REVIEWS. 57 



whether found in river, lake, or ocean, if it has at all a worn and rounded outline, 

 as having probably acquired that outline by the action of moving water, and as 

 having been probably transported by that action from its parent site to the place 

 where we now find it. But, as in the case of the sand, so in that of the pebbles 

 and boulders — if all those found in rivers or on shores have been rounded by the 

 action of moving water, it is, a priori, highly probable that all pebbles and boulders 

 and round stones whatever, however high and dry they may now be on plains or 

 hills or mountain -slopes, are, in fact, but water- worn fragments of older rock. 



" There is not a shower of rain that falls, whether on the crowded street, the 

 dusty road, the plains, the hills, or the mountain summits, that does not cause a 

 multitude of rills, and streams of muddy water to flow from higher to lower levels. 

 The mud borne along by that water was once part of a solid rock. Even if it be 

 but the waste of the bricks and tiles of our houses, this is still true ; and it is equally 

 true for every other case, except for those particles of it that may be the result of 

 the decomposition of animal or vegetable matter. Even the gentlest rain that 

 soaks silently into the most richly- carpeted meadow of grass, contributes to the 

 stock of water contained below ground, which here and there bursts forth in springs, 

 carrying momently some grain of mineral matter to the brook, the river, and the 

 ocean. Who has not seen the springs discoloured after heavy rain? Who has not 

 watched, in wet weather, the swollen brook or the roaring mountain-torrent, with 

 its thick, muddy, coffee-coloured water ? Who does not know the flooded aspect 

 of a river, with its dull, yellow, turbid eddies, so different from the limped stream 

 that commonly flows between its banks ? Whoever has seen these things, has seen 

 one of the multitudinous actions of nature which are for ever and everywhere in 

 operation, performing slowly, and in the lapse of ages, mighty works by means 

 apparently inadequate, and at first sight, perhaps, not especially adapted to the 

 purpose. 



" There are, however, other agencies at work — agencies acting with greater local 

 power than mere rain — in wearing away solid rocks and transporting the waste to 

 other localities. We have alluded to the action of brooks and rivers ; but if we 

 were to trace them more minutely and in detail, and follow them up to where they 

 acquire a swifter stream, or where rapids and cataracts occur in them, we should 

 estimate still more highly their destructive power on solid rock. Rivers are, in 

 fact, great natural saws or planes, for ever grooving furrows in the land. Let any 

 one look at the bed of a mountain torrent, where it has cut a deep ravine through 

 hard rock, and he will see the amount of its force perpetually acting through un- 

 counted ages. As a well-known example, let him take the Ealls of Niagara, as 

 detailed in Sir C. Lyell's ' Principles of Geology,' and he will see somewhat of the 

 nature of river action in deepening its own beds through the destruction and trans- 

 portation of the rock composing it." 



Himalayan Journals ; or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sik- 

 kim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, &c. Two vols. 

 8vo. Plates. London : John Murray. 1854. Price £1 16s. 



We had long looked with an anxious desire for the appearance of these 

 volumes ; and now that they have appeared, we gladly hail them as a 

 welcome addition to our previous scanty and very imperfect knowledge of 

 the regions they treat of. 



. The readers of Hooker's Journal of Botany will, no doubt, as the title 



meets the eye, recall with pleasure the letters from their accomplished author, 



which studded its pages, while he was pursuing the researches whose results 



vol. i. r 



