1898] SOME NEW BOOKS 211 



Dr Scott treats each period of geological time in a definite order. 

 He begins by mentioning the origin of the name applied to it, and 

 gives a tabular list of the American strata representing the period. 

 He then proceeds to describe these rocks and the geographical con- 

 ditions under which they must have been formed ; and finally he 

 refers in a delightfully broad manner to their foreign equivalents. 

 The life of the period is then systematically enumerated, with occa- 

 sional brief descriptions of specially important types ; and there is 

 the plate of sketches of common fossils to guide the student in his 

 practical work. 



Professed geologists and palaeontologists will naturally turn to Dr 

 Scott's account of the Tertiary formations, to our knowledge of the 

 mammalian fauna of which he has made so many important contri- 

 butions. Here they will not be disappointed ; for, although the 

 chapter is necessarily very brief, it gives in an authoritative manner 

 just such a broad view of the subject as an ordinary student of 

 geology or vertebrate zoology requires. Our only complaint is that 

 the author should still make use of the misleading term ' Quaternary ' 

 for the Pleistocene period. He, himself, indeed mentions the fact 

 that the transition between the Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits is 

 perfectly gradual ; it would, therefore, have been more logical to refer 

 them to one and the same great Tertiary series. He is to be congratu- 

 lated, however, on the brevity of his reference to the speculations on 

 the Glacial epoch, which often occupy an undue space in elementary 

 text-books ; and his table of strata at the end is also commendably 

 brief and free from bewildering detail. 



Dr Scott has indeed produced an elementary text-book of geology 

 of which the University of Princeton may feel proud. It is clearly 

 the work of a teacher, an experienced original investigator, and of one 

 whose knowledge is far beyond the once-common parochial stage. 



The Geology of Cambridgeshire 



A Handbook to the Geolooy of Cambridgeshire. [Cambridgeshire Natural 

 Science Manuals.] By F. R. Cowper Reed. 8vo, pp. x + 276. Cambridge: The 

 University Press, 1897. Price, 7s. 6d. 



Cambridge, fosterer of all sciences, mother of famous geologists, 

 ought to give the world a model Handbook of local geology. What 

 should be the aim of such a Handbook ? Not, certainly, to include 

 all that has been written, and so save a student from study ; nor yet 

 to be a mere description of the geological map, assigning each area to 

 its stage. A more usual object is to catalogue the formations which 

 occur, indicating the places where they may be examined, and noting 

 the peculiarities which they present. A higher ideal would be to 

 make a geological history of the district, describing its character as 

 land and sea in each successive age : with this might well be com- 

 bined remarks on the present visible surface, as resulting from its 

 history and its structure. But such a book should not teach general 

 principles, nor debate unsettled controversies. If the writer be great, 

 he may hope to attract students to the science, but if he is wise he 

 will not attempt to teach it to them. The author of this book seems 

 to set before himself several of these aims, and to reach some of 

 them. He, for the most part, follows the same lines as Woodward's 



