New Publications. 431 



the field and in the closet, of having first made naturalists mi- 

 nutely acquainted with all the geological relations of a system 

 of rocks, forming the oldest portion of the great secondary class, 

 and of thus signalising himself by a geological achievement, of 

 which there are not many similar examples on record since the 

 time of Werner, the founder of modern geognosy. 



2. A Sketch of the Geology of Fife and the Lothians, including detailed 

 Descriptions of Arthur's Seat and Pentland Hills ; by Charles Mac- 

 LAREN, Esq. F.R.S.E. Post 8vo. pp. 236. 1839, Adam and 

 Charles Black. 



The middle district of Scotland, especially the neighbour- 

 hood of Edinburgh, has been long celebrated on account of its 

 numerous and varied displays of instructive geognostical pheno- 

 mena, a circumstance -which has enabled the geologists of the 

 Edinburgh school to contribute in an eminent degree to the 

 advancement of geological science. These phenomena at an 

 early period engaged the attention of Hutton and Hall, names 

 famous in the history of geology ; and Playfair drew from the 

 same source illustrations for ,his universally known classical 

 work. Dr Hope by his lectures in our University on the 

 Huttonian Theory of the Earth, and Professor Jameson by his 

 field labours, publications, and lectures in the University, pre- 

 pared the way for the geology of Scotland of Boue, and the 

 well known memoirs of Robert Bald, Esq., Lord Greenock, 

 Dr Hibbert, R. J. Hay Cunningham, Esq., David Milne, 

 Esq., and this sketch of the geology of Fife and the Lothians, 

 &c., by Charles Maclaren, Esq. 



Mr Maclaren is already favourably known to the geological 

 world by his investigations. The present work is the result 

 of much patient and laborious examination, carried on during 

 a short period each summer for a series of years, as a recrea- 

 tion from incessant literary avocations. The author commenced 

 it with the idea of limiting his sketch to Arthur's Seat and the 

 Pentland Hills, but afterwards extended his plan ; and the 

 reader is now also presented with a geological account of the 

 district between the Lammermuirs and Ochils, " and a sum- 

 mary of the evidence from which a rise in the bed of the Firth 

 of Forth has been inferred." We have derived great pleasure 



