REV.IEWS 



The Building of the British Isles. 3rd edition. By A. J. Jukes-BrowNe, 

 B.A., F.R.S., F.G.S. [Pp. xvi + 470, 80 maps and figs.] (London : 

 Edward Stanford, 191 1. Price 12s. net.) 



We welcome a new edition of Mr. Jukes-Browne's book. It is eighteen years 

 since the previous edition appeared ; and so great has been the advancement of 

 our knowledge since then, that the author has " found it necessary to re-write 

 every chapter of the book " ; this edition therefore is essentially a new work. 



It would be easy to cavil and there are doubtless many utterances in the book 

 to which exception might be taken, yet to lay stress on such utterances without 

 judging of the work as a whole would be most unfair to the author. Every one 

 who has tried knows how difficult it is to attempt restoration of land and sea at 

 different geological periods. The lecturer can give vague indications of coast-lines 

 with a broad sweep of the chalk over the blackboard and these vague lines give 

 truer indications of our present knowledge than continuous fine-drawn lines. But 

 in a book the latter must be drawn and if it be remembered that they are but 

 approximations to what may be regarded as the mean conditions prevalent during 

 a long period of minor fluctuations, no harm can come of it. Mr. Jukes-Browne 

 has given us a series of maps illustrating such mean conditions during different 

 geological periods ; the bulk of the work is a luminous description of the data 

 upon which these maps are based, with an account of the general physical conditions 

 which prevailed over the British area during the successive periods. 



The book is an honest attempt, after a most careful study of the old and modern 

 literature, to work the countless details of the stratigraphical geology of the area 

 into a connected story ; any student who is repelled by the sinister array of 

 apparently meaningless facts will turn with pleasure to this work to find that they 

 are so marshalled that each has its meaning and forms a definite link in the chain 

 which the author has so ably put together ; a chain of which the lowest link is 

 fixed to those ancient rules which have been termed " the foundation-stones of 

 the earth's crust," whilst the uppermost marks the rocks which are being formed 

 to-day. 



In the introductory chapter, the author explains the principles which must be 

 applied when attempting the restoration of the physical geographies of various 

 past times and indicates the necessary precautions which must be observed in 

 this task. 



He applies the term Archaean Rocks to all rocks of pre-Cambrian date — a 

 use of the term which is not generally admitted. He adopts a suggestion of 

 Prof. Bonney that these rocks may be grouped into Eparchaean, Mesarchsean and 

 Protarchasan divisions. 



Great caution is exercised by the author in discussing the probable physical 

 conditions of these times. " It is of course impossible to read the history of any 

 period until the succession of the deposits has been ascertained ; at present all 

 that can be done is to build up an inferential and theoretical succession on the 



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