I900.] A7i Irish Geog7'aphy. 97 



issued by Mr. Welch for the North of Ireland, and by Mr. Lawrence for 

 the South, .Mr. Welch comes ofif rather badly, for his fine peak above 

 Doo Lough, in Co. Mayo, on p. 24, receives no title at all, while his Slieve 

 Bearnagh, in the Mourne Mountains (p. 25), is ascribed to a mountain- 

 range in "Co. Antrim," where mountain-ranges are conspicuously 

 absent. Mr. Lawrence's Bridge of Lismore, on p. 32, is said to be in Co. 

 Cork. Mr. Cooke knows Ireland so intimately, that these details must 

 be held to show signs of haste in the serious task of preparing a " first- 

 book of science." 



The maps are in duplicate, one series being photographed from raised 

 models without place-names ; the other maps contain the names of 

 countries on a uniform red ground, as a sort of key to the valuable 

 physical map that precedes each throughout the volume. The treat- 

 ment of the principal features of the globe (pp. 38-74) is on the old- 

 fashioned lines of treating the rivers apart from the mountains, the 

 capes apart from the islands, and so on. Thus, on p. 65, the Balkan 

 Peninsula, Corea, Labrador, Alaska— why is Alaska a peninsula? — and 

 Yucatan occur ^together, of course with others, as a list of the 

 "peninsulas of the world." We have no doubt that some current 

 curriculum hampers the author, and brings down his admirable ideals 

 into these regulation grooves. 



Ireland, however, occupies pp. 75-114, and is written for the most part 

 graphically, and with the enjoyment born of personal knowledge. No 

 attempt is made to correlate or explain the various features; and 

 probably this is left for lessons in Physical Geography. It is impossible, 

 of course, to " explain everything," like the mother of Lady 

 Windermere ; but a word in season would, at any rate, check the spread 

 of some romantic fallacies, such as those, for example, which gather 

 round the Giants' Causeway. This object is, by-the-by, stated on p. So 

 to be 400 feet high. We note also, on p. 86, that an explanation is put 

 forward as to the petrifying properties of the waters of Lough Neagh. 

 The petrified wood in question, however, is silicified, and is washed out 

 from the Cainozoic plant-beds ; its occurrence has, we believe, nothing 

 to do with the modern waters of the lake, despite two centuries of 

 tradition. 



We seem to be pointing out flaws in this pleasant and original little 

 book ; but they are mainly such as result from the limitations imposed 

 upon the author. A work on the same lines for secondary schools, con- 

 necting the structure and surface- features of Ireland with the adjacent 

 island of Great Britain, and thence in a broad way with continental 

 Europe, may, perhaps, follow from the same pen, and would carry out 

 the promise that cannot be perfectly fulfilled in these 114 excellently 

 printed pages. 



G. A. J. C. 



