ii58 REVIEWS. 



The book contains a list of all the works on geology, mineralogy, 

 and palaeontology, published during 1878, either in England or abroad, 

 carefully classiticd, with a very brief resume of the contents of each 

 paper. In the present volume the lai'ge number of entries appears to 

 have had the effect of compelling the editors to restrict very much 

 this resume of each paper, which seems a pity, as in many cases it 

 leaves us in doubt as to the full scope of the paper. The price of the 

 book is so low (compared with its size and the quantity of matter it 

 contains) that we feel sure the subscribers would prefer to pay, say 

 15s., and receive a rather fuller account of each paper — an account 

 which would in most cases save them from the trouble of obtaining 

 the paper for themselves. As to time of issue it seems not unreason- 

 able to ask that the volume for each year should appear during the 

 first three mouths of the next year but one ; for example, the volume 

 for 1883 should be issued sometime between January and March, 

 1885. W. J. H. 



" The Geology of the Neinhhourhood of Chester'" i SO S. W., Price 2i-), and 

 " The Geology of tite Country around Prescot, Lancashire" (80 N.W., 

 price 3I-). Memoirs of the Geological Survey. 



It is refreshing to meet with a good account of a formation so 

 comparatively little known as the Trias. For long years geologists 

 have had to fall back for their knowledge of the Trias in its typical 

 areas on the (very) general memoirs by Hull ; but the Survey has at 

 last furnished us with just the sort of detailed description of the 

 Triassic Rocks of Cheshire and the adjacent parts of Lancashire that was 

 long needed. The memoir on the neighbourhood of Chester is entirely 

 the work of Mr. Strahan, F.G.S., but the Prescot memoir is a third 

 edition, by Mr. Strahan, of Prof. Hull's work, which has been in print 

 these twenty years. The description of the various sub-divisions of 

 the Trias is chiefly contained in the memoir on Chester, but in order 

 to get a complete knowledge of one of the minor sub-divisions — the 

 Frodsham Beds — it is necessary to follow it into the Prescot 

 district. Although less than half of each memoir is taken up with the 

 description of the Triassic Rocks, geologists will hail with something 

 like delight the charmingly lucid, and we might even say graphic, 

 account given of a formation that has too long remained obscure. 

 Indeed, no physical feature or point of detail that one would suppose 

 could strike a held geologist has been left unnoticed by Mr. Strahan, 

 and workers m other Triassic areas will hud these two memoirs very 

 useful as text-books, as well as for comparison. 



For the first time in the classification of the English Trias, the 

 Keuper is divided into three members in place of two, and we now 

 have, in ascending order, the Keuper Basement Beds (hard red and 

 white grits and breccias), Waterstones (soft brown sandstones and 

 red marls), and the Keuper Marl. The separation of the hard con- 

 glomeratic grits from the soft sandstones of the Waterstones is an 

 important step in the right dii-ection, both on economical and strati- 



