1897] SOME NEW BOOKS 417 



of science. Sir Henry Howorth's ' heretical ' article in our November 

 number did little more than translate the words of Fitton. Then are 

 there not a good many hard-working zoologists and botanists who are 

 perfectly satisfied if they can assign their specimens to certain pigeon- 

 holes made for them in a rather hypothetical cupboard called a System? 

 It is even a fact that many excellent old writers are ignored jnst 

 because they could not, or would not, use a regular Linnaean termin- 

 ology. Their works are neither read nor to be found in our scientific 

 libraries. Into such obscurity even Hutton's great work, " The 

 Theory of the Earth," may fall. It is nothing that we saw it 

 characterised recently in the catalogue of a second-hand bookseller 

 as " This extravagant theory which was defended by the celebrated 

 Professor Play fair " ; but we were indeed surprised to find no copy of 

 it in the geological library at the Natural History Museum. 



"With reference to Playfair's defence, known as " Illustrations of 

 the Huttonian Theory," Sir Archibald remarks : " For precision of 

 statement ami felicity of language, it has no superior in English 

 scientific literature. To its early inspiration I owe a debt which 

 I can never fully repay. Upon every young student of geology 

 I would impress the advantage of reading and re-reading, and reading 

 yet again, this consummate masterpiece. How different would geo- 

 logical literature be to-day if men had tried to think and write like 

 Playfair \ » 



Put it may be objected, How can we find time to read these old 

 authors, much less to write like the best of them ? We have to read 

 the modern literature, and even a small part of that is overwhelming. 

 We have so much to do that we cannot waste our energies on mere 

 style, and we must rush out our results the easiest and quickest way 

 we can, or we shall be anticipated. Sir Archibald's answer should be 

 laid to heart, not merely by geologists old and young, but by all 

 scientific workers. He finds his consolation in " the conviction, borne 

 in upon us by ample and painful experience, that a very large mass 

 of the geological writing of the present time is utterly worthless for 

 any of the higher purposes of the science, and that it may quite safely 

 and profitably, both as regards time and temper, be left unread. If 

 geologists, and especially young geologists, could only be brought to 

 realise that the addition of another paper to the swollen flood of our 

 scientific literature involves a serious responsibilit}'', that no man 

 should publish what is not of real consequence, and that his state- 

 ments when published should be as clear and condensed as he can 

 make them, what a blessed change would come over the faces of their 

 readers, and how greatly they would conduce to the real advance of 

 the science which they wish to serve." There is not a dull page in 

 " The Founders of Geology," but, were it only on account of this last 

 paragraph, we should wish for it many readers in all parts of the 

 world. 



The Death of Rocks 



A Treatise on Rocks, Rock-Weathering, and Soils. By G. P. Merrill. 8vo, pp. 

 xx + 411, pis. xxv. New York : The Macmillan Company, 1897. Price, 17s. 



What the unsatisfactory preservation of fossils is to a palaeontologist 

 and surface drift to a' stratigrapher, decomposition of rocks has long 



