64 SOME NEW BOOKS [july 



to man's general advantage. The lightning-flash is, after all, an uncertain and 

 unruly affair compared with the incandescent electric light. 



For ornamental stones, however, it is doubtful if any artificial product should 

 replace the natural ; the question here is one of natural beauty as opposed to 

 artificial colouring. Indeed, the startling breccias of some Italian manufacturers 

 seem only parodies of nature. An artificial marble should be as impossible in 

 architecture as an artificial flower-bed in a garden. 



Dr. Herrmann's account of the marvellous variety of rocks in Saxony 

 occupies 180 pages, and is followed by an appendix showing the choice of road- 

 metal on Saxon highways. Would that we could echo — -especially in Ireland — 

 his conclusion (p. 351) that sandstone, limestone, dolomite, mica-schist, clay- 

 slate, loam, and clay, while covering forty per cent of the surface of the country, 

 are nowhere used as road material ! When we see sand and turf-lumps thrown 

 down on the denuded foundations of the fine old Holyhead road, as a metalling 

 of modern days, we could wish for a little more of Dr. Herrmann's science 

 mingled with our British practice. 



This useful and agreeable volume concludes with a review of the public 

 purposes to which the best known stones have been applied in various countries. 

 It is a pity that the sumptuous use made of the "Irish green" serpentinous 

 marble in recent work in Dublin could not have been included. The granite of 

 Peterhead naturally comes in for mention, including references to Dublin and to 

 Liverpool. The work involved in the preparation of this catalogue is not to be 

 lightly estimated. 



While some of the photographic illustrations are useful, others, such as 

 those of stone-masons' buildings, are hardly in keeping with the work. A few 

 bold pictures of wrought surfaces of stones, taken near at hand, would, to our 

 thinking, be effective in a subsequent edition. G. A. J. C. 



MOKE APPLIED GEOLOGY. 



Applied Geology. Part II. By J. V. Elsden, B.Sc. 8vo, pp. vi. +250, 

 with figs. 58 to 186. London: " The Quarry " Publishing Company, 

 Limited, 1899. 



This book is stated by the author to be written both for the geologist and 

 the practical man. The second volume begins with chapter vi., which relates 

 to ore deposits, and contains information of a rudimentary but well-chosen 

 character, coupled with illustrations from various sources, notably from " Ore 

 Deposits " by the late J. A. Phillips. 



This chapter is represented by 19 pages of useful matter, illustrations 

 included, and ends with a list of " Common Ores occurring in Mineral Veins," 

 in which stromayerite and melaconite seem hardly common enough, in most 

 localities, to deserve mention. Chapter vii. deals with non- metalliferous 

 minerals. About 19 pages, including illustrations, are devoted to chapter viii., in 

 which notes on prospecting, the recognition of minerals and their paragenesis, 

 quarrying and mining are closely packed, somewhat to their mutual detriment. 

 The four following chapters treat of building and ornamental stones, of these 

 chapter ix. relates to igneous rocks, their modes of occurrence, structure, wearing, 

 etc. On page 68 the reader's attention is arrested by a plan of Dartmoor, 

 which, although it may embody a limited amount of truth, certainly demands an 

 enormous exercise of faith from anyone personally acquainted with the borders 

 of that granitic mass. In the section of the Worcestershire Beacon, Fig. 108, 

 it might have been well to indicate the direction in which the section is drawn, 

 and Fig. 110 appears to bear little or no relation to the adjacent letterpress. 

 The definitions of rock-structures on pages 74 and 75 are in some cases far from 

 satisfactory. The eruptive rocks are described in 14 pages, with some large, 

 well-executed figures, representing their appearance in thin sections under the 



