M2 SOMMAHT OF THE WEATHEB. 



days. The wind has blown very often from N.W. to N.E., occasionally 

 shifting to W. by S. and S.W., veering back to N.W. and N. towards the 

 close of the month, with considerable force, though its general character 

 has been moderate. Vegetation is still backward ; the fragrant May blossom, 

 pre-eminently characterised by its name as an ornament of the early part of 

 the month, is scarcely visible now, when June " dances with her blue-bell'd 

 anklets on." The late rains have freshened the foliage, the grass (as yet 

 scanty), and the corn, which now promises well. Of the summer birds first 

 noted this month, the Sedge-warbler and the Nightingale were heard on the 

 10th; the Garden-warbler and Landrail (or Grass-quake) on the 12th; the 

 Grey Fly-catcher on the 28th. Most of them later than usual ; the Sedge- 

 warbler coming sometimes on the 22nd of April, and the Nightingale on the 

 25th. The last bird mentioned has abounded on all sides this year, and 

 would do yearly, if undisturbed by bird-catchers and unruly persons, owing 

 to whom the sober, thinking portion of the public are robbed of the charm 

 of its matchless song. 

 Bamsley, June, 1855. 



Introductory Text-Booh to Geology. By David Page, F. G. S. Edinburgh and 

 London : William Blackwood and Sons. 1854. 



The present age is pre-eminently one of cheap books. Shilling editions 

 of Standard Novelists, Poets, Historians, and Philosophical Essayists, are 

 almost as numerous as readers were two centuries ago. Nor is sciencte left 

 behind in this march of cheap intellect. Every other day we come upon 

 books on the Natural Sciences, so cheap, that we wonder how the merely 

 nominal charge for the volumes can pay tlie expense of woodcuts, paper, 

 printing, and binding. Among these clieap works we do not know of any 

 production better calculated to repay the purchaser, or aid the great social 

 reform — which ought to be the aim of every writer of a volume — than that 

 at present under consideration. It contains 13G pages of well digested, and 

 really understandable matter, written evidently by a master hand, and got up 

 in a style which is alike creditable to the publisher, the artist, and the 

 printer ; and all for the sum of one-and-sixpence. The work is divided into 

 fifteen chapters, and so arranged, that the youngest reader may wade his 

 way through it, not only with profit, but with increasing interest. 



Chapter I. lucidly explains the nature and bearings of the science of 

 Geology. 



Chapter II. explains the general operations on the crust of the earth. 



Chapters III. and IV. are devoted to the structure of the materials com- 

 posing the earth's crust, and to a classification of the formations into sys- 

 tems, groups, and series. 



