The Scottish Naturalist. 141 



Loch Eriboll. The problem investigated is the relation between the eastern 

 gneiss and the fossiliferous Durness limestone ; and Dr. Callaway states, on 

 p. 357 — " The view which I have here to submit approximates most nearly to 

 that of Nicol. I maintain, with that author, that the junction of the limestone 

 with the eastern gneiss is a line of faulting and inversion, but I shall attempt to 

 prove that this gneiss is a distinct series, newer than, and resting unconform- 

 ably on, the Hebridean, that Nicol's "igneous rock," overlying the limestone, 

 is usually a true gneiss, and that both the older and younger gneissic systems 

 have been brought up over the limestone by great earth-movements. The 

 eastern gneiss I propose provisionally to name the ' Caledonian.' " Appendix 

 to the last paper by Prof. Bonney, entitled " Notes on a Series of Rocks from 

 the North-west -Highlands, Collected by G. Callaway ;" " On the Basalt Glass 

 (Trachylyte) of the Western Isles of Scotland" by Prof. John W. Judd, F.R.S., 

 and Grenville A. J. Cole, F.G.S. (pp. 444-463, pts. xiii.-xiv.) 



REVIEWS. 



Topographical Botany, by the late H. C. Watson. Second Edition, cor- 

 rected and revised by J. G. Baker and W. W. Newbould. 



Botanists, taking the term in its widest sense, may be divided into three or 

 four classes. First of all we have the mere plant-collector, the height of whose 

 ambition it is to add a new species to his herbarium. Lowly as is the position 

 of such in the scientific army, yet, provided that he be painstaking and con- 

 scientious, his labours, altogether apart from the personal benefit accruing from 

 an intercourse, however slight, with Nature, are not without their value. 



To the second class belongs the Systematic Botanist, who studies plants with 

 the intention of discovering their relationships to each other, as species, genera, 

 and orders, and who, except in so far as light may be thrown thereby on his 

 own special pursuit, does not concern himself with plants in their relations as 

 living organisms. It is the endeavour of a third class to penetrate behind the 

 veil that, to a greater or less extent, conceals all the phenomena of life, and 

 that makes us feel that "things are not as they seem." There is yet a fourth 

 class whose occupation it is to collect and digest facts relating to the distribu- 

 tion of plants, whether in time or over the Earth's surface. 



Though Mr. Watson may be said to have belonged to more than one of 

 these classes, yet his name will always be associated specially with the study 

 of plant-distribution in Great Britain. For a considerable period of his life 

 he was most diligent in collecting, weighing, and arranging all accessible in- 

 formation as to the leading facts in this department of Geographical Botany ; 

 and he has bequeathed his successors a rich legacy in the works issued by him. 

 Of these the latest is the one now before us, which in its first edition must be 

 familiar to the majority of British botanists. 



We have said "first edition," and the volume now issued is called the 

 "second edition ;" but as the first issue of the work was never, in the strict 

 acceptation of the term, published, but was privately printed, and, by the 

 generosity of its author, given away to many botanists, this would probably in 

 the language of the " Trade " be termed the first edition. 



Be that as it may, the present issue contains considerable additions to the 

 information given in the former. Most of these were collected by Mr. Watson 

 himself; but the accomplished editors have added others from various sources, 

 while preparing the work for publication from his annotated copy and his 



