560 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



were written with reference to a question set by the Royal Academy of 

 Denmark with reference to the possibility of establishing for an individ- 

 ual isolated in society rules of conduct drawn from his personal nature, 

 and the relation of such rules to those which would be reached from a con- 

 sideration of society as a whole. These chapters were crowned with the 

 gold medal of the academy. 



The lectures with which Sir Archibald Geikie inaugurated the Williams 

 lectureship in Johns Hopkins University, have been published in a book 

 which can be read with unmixed pleasure, entitled The Founders of Geol- 

 ogy* In choosing his subject the author was moved by the thought that 

 as his audience would include geologists from all parts of the continent and 

 representing all departments of the science, a general topic of equal interest 

 to all would be the best to present, and that a review of the past, with its 

 successes and its errors, would afford valuable lessons in the future prose- 

 cution of the science. Yet it would be impossible to present the whole, even 

 of this one phase of geology, adequately in a single course; and he there- 

 fore selected a limited period — that between the middle of the last century 

 and the close of the second decade of the present one, an interval of about 

 seventy years— a period which witnessed the laying of the foundations of 

 geology. Even the whole of this period can not practically be fully cov- 

 ered, wherefore the author limits himself to the recital of the story of a few 

 of the great pioneers, from whose " struggles, their failures, and their suc- 

 cesses," it may be indicated how geological ideas and theories gradually 

 took shape. The first chapter treats of the cosmogonists and the beginnings 

 of accurate and detailed observation regarding the earth's crust and its his- 

 tory, with special notice of Guettard and his labors; then the rise of vol- 

 canic geology and geological travel, the history of the doctrine of geological 

 succession, and the rise of the modern conception of the theory of the earth 

 and of experimental geology are discussed, with notices of the leading names 

 connected with each phase, closing with an estimate of the influence of Lyell 

 and Darwin. From the whole the three lessons are derived of the varied 

 employments of the most eminent leaders of the science and the small num- 

 ber of u professional " geologists among them; the length of time that may 

 elapse before a fecund idea comes to germinate and bear fruit ; and " the 

 absolute necessity of avoiding dogmatism " in geology. 



The existence of a rule based on astronomical considerations in the ori- 

 entation of important buildings was suggested to Mr. Norman Lockyer by 

 the observation of the direction in which the Parthenon is built, and of the 

 many changes in the direction of the temple at Eleusis. Then he was re- 

 minded of a tradition that the eastern windows of properly constructed 

 churches in England generally face the place of the sunrising on the fes- 

 tival day of the patron saint. He was thus set upon an inquiry which has 

 been pursued for many years as to whether this is not a veritable rule, 

 handed down from remote antiquity, and exemplified generally in temple 

 architecture. The result of these inquiries is his book, The Dawn of As- 

 tronomy.\ The richest field for such a study was of course found in the 



* The Founders of Geology. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp.297. Price, $2. 

 t The Dawn of Astronomy. A Study of the Temple Worship and Mythology of the Ancient Egyp- 

 tians. By J. Norman Lockyer. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 432. Price, $3. 



