Sir

Robert Muir-Wood's highly readable review of Annals of the Former World by John McPhee (Nature 394, 845–-846; 1998 ) includes an error about one of McPhee's geological guides: Eldridge Moores was indeed a powerful force in shaping the Geological Society of America's journal Geology, but he did not found it.

Geology was launched by edict of the society's council in 1973 and was shepherded by Bennie Troxel, then the society's science editor. Henry Spall (of the US Geological Survey) was appointed Geology editor and guided the journal through its early years. Moores, as editor from 1982 to 1988, applied his considerable energy to expanding Geology, both in subject matter and size. Moores is, however, erudite and charming, as Muir-Wood says.