed and richly illustrated, could have been produced in France during the war. The mys- tery is partly explained in the avant-propos of vol. 2. The author received a large subsidy from the Pontificia Accademia delle Scienze. This is truly remarkable, because the subsidy was granted in the midst of war (Feb. 1943), and the members of the committee which awarded it were all of them Italians and professors in the royal universities. Thus did the Pontifical Academy and Italian professors honor and en- courage a French colleague while Italy was at war with France.* To find anything comparable we have to look back more than a century when Davy and Faraday were welcome in Paris and permitted to travel in France and Italy in spite of the Napoleonic wars.

I must add that the impartiality of the Italian sponsors was entirely justified by the author's own impartiality. I have not read a word in the book which might have offended the enemies of his country or which might have suggested the almost incredible calamities which crowded upon France thick and fast while the book was printing. The author discussed the work done by himself, by his French colleagues or by Ger- man or Italian geologists as if the peace of the world had never been interrupted for a mo- ment. I like this much better than the attitude of men of science who try to prove their patriot- ism by indulging in hatred and in calumny of their foreign colleagues.

Volume 2 completes part i devoted to general- ities. Volume i contained sections I to IV (see titles in Isis 36, 74); vol. 2, sections V. Oceans and oceanic lands. Polar regions. Bathymetric map; VI. Geodesy, topography and cartography. International map of the world.

Vol. 3 begins the second part dealing with re- gional descriptions and is entirely devoted to a single section (VII) Pyrenaean studies.

The author's method consists in reprinting in each section his own studies relevant to it, plus the commentaries which they evoked, plus his reviews and shorter notes. Moreover, being his own editor, he is not satisfied to reprint his papers and reviews as they were, but adds all the corrections and modifying thoughts which have occurred to him (or to others) in the mean-

* To be correct, it should be said that only a relatively small number of Frenchmen were then actively at war witb Italy. From the Italian point of view, France was a defeated country which had asked for peace and re- ceived it. Yet, after the American invasion of North Africa (7 Nov. 1942), thoughtful Italians might have recognized the shape of things to come.

while. As a result, we are offered an exceedingly rich fare. For example, vol. 3 is an encyclo- paedia of Pyrenaean knowledge, including not only the scientific data available to-day but also biographical data concerning the workers in that particular field, the geologists and geographers not only of France but of many countries. As the author travelled extensively all over the world, attended regularly the international con- gresses, was a very active member of many in- ternational committees, and corresponded regu- larly with his colleagues of every clime, it is clear that his biographical remarks are of singular interest. A great many portraits and autographs illustrate the book.

It would be out of the question to attempt a more elaborate description of these volumes; those whom that description would please should get hold of the volumes and examine them care- fully. Let me indicate only a few points which attracted my attention.

The author is not simply a born geographer and geologist, but a born bibliographer -of the kind most sympathetic to me- who takes a deep interest in all the bibliographical details of importance but never loses sight of the sub- stance. The exact bibliography of science is important, because science itself is very impor- tant, and its value is a function of the scientific knowledge of the author. Margerie's biblio- graphical descriptions are always valuable, be- cause he never forgets for a moment the scien- tific realities without which those descriptions would become triffing and meaningless. For ex- ample, I was very much pleased to find (p. 825- 58) a full description of the very rich collection of books concerning Groenland, the Meddelelser om Groenland which began to appear in Copen- hagen in I879. Some volumes are in Danish but many others in Latin, English, German; many volumes include a French summary.

Special notices are devoted to Prince Albert of Monaco, Lauge Koch, comte de Saint-Saud, Franz Schrader, Henri Beraldi, Maurice Gour- don, comte Gaetan O'Gorman, Leon Bertrand, Paul Helbronner (Isis 6, 90o9I), and a good many sketches are included in the reviews. Con- sidering the richness of the Pyrenaean survey I was surprised not to find any mention of the speleological investigations of Norbert Casteret (ISiS 28, 28I; 37, 75), or did I miss them? This suggests the great need of indexes. The richer a work the greater that need. This work is so full of many things of many kinds, and so large, that without indexes even the most careful readers are bound to lose much or to become un- able, after a time, to find what they want. Let us hope that the indexes will soon be provided.

Critique et gdologie is not a history of con- temporary geography and geology, but the sub- title "Contributions to the history of earth sci- ences" defines its value for the historian of science. The title might well have been the old- fashioned one "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire . . ." These volumes deserve a place of honor

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264 Reviews in the library of every historian of modern science. George Sarton

FRANCIS J. COLE: History of comparative anatomy. From Aristotle to the eighteenth century. Viii + 524 pp. London and New York: Macmillan, I944. $7.00.

May I add some necessary corrections to Pro- fessor Ashley Montagu's review of my book on the History of Comparative Anatomy in Nos. I07-8 of Isis? Omitting consideration of mat- ters of opinion, which may be left to those com- petent to decide such issues, the following ques- tions of fact should not be left in doubt.

i. My statement that Vicq-D'Azyr described the premaxilla in the human foetus is erroneous only as regards the date, which was a misprint for I786. Professor Montagu has evidently not read Vicq-D'Azyr's second discourse on anat- omy, which is not quoted in his own paper on the premaxilla, or he would have known that the French anatomist claims to have discovered traces of the intermaxillary bone in the superior maxilla of the human foetus.

2. My observations on the occurrence of the premaxilla in man and apes are, I should have thought, sufficiently comprehensible. At the time Goethe was writing, it was believed that one respect in which man differed from the apes was that he had no premaxilla. But if the pre- maxilla was absent in man [i.e., was not dis- cernible], by the same reasoning it was absent in the higher apes, and hence even in the i8th Century this alleged distinction between apes and man was not defensible. I gather that Pro- fessor Montagu has not seen Camper's complete work on the anatomy of the Borneo orang, pub- lished in I782, which nullifies his statement that the only higher ape the anatomy of which was well known in the i8th Century was the Chim- panzee.

3. My remark that Tyson identified his chimpanzee with the orang outang obviously means the orang outang of Tulp, as is implied in a footnote on the same page. Tyson used the term in the generic sense, but he recognised that his own specimen was most closely paralleled by Tulp's "Orang." Professor Montagu says that the true orang was unknown until the latter part of the i8th Century. The species, how- ever, was recognised by Bontius in i658 and by Le Comte in I697. Tyson discusses Bontius's work, and it may be mentioned incidentally that the latter's figure of the animal, which is uni- versally condemned, was probably an insertion by the editor Piso, who is known to be respon- sible for the bad figure of the rhinoceros in the same work. Bontius was not so poor an ob- server as to be guilty of this ridiculous sublima- tion of the orang.

4. Professor Montagu's assertion that the English translation of the Parisian Memoires was first published in i688 and not in I687 is surely astonishing, seeing that when he wrote his book on Tyson he was acquainted with the

actual facts, which he now appears to have completely forgotten. The work appeared in November I687, as is established by the con- temporary records of the publishing trade and by the fact that it was reviewed in No. I89 of the Phil.Trans. which was on sale in that year. I am also accused of being "distinctly unfair" to Waller, who, as the publisher informs us, was responsible for the plates in this volume, which I condemned as caricatures of the origi- nals. Having looked into the matter again, I am not prepared to modify the criticism. I must, however, admit that the plates were not "re-engraved" by Waller but etched by him, and also that no one who has critically com- pared the plates with the title, which is a line engraving, could fail to recognize that the latter was the work of another hand. Professor Montagu's admiration for "Waller's" engraved title page is therefore beside the point. Waller's contribution to the title was doubtless the de- sign, with its cribbed figures, and I suspect that the signature and date, added after the plate had been completed by the engraver, were the work of the unpractised and unskilful Waller. The title is a competent but not an outstanding piece of work, and is correctly recorded in Johnson's Catalogue of engraved English Titles as by an unknown craftsman. In another of Waller's publications the engraved title is signed R. Waller delin., but again the engraver's name does not appear.

5. My statement as to the growth of biologi- cal discovery between the time of Galen and the iith and I2th Centuries is regarded by Professor Montagu as a "nineteenth century myth." It is outside my competence to deal at first hand with this period, and what I wrote was based on the investigations of modem scholars. Whilst it is true, as I pointed out, that much can now be claimed for the scholarship of the Dark and Middle Ages, in respect of the anatomical and related sciences, which alone were the concern of my book, I have yet to learn that any work of originality and importance, produced during the nine centuries following the death of Galen, has so far been discovered. Translations, com- mentaries and compilations there were, but of significant creative research hardly any.

6. Professor Montagu says that my assertion that Galen worked with tailless apes is "ex- tremely unlikely" on the grounds that the an- thropomorphous apes were unknown to Galen. To admit the validity of this criticism one must be ignorant of the fact that a tailless ape is not necessarily an anthropomorphous ape. There can be no doubt that Galen dissected the rhesus monkey and the Barbary ape, which are re- spectively tailed and tailless.

7. It is correct that the majority of the draw- ings in the Sloane MSS 5260 were reproduced in Collins' Systeme of Anatomy, but there are several which do not appear there and have not been published. Unfortunately the provenance of this collection gives us little help as to its

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