190 1. Cole. — Early Geological Mapping in Ireland. 11 



tural is shown by his note, " The parts without colour are 

 infertile." From his treatment of the fertile areas, and the 

 way in which one colour is there made to terminate against 

 another along an engraved line of boundary, it is clear that 

 the principles on which our " drift " maps are coloured at the 

 present day were grasped by Sampson in 1802. That he did 

 not apply these principles to the representation of the larger 

 geological features was doubtless due to the conditions under 

 which his work was prepared. In providing an index to the 

 colours employed, Sampson was also a pioneer. When 

 Professor Judd describes Smith's manuscript map of Bath, 

 coloured in 1799, as "the oldest geological map in existence, if 

 we distinguish geological from agricultural or soil maps," it 

 is pleasant to note that Sampson and the Royal Dublin Society 

 produced an engraved map only three years later, which 

 represents several geological features, and which has thus 

 good claims to be regarded as a geological map. So far as I 

 know, it is the oldest geological representation of any part of 

 Ireland, and was issued thirteen years before Smith's magnifi- 

 cent map of England and Wales was engraved and became 

 public property. 



Royal College of Science, Dublin. 



CURRENT LITERATURE. 



A Bramble-book. 



The publication of Rev. W. Moyle Rogers's '' Handbook of British 

 Rubi " (Duckworth, 1900, 5/-) will be welcomed, though few of our Irish 

 botanists elect to explore the thorny path of batology. The fruticose 

 section of the genus, which includes all British forms except the Rasp- 

 berry, Stone Bramble, and Cloudberry, runs to exactly 100 species as 

 enumerated in this latest pronouncement on these bewildering plants. 

 Mr. Rogers's book is distinctly attractive, being excellently printed ; 

 the descriptions are full, the characters marking each form being picked 

 out in italics, and interesting notes on character and distribution are 

 added. In an appendix the distribution of each is shown by a list of the 

 Watsonian numbers of the counties in which it has been found ; as 

 regards Ireland, the author departs from this plan for reasons that are 

 not stated, and quotes the names of counties instead. We cordially 

 commend the book to our botanical readers. 



