THE 



LONDON and EDINBURGH 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



JANUAR Y 1834. 



I. Notice of Mr. Walker's Communication on the Direction of 

 the Mountain Chains of Europe and Asia. By the Rev. 

 W. D. Conybeare, M.A., F.R.S., %c. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. 

 Gentlemen, 



IN your last Number my attention was attracted by a com- 

 munication of Mr. A. Walker, in which he notices what 

 he believes to be the prevailing tendency of the higher por- 

 tions of our continents to their western boundaries, ranging 

 north and south, with a steep westerly escarpment. This he 

 ascribes to the effect of the rotation of the globe; and he 

 states that he believes that these facts have never before 

 "been brought into connexion, and that he is not aware that 

 any one has assigned a cause for such remarkable coinci- 

 dences." Now in order to show him that he has been com- 

 pletely forestalled in every point, I have only to refer him to 

 our excellent old topographer Stukeley, in his Itincrarium 

 Curiosum. This most worthy example of the Jonathan Old- 

 buck tribe did not merely confine himself to the antiquities of 

 the country he traversed, but extended his observations to all 

 the interesting natural phenomena which it presented. He 

 collected many contributions towards the project, which Lister 

 had before proposed, of a regular geological map (as we 

 should call it) of the soils of the island *, and especially no 



* Sec Dr. Fitton's Notes on the History of English Geology, in Lone!, 

 and Kil'mb. Phil. Mag. vol. i. p. 153.— Edit. 



Third Scries. Vol. *. No. 19. Jan. 1834. B 



