146 NATURAL SCIENCE. August. 



temerity the author has taken upon himself to say that the Inferior 

 OoHte species figured by d'Orbigny under a wrong identification is a . 

 Cornbrash fossil, and he has called it " Ammonites discus, Sowerby." A 

 comparison of the suture lines shown by d'Orbigny and indicated by 

 Sowerby ought to have put him on his guard. We fear, however, 

 that such little details as suture lines do not accord with " individual 

 views about species" — a phrase we find more than once in this work. 



In the catalogue of fossils given in the appendix palaeontological 

 inaccuracy also reveals itself. It is not, however, by any means so 

 conspicuous as was the case in the Liassic volume, and this, we take 

 it, results from detailed work on Lower Oolitic species having been 

 done by specialists in various recent publications. Thus the greatest 

 and therefore most suspicious zonal ranges to be found in the tables 

 are shown among the Lamellibranchiata, with which no British 

 specialist has yet engaged himself, and we confidently expect that 

 when one does these zonal ranges will be very much restricted. Out- 

 side the Lamellibranchiata very few species are given with wide 

 zonal range — a marked contrast to the Liassic volume, while the 

 majority are recorded from a single zone. A few exceptions occur, 

 noticeably among the Brachiopoda. Thus Rhynchonella concinna and 

 R. obsoleta, Waldheimia anglica, and W. hidlata are given wide ranges. 

 We venture to say that those who are making a study of Jurassic 

 Brachiopoda — a by no means small band of naturalists in the West 

 of England — will be unable to endorse these "finds" of the author. 

 Nor will they wish to take from the Survey the credit of recording 

 Rhynchonella ringens in the Parkinsoni-zone.- We can understand some 

 of the other zonal records by ascribing them to "individual views 

 about species," but we confess to being entirely at a loss to know 

 what Rhynchonella of the Parkinsoni-zone can have been mistaken for 

 R. ringens, a species so remarkably distinctive in every way. 



The stratigraphical work is also not free from error. Thus, in 

 the section of Leckhampton Hill (p. 124), a considerable series of 

 sandy beds, which should be between the Gryphite and lower Trigonia 

 grits, are not shown at all. On page no something seems to have gone 

 amiss with the zonal arrangement ; for, while in the early part of the 

 volume (p. 45) " the zone of Hnniphriesianus " is placed in the " upper 

 division," here it is put to overlap a portion of the "lower division." 

 Then the upper Trigonia grit is left out of account for zonal purposes 

 altogether. The recognition of the zone oi A. hnniphriesianus at all in 

 the Cotteswolds may be regarded as an error founded on mis- 

 conceptions of Wright and Witchell, and in making a quotation to 

 support it (p. in) about there being " no break of a marked character 

 between the upper Trigonia-gvit and the Gryphite grit," the author has 

 done a little special pleading : the context insisted on there being a 

 chronological break. 



Although we have thus pointed out some of the pitfalls which 

 have entrapped him, we hasten to place on record our conviction 

 that, considering the immensity of the task upon which he has been 

 engaged, the author has produced a work of great value to all those 

 who may be studying the Lower Oolitic rocks. As a record of what 

 has been done among these strata, accompanied by many new and 

 important contributions from the author himself, as a guide to the 

 localities and the rocks which they exhibit, and as a starting point for 

 all new work, the volume is one of great interest. Our thanks are 

 due to Mr. H. B. Woodward for the amount of information which he 

 has rendered so readily accessible to the student. 



