70 NATURAL SCIENCE. Jan., 



printing has made none too clear, and with figures of fossils which, 

 from the same cause, can hardly be identified, notably on p. 44. 



In striking contrast to the above are the contents of the volume, 

 which are, for the most part, worthy of the painstaking ability 

 of the author. The chapters on economic geology are un- 

 doubtedly the best part of the work ; they contain much infor- 

 mation valuable to others besides geologists. The stratigraphical 

 portion of the volume displays the writer's general knowledge of the 

 Liassic deposits to the best advantage ; and it gives a remarkable 

 amount of information for which ev^ery geologist will be thankful. 

 Had this information not been marred by an unfortunate abundance 

 of obvious palaeontological inaccuracies, we should have had nothing 

 but praise for this work. Unhappily, a considerable laxity in 

 the use of specific names, and a too great reliance on out-of-date 

 records, has, we regret to say, rendered the palaeontological information 

 to a large extent untrustworthy. , We need not warn the field- 

 geologist ; a very little investigation will tell him that as regards the 

 zonal records, both in the body of the work and in the appendix, it 

 will be safer " to divide by four and disbelieve the quotient." In 

 such case, however, the descriptive portion of the work becomes 

 hardly more than a guide-book to the quarries and to the beds that 

 they contain ; but a volume on which so much labour has been bestowed 

 is surely worthy of something higher than this. 



It would have improved the work immensely, in our opinion, if 

 the lists of species had been compared with those of good continental 

 authorities, and if records on which doubt was thus cast had been 

 expunged. A healthy scepticism as regards the insular idea that this 

 country can show associations of species which the rest of Europe 

 cannot produce should certainly be encouraged. We may pass the 

 inevitable mistake of calling A . falcifer by the name of a generically 

 different fossil, A. serpentinus ; but such records as A. semicostatus and 

 A. raricostatiis together " above their appropriate zones " (p. 66), 

 A. siibplanicosta and planicosta in the same bed (p. 67), A. semicostatus 

 and snhplanicosta together (p. 16^), A. birclii and A.oxynotus in con- 

 junction (p. 148), and the table at the end of the volume having 

 Amvi. planicosta, raricostatus, a.nd semicostatits ranging from the Bucklandi- 

 to the Jamesoni-zone, A . stnatiilns from the A nimlatus to the Jnrensis-zone, 

 and Rhynchonella calcicosta from the Planorbis to the Spinatus, may well 

 excite suspicion as to the trustworthiness of the palaeontology. The 

 specialist, from his knowledge of the labels which Ammonites often 

 bear, will no doubt be able to translate some of the above, as, for 

 instance, " ^ . planicosta " with A . siritis (Reynes), and " ^ . raricostatiis " 

 with the young of A . sauzeanns (d'Orbigny) ; but the general geologist 

 will, no doubt, be fogged. 



The wisdom of the division between Lower and Middle Lias 

 adopted in this work, contrar)' to general palaeontological opinion, and 

 contrary to wliat obtains in the companion Survey volume on York- 

 shire, may well be questioned. In order to make the disproportion 

 between Lower and Middle Lias less conspicuous, the author has had 

 recourse to a "lumping" of the zones between those of Angnlatus 

 and Capricornns ; while, on the other hand, a more than usually full 

 recognition is accorded to the zones above the latter. As a conse- 

 quence of the lumping, the zonalist will find in the appendix-tables 

 a curious admixture of zonal species besides those noted above. 

 Perhaps, however, what will most surprise him in this connection is 

 that six species of Ammonites are said to pass from the Lower to the 



