1897] SOME NEW BOOKS 417 
of science. Sir Henry Howorth’s ‘ heretical’ article in our November 
number did little more than translate the words of Fitton. Then are 
there not a good many hard-working zoologists and botanists who are 
perfectly satisfied if they can assign their specimens to certain pigeon- 
holes made for them in a rather hypothetical cupboard called a System ? 
It is even a fact that many excellent old writers are ignored just 
because they could not, or would not, use a regular Linnaean termin- 
ology. Their works are neither read nor to be found in our scientific 
libraries. Into such obscurity even Hutton’s great work, “The 
Theory of the Earth,” may fall. It is nothing that we saw it 
characterised recently in the catalogue of a second-hand bookseller 
as “This extravagant theory which was defended by the celebrated 
Professor Playfair”; but we were indeed surprised to find no copy of 
it in the geological library at the Natural History Museum. 
With reference to Playfair’s defence, known as “ Illustrations of 
the Huttonian Theory,” Sir Archibald remarks: “For precision of 
statement and felicity of language, it has no superior in English 
scientific literature. To its early inspiration 1 owe a debt which 
I can never fully repay. Upon every young student of geology 
I would impress the advantage of reading and re-reading, and reading 
yet again, this consummate masterpiece. How different would geo- 
logical literature be to-day if men had tried to think and write like 
Playfair !” 
But it may be objected, How can we find time to read these old 
authors, much less to write like the best of them? We have to read 
the modern literature, and even a small part of that is overwhelming. 
We have so much to do that we cannot waste our energies on mere 
style, and we must rush out our results the easiest and quickest way 
we can, or we shall be anticipated. Sir Archibald’s answer should be 
laid to heart, not merely by geologists old and young, but by all 
scientific workers. He finds his consolation in “the conviction, borne 
in upon us by ample and painful experience, that a very large mass 
of the geological writing of the present time is utterly worthless for 
any of the higher purposes of the science, and that it may quite safely 
and profitably, both as regards time and temper, be left unread. If 
geologists, and especially young geologists, could only be brought to 
realise that the addition of another paper to the swollen flood of our 
scientific literature involves a serious responsibility, that no man 
should publish what is not of real consequence, and that his state- 
ments when published should be as clear and condensed as he can 
make them, what a blessed change would come over the faces of their 
readers, and how greatly they would conduce to the real advance of 
the science which they wish to serve.” There is not a dull page in 
“The Founders of Geology,” but, were it only on account of this last 
paragraph, we should wish for it many readers in all parts of the 
world. 
THE DEATH OF ROCKS 
A TREATISE ON Rocks, Rock-WEATHERING, AND Sorts. By G. P. Merrill. 8vo, pp. 
xx+ 411, pls. xxv. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897. Price, 17s. 
W3aTt the unsatisfactory preservation of fossils is to a palaeontologist 
-and surface drift to a stratigrapher, decomposition of rocks has long 
