Worlds in Retreat

The dignified old publishing house of Macmillan Co., whose textbooks are sold from coast to coast, also knows how to make the bestseller lists (e.g., Forever Amber, Gone With the Wind). Ten weeks ago Macmillan hit the jackpot again with Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision, which attempts to prove that the planet Venus was once a giant comet which grazed the earth at the time of the Exodus (TIME, March 13). But last week, for all the money Worlds was making, Macmillan had decided to dump its prize.

There was no official explanation for such behavior from Macmillan, but the book trade made its own. The scientists and teachers who buy Macmillan's textbooks had long been protesting that Dr. Velikovsky's book was nothing but brightly written scientific rubbish. Worlds' new publisher: Doubleday & Co., which sells no textbooks.

Mangled Mountains

When Lehigh University's Professor Lawrence Whitcomb started correcting the final examination papers of his geology course, he was appalled at the misspellings he found. He was even more appalled when he went back for a second look. His 92 students, mostly freshmen, Professor Whitcomb sadly noted last week, had found 20 different ways to mangle the name of the great range of mountains looming in sight of their own Pennsylvania campus: Appleachean, Appalactions, Applacians, Appalechins, Appalation, Appelation, Appalachin, Appaleacian, Applachian, Appilation, Appliachian, Appalachant, Appliciation, Applachain, Apelatian, Appla-cachian, Appelachian, Apalachian, Appalacian and Appalachian.

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