40 Notices respecting New Books. 



stupendous convulsions which must have been concerned in produ- 

 cing the phenomena it exhibits ; quoting in conclusion the subjoined 

 apposite observations by the Father of inductive science : " Men 

 use commonly to take a prospect of nature, as from a high turret ; 

 and to view her afar off; and are too much taken up with generali- 

 ties. Whereas, if they would resolve to descend and approach 

 nearer to particulars, and more exactly and considerately look into 

 things themselves, there might be made a more true and profitable 

 discovery and comprehension." 



The Advertisement is succeeded by fourteen pages of " Introduc- 

 tory Remarks." It is here stated that the substance of the follow- 

 ing Memoir was read before the Geological Society in March 1827; 

 ( See Proceedings of the Geological Society, No. 2 ; or Phil. Mag. 

 N. S. vol. i. p. 388.) and that it then attracted some attention, 

 among other causes, from its bringing again into discussion the ar- 

 rangement and nomenclature of the beds immediately below the 

 chalk. This subject is succinctly discussed in these Remarks, and, 

 as it appears to us, in a luminous and satisfactory manner ; the 

 •* upper shale" of the " Survey of the Yorkshire Coast" being re- 

 garded as identical with gault ; and the whole suite of sands and 

 clays between the chalk and the Weald-sands, &c. grouped to- 

 gether, in accordance with the observations of Messrs. Sedgwick and 

 De la Beche, under the appellation of glauconite. For the upper 

 member of this series, embracing every bed between the chalk 

 and the gault, the name of malm is substituted, in place of the 

 terms Jirestone and upper green -sand, successively employed by 

 Dr. Fitton, and malm-rock, adopted by Mr. Murchison*. 



The weald-clay and the iron- or Hastings-sand are regarded as 

 deposits of common character and single origin, — as constituting one 

 formation ; and since Hastings-sand or iron-sand would be as little 

 designative of the whole thing signified as Weald-clay, and to avoid 

 the inconvenience of the periphrasis of Weald-sands and-clays, Mr. 

 Martin proposes, as any coihpound from Weald must have a Saxon 

 termination, to call the whole formation the Wealden. In the choice 



of 



* We are not aware that either of the designations here proposed can be 

 objected to; but at the same time we are unwilling to relinquish the term 

 firestone ; for, although it be very true, as Mr. Martin observes, that " any 

 stone of a particular combination of lime, argil, and silex, may be a firestone,'* 

 (i. e. a stone that will sustain a high temperature without alteration, and may 

 thence be applied to such purposes in the arts as require a stone of this 

 quality,) yet the term having been exclusively applied by English geo- 

 logists to a species of stone occurring in the upper member of the glauco- 

 nitic series, and derivatively to this subordinate formation itself, whatever its 

 mineral nature, is not liable to misconstruction ; and some circumstances in 

 its history which Mr. M. has not alluded-to, render us very desirous that its 

 use should be retained by geologists. The beds of this substance in the 

 neighbourhood of Godstone, in Surrey, and other localities, were extensively 

 quarried by our ancestors, for the erection of many of their ecclesiastical 

 and other edifices, as well as for the purposes of sculpture; examples of 

 which may be seen in parts of Westminster Abbey, in the repaired south- 

 east angle of the keep of Rochester Castle, &c. : and thence the name, as 



applied 



