De la Beche's Geological Manual, 709 



Since the publication of this book, Mr. Mackay has discoveretl 

 additional genera and species, some of which he names in ah 

 interesting communication, which he has contributed to the 

 Ga?'de7ier's Magazine, vol. vii. p. 230. 



De la Beche, Henry, F.R.S. &c. : A Geological Manual, 

 London. Treuttel and Wiirtz.,?, Qff^ eojiiV^ 



Dr. Johnson defines a manual to be " a smaill bbokjkuoh 

 as may be carried by the hand." The French have more en- 

 larged ideas of a manual : the Manuel de Tournure, for the use 

 of amateur turners, consists of two volumes in folio, which 

 wdiild require the hand of a Cyclops to carry it. From th^ 

 price of the Geological Manual, which is eighteen shilHrigs ! 

 we fully expected to see a manual on the French scale, a 

 goodly octavo at least ; in this we were disappointed : the 

 book is a comely well printed duodecimo. 



The first part of the work is devoted to subjects which 

 may be regarded as pertaining more strictly to physical geo- 

 graphy than to geology : but as these sciences are intimately 

 connected, we are not inclined to object to this division of the 

 work, except that it is rather out of proportion to the other 

 parts of the volume: it is chiefly compiled from the first 

 volume of Daubuisson's Geognosie. The principal heads are 

 on the temperature of the earth and of springs, the sea and 

 lakes, the temperature of the atmosphere, the action of the 

 sea on coasts, and on currents and tides. These, with some 

 minor articles, carry the reader to p. 103. Of the remaining 

 400 pages that are, strictly speaking, confined to geology, 

 nearly one third are filled with catalogues of fossil organic 

 remains, chiefly reprinted from catalogues which have appeared 

 in different numbers of the Philosophical Magazine. Th4 

 work is professedly written for the service of the geological 

 student; but he may justly complain that so large a part of it 

 consists of a dry catalogue of shells, which can be of little 

 value, unless he have some well arranged collection to con- 

 sult, and such collections are extremely rare in this country^ 

 Indeed, a numerous catalogue of fossils, for the most part with- 

 out comment or illustration, is more likely to bewilder the 

 student, and disgust him with the science, than to lend hun 

 any aid in his enquiries. What is wanted by those who com- 

 mence the study of geology is, a selection of the most important 

 organic remains, whether in the animal or vegetable king- 

 doms, that have been well ascertained to characterise certain 

 formations or series of strata, viz., that do not appear in the 

 strata above or below the series : such characteristic shells in 

 each formation are not numerous, but well deserve the careful 



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