1846.] Editorial Kotices. 159 



to a heat between 200° and 300° Fahrenheit, it became exceed- 

 ing hard and compact; and if the cake is afterwards broken up 

 and ground, the particles still retain their hardness. 



Chalk too, though in its natural state is soft and difficult to be 

 cut into slips, yet when baked it becomes hard and ceases to crum- 

 ble, and may be cut into any form we choose. So rocks, origin- 

 nally soft or in a state of mud, in order to become hard, require 

 only a moderate temperature, provided it is long continued. 

 Hence, it is unnecessary that ranges of rocks of this country 

 termed metamorphic, should ever have been heated to the amount 

 which some geologists maintain. It is even unnecessary that the 

 temperature should have been elevated since their deposit, so as 

 to char their vegetable matters, in order to become dense, solid 

 strata with a crystalline structure. 



The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of Lon- 

 don. — The Geological Society now publishes a quarterly by one 

 of its members, subject to the seperintendence and control of the 

 council. 



It consists of two parts, the first consists of full reports of the 

 original communications which are read before its meetings. 



The second of abstracts of geological papers published in the 

 ti'ansactions of foreign societies or journals, and of analyses of 

 the contents of works expressly geological, both English and 

 foreign. 



It will be perceived by our patrons, that this Journal will fur- 

 nish a medium through which they will obtain the earliest intelli- 

 gence of geological and scientific discoveries. The numbers 

 which have been published are of great value. Price $5 per 

 year. Wiley & Putnam agents, in New York. 



Gardner's Farmers' Dictionary. — This work is now published 

 and on sale at the bookstores, where we have had an opportunity 

 to examine hastily its contents. The opinion which we have 

 formed of its merits is favorable, so far as mere technicalities are 

 concerned, or so far as it is a dictionary. But with that part of the 

 work which relates to husbandry, or, so far as it is intended as a 

 treatise on husbandry, we are not quite satisfied. The sources 

 from which the work is compiled, is ahnost exclusively European, 

 and the greater part of this, is English. We are sorry to see too, 

 that some of the wood cuts are so badly executed — that of the 

 saperda, the apple-tree insect, for instance; but we do not propose 

 to go into a detailed analysis of its contents now, we may here- 

 after take it up and make a more specific examination of its merits. 



