4-30 Reviews, and Notices respecting New Hooks. 



cision ; and the whole of that which is perhaps the most important 

 geological series*, — that of the tertiary formations, with the lower 

 members of which alone the previous researches of Cuvier, &c, had 

 made us acquainted, — has within the few last years received an ad- 

 ditional development, no less important than that which, in an earlier 

 stage of geological progress, the secondary system of the Wernerians 

 received from the discoveries of Smith." 



In order to confirm this general statement, Mr. Conybeare enters 

 more minutely into the detail of the recent progress of geological dis- 

 covery, reviewing in succession the researches of Fitton and Martin, 

 of Murchison and Sedgwick, of Buckland and De la Beche, of Mr. 

 Phillips of York, (now appointed, we are happy to see, Professor of 

 Geology in the King's College,) and of the various expositors of the 

 structure of the northern coal-fields in the Transactions of the New. 

 castle Philosophical Society. 



Concluding here the subject of British geology, Mr. Conybeare 

 proceeds to give an outline of the rapid progress which the science 

 has recently made in developing the structure of foreign countries, 

 adopting the following geographical order. He begins with the coun- 

 tries constituting or bordering the great European basin, which he 

 takes in the following order : France, the Alps, Germany, the Baltic 

 Coasts and Scandinavia, ending with Russia. He next proceeds to 

 the countries connected with the Mediterranean basin, — the Spanish 

 Peninsula, Italy, Turkey and the African coasts. The other quarters 

 of the globe now follow, — Asia as divided into the northern and cen- 

 tral provinces explored by the Russian Government; and those of 

 India by our own nation. He concludes with North and South 

 America ; but reserving in all these instances what relates to the two 

 great points of tertiary and volcanic geology, as demanding a distinct 

 notice rather in their relations to the general questions of the science, 

 than to the geographical distribution of formations. 



Neither this portion of Mr. Conybeare's Report, nor the succeed- 

 ing notices on tertiary and volcanic geology and palaeontology, being 

 susceptible of condensation, we shall terminate our analysis by no- 

 ticing the views with which it concludes respecting the present pro- 

 spects of the science, and the objects which most claim the attention 

 of geologists at this time. 



" The first points of the science are undoubtedly those which connect 

 it with its elder and far superior sister, Physical Astronomy. I mean 

 such questions as those relating to the spheroidal figure, and to the 

 density,of the earth; — the inquiry entered into by Sir John Herschel, 

 how far the secular diminution of the eccentricity of its orbit may 

 have tended to the decrease of its temperature ; and the like. Now 



* " The tertiary period is especially important in systematic geology in as-, 

 much as since, on every hypothesis, the geological causes must have acted 

 during this period under conditions most nearly approximating to those 

 which belong to the actual order of things : the formations of this age 

 therefore afford the most essential link in connecting our actual experience 

 with our speculations en the former state of our planet." 



