342 Notices respecting New Books: — Darwin on the 



he has followed ? But the above statement of the question 

 will not be regarded as the correct one by those who wish to 

 understand the real mechanism of glacial motion, and I am 

 far from accusing Prof Forbes of any thought of doing an in- 

 justice to De Saussure. The causes assigned by them for the 

 motion of glaciers are quite distinct. They may, however, be 

 coexistent; the absolute determination of their relative im- 

 portance must be left to future observation. 

 I am, Gentlemen, 



Your obedient Servant, 

 Cambridge, March 21, 1845. W. HoPKlNS. 



I^I. Notices respecting Ncjo Books. 



Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands, visited during the 

 voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, together with some brief notices on the 

 Geology of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope. Being the second 

 part of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle, under the command 

 of Captain Fitzroy, R.N., during the years 1832 to 1836. By 

 Charles Darwin, M.A., F.ll.S., Vice-President of the Geolo- 

 gical Society, and Naturalist to the Expedition. Published with 

 the approval of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury. 

 London, 1844, Svo. pp. 175. With a Plan of the Island of Ascen- 

 sion, and numerous wood-cuts. 



WE are presented in the work new before us with a further por- 

 tion of the results of the geological researches made by Mr. 

 Darwin, during the expedition in which, with so much zeal and suc- 

 cess, he gave his valuable and disinterested services as naturalist. 



Almost every branch of natural knowledge has profited from the 

 voyage of the Beagle ; — zoology in nearly all its departments, palae- 

 ontology, physical geography, meteorology, hydrography, minera- 

 logy and geology. And if the present continuation of Mr. Darwin's 

 labours does not present us wdth those striking and salient points of 

 scientific interest which are within the scope of every lover of nature 

 and of science, — if it does not call up again the extinct gigantic qua- 

 drupeds, which in South America, as in so many other parts of the 

 world, almost immediately preceded the existing animals of the same 

 types, — or, if it does not depict the stupendous phsenomena attending 

 the simultaneous outburst of volcanic fires along lines thousands of 

 miles in extent ; — it supplies the philosophical naturalist with minute 

 information on a multitude of the constituent elements, as it were, of 

 these greater phsenomena, essential to their successful investigation, 

 and with the details of physical structure of many volcanic islands 

 and groups hitherto undescribed, and of others respecting which we 

 were before deficient in exact knowledge. Mr. Darwin unites to a 

 hold facility of comprehending the mutual relations of the greater 

 features exhibited by the physical plisenomena which have come under 

 his observation, a happy and perspicacious power of recognizing a 

 peculiar order of geological dynamic agents, which, though certainly 



