1894. SOME NEW BOOKS. 147 



tary origin, beyond the fact that beds of different composition rapidly 

 alternate, and have marbles and quartz-schists intercalated. The 

 Appalachians and Alleghanies consist of folded Palaeozoic rocks, 

 from Cambrian to Carboniferous, with older eruptive rocks in places. 

 The eastern part of the State is known as the Coastal plain, and is com- 

 posed of slightly consolidated rocks of Cretaceous and Tertiary age. 

 The numerous unconformities which these present are evidence of 

 successive periods of elevation and depression. English students of 

 the Tertiary rocks would be interested in the highly fossiliferous 

 Pamunkey and Chesapeake formations, which contain many species 

 of mollusca hardly to be distinguished from our own. 



The charts are based upon a full investigation of all data relating 

 to the climate of Maryland. Much information has been gathered 

 on this subject, especially since the organisation of the State Weather 

 Service, and these charts and the accompanying tables of observations, 

 now for the first time bring the results together in a compact form. 

 The climate, like the surface of the country, is greatly diversified, 

 and the comparisons instituted will prove of interest to meteoro- 

 logists. We miss, however, the promised section on Medical 

 Climatology. 



The style of the work is to be commended for its clearness and 

 conciseness ; it will probably obtain for it more readers than would 

 have been found for a more ambitious and more technical description. 

 After all a scientific work may be intelligible sometimes. 



We may also add that we have received a " Guide to Baltimore," 

 originally prepared by a local committee for the use of the American 

 Institute of Mining Engineers at their Baltimore meeting. This 

 contains an account of the geology of Baltimore and its vicinity, 

 more detailed and more special than that in the work just reviewed. 

 The account of the crystalline rocks is by Professor G. H. W^illiams, 

 and that of the sedimentary rocks by Mr. N. H. Darton. This book 

 is accompanied by two of the Geological Survey maps of the 

 neighbourhood — one bringing out the features of the crystalline, and 

 the other those of the sedimentary rocks. 



F. A. B. 



The Mineral Resources of Western Australia. By Albert F. Calvert. 

 Pp. 179. London: George Philip & Son, 1893. Price 2s. 



Western Australia comprises about one-third of the great island- 

 continent, but it is a colony which is said to have " slumbered for 

 over fifty years." It is now slowly waking up, though its population 

 in i8gi was estimated at a little under 50,000 persons, exclusive of 

 Aborigines ; or one individual to about every twenty square miles. 

 There is room therefore for some of the unemployed who are prepared 

 to do hard work in return for a moderate income ; and there is room 

 also for the capitalist whose aim would be to assist in developing the 

 resources of the country, without seeking to make enormous profits. 

 The colony is not well off for water ; but this present drawback to 

 progress can be overcome by the construction of reservoirs and the 

 sinking of deep wells. 



In the little volume before us Mr. Calvert gives accounts of each 

 of the gold-fields of Western Australia ; a subject which occupies the 

 greater part of this work. In addition, there are brief notes on tin- 

 fields, the Collie coal-mines, etc. He acknowledges assistance from 

 the reports of the present Government geologist, Mr. H. P. Wood- 

 ward, and of his predecessor, the late Mr. Hardman, in whose reports 



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