[ 67 ] 



X. Notices respecting Neiv Books, 



Elements of Chemical and Physical Geology, Vol. II. By Gustav 

 BisoHOF. Translated by B. H. Paul, F.C.S. (Published by the 

 Cavendish Society.) London, 1855. 



/Comparatively few, if any works, certainly none to the same 

 ^-^ extent, have issued from the English press of the nature and ten- 

 dency of that of which the one before us is a translation. The 

 study of chemical geology may be said almost essentially to charac- 

 terize the industry and research of the German schools, as the 

 numerous papers published in the journals of Leonhard and Pog- 

 gendorfF fully testify, and which have been further enriched by the 

 labours of the Swedish and Norwegian chemists. In France it has 

 engaged the attention of Ebelmen, Delanoue, Delesse, and other 

 able chemists. In America, Silliman's Journal contains the results 

 of the researches of Dana, Rogers and others, bearing on this subject. 

 Not that the inquiry has been entirely neglected in England, but 

 the notices have been but few and far between, and chiefly in this 

 Journal, and also in Jameson's Edinburgh Journal. No special work 

 has been devoted to the subject, although much valuable information 

 bearing upon it is contained in the ' Geological Observer ' of Sir 

 Henry De la Beche. That mineralogy* and mineral geology have 

 not received that attention to which they are justly entitled may be 

 partly borne out by the fact, that in the seven volumes of the 2nd 

 series of the Transactions of the London Geological Society, valu- 

 able and important as are the papers contained therein, there are but, 

 strictly speaking, one or two communications bearing on the above 

 subjects, nor in the Journal of the same Society can we find but few 

 mineralogical papers, and those of late date, by Haughton, Dick, Tayler, 

 Ansted, and D. Forbes. It is with no spirit of rebuke, but rather of 

 regret, that we allude to these facts, with the hope of a continuance 

 of similar memoirs to those by Phillips, Bournon, and M'CuUoch, 

 which more than forty years ago enriched the Jirst series of the 

 Geological Transactions. Lured by the discoveries in Palaeontology, 

 and attracted by the varied interesting organisms which reveal the 

 life-periods of the globe and assist us in determining or under- 

 standing their succession, geologists have been more interested in 

 the inquiry respecting the nature and relations of these ancient 

 organic beings, rather than in " that daily sacrifice to truth " which 

 the study of chemical geology requires. 



The mere possession or cabinet study of a fossil or a mineral does 

 not constitute, as it ought not to satisfy, the requirements of the 

 palieontologist or mineralogist ; the place of a fossil shell or crusta- 

 cean in the zoological scale is simply one thing, but its importance 



* Tlie latest special work in England on mineralogy, is the edition of 

 Phillips by Brooke and Miller, in which the cnstaUiue forms are carefully 

 worked out ; on this subject the Treatise on Crystallography by the Rev. 

 W. Mitchell is a valual)le and important contribution to the science, as in 

 explaining his own crystallographic notation, the equivalent symbols of 

 Naumann, Miller, Brooke and Levy are also given. 



F2 



