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range of mountains, and which in part still do so. They occupy ravines in the 

 higher parts of the range, perhaps as high as 3,000 feet, and one cut down in 

 1£3G, measured 36 feet in girth, whilst 1,000 feet of plank were sawn out of its 

 giant arms. No care has hitherto been taken of these valuable trees; the 

 farmers, the Bastards, and Hottentots, living in the neighbourhood, cut them 

 down without leave or license, and burn the Grass to improve the pasture, by 

 which many old trees, and thousands of young plants, are annually consumed. 

 As the Cedar-trees might, if preserved, become of great advantage to the colony 

 generally, I represented, in the proper quarter, the manner in which they are 

 constantly and wantonly destroyed ; and it is to be hoped that means will be 

 taken for preventing the future waste of that most valuable and imperishable 

 timber with which the temple of Solomon was built. There are many Boschman 

 caves in the Cedar mountains ; they are generally at some height, vary from 300 

 to 1,000 feet above the valley, and are not of any great depth, say 30 or 40 feet, 

 but they are very interesting, as containing the drawings in ochre of a wild people 

 who have for some years disappeared in this locality. In one cave there is a 

 spirited representation of a combat with bows and arrows ; and in another, a 

 flock of large-tailed Sheep and lambs are accurately delineated. — Transactions of 

 the Royal Geographical Society. 



GEOLOGY. 



Fossil Shells on the Western Railway. — A vein of fossil shells has been 

 met with by the labourers at Sonning-Hill, on the Great Western line, being the 

 first yet discovered ; it was found 21 feet beneath the surface of the old London- 

 road, in the gravel. This vein was very thin, and very similar in appearance, 

 and description of shell, to the marine deposits at Woodley, Earley, and the 

 neighbourhood of Bob's Mount. — Reading Mercury. 



REVIEWS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



A Treatise on Geology ; forming the Article under that head in the Seventh 

 Edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica." By John Phillips, F.R.S.,F.G.S., 

 Prof, of Geol. in King's Coll., London, &c. &c. Edinburgh : A. and C. Black, 

 1837. Demy 8vo. pp. 295. 



We have already (pp. 112 — 14) put our readers in possession of our opinions 

 respecting the proper foundation for the science of Geology, and it will, therefore, 

 be unnecessary to repeat them here, except so far as may be called for by passages 

 which have occurred to us in the perural of Professor Phillips's treatise. 



