6l2 



NA TURE 



[October 29, 1891 



distinct animal" (Darwin's Balanidce, Ray Soc, 185-I., 

 p. 158). 



It would be an immense gain if every name proposed 

 to be altered had to pass through a regularly-constituted 

 committee of investigation before it was accepted and 

 allowed to pass current ; as it is, endless confusion must 

 arise, and needless alterations will for ever be made, 

 serving no good end to science. 



Mr. R. B. Newton's systematic list of the Eocene 

 and Oligocene Mollusca of our British strata will prove 

 extremely valuable to all those who take an interest in 

 our Tertiary deposits and their contained organisms. 

 Every curator of a palaeontological collection must have it, 

 as a work of reference, by his side, as, for this section of 

 fossils, it takes the place of " Morris's Catalogue," now 

 long out of date. We shall be very glad to see other 

 sections treated in a similar manner — indeed, Messrs. 

 A. Smith Woodward and C. D. Sherborn have already 

 catalogued the fossil Vertebrata of the British Isles in 

 1890, and the work has been published by Dulau and Co. 



THE LIFE AND WORK OF A NORFOLK 

 GEOLOGIST. 

 Memorials of John Gunn : being some Account of the 

 Cromer Forest Bed and its Fossil Mammalia. Edited 

 by H. B. Woodward and E. T. Newton. Pp. xii , 120 ; 

 13 Plates (Portrait and Fossil Mammalia). (Norwich : 

 W. A. Nudd, iSgr.) 



ALL students of the geology of the eastern and central 

 parts of Norfolk and Suffolk will welcome this 

 book, as giving the well-matured opinions of a geologist 

 whose hfe-work was chiefly concerned with the Forest 

 Bed and its associated formations. Crag and Drift. 

 Those too who knew Mr. Gunn must be glad to have 

 this memorial of so courteous, kindly, truth-seeking a 

 man. No one enjoyed his friendship but was the better 

 for it, and the writer looks back on days spent in his 

 company, both in the field and at meetings of the 

 Norwich Geological Society, as amongst the happiest 

 events of a long sojourn in the Eastern Counties. Until 

 reading this book he did not know the politics of Mr. 

 Gunn, and he is glad to find another of many instances 

 in which such matters are kept in the background, as 

 regards scientific intercourse and personal friendship. 



To those who, like the writer, are not greatly enamoured 

 with biography and its multiplicity of personal details it 

 is satisfactory to find this part of the book artistically 

 treated, by Mr. Woodward, in only 27 pages, which are 

 full of interest. The best memorial of a scientific man 

 is the work that he has done and by which he will be 

 known in the time to come, and it is to Mr. Gunn's work 

 that the editors chiefly direct our attention. After the 

 memoir and about 13 pages of notes on some of his 

 geologic papers, the book takes the form of a short essay 

 on the Cromer Forest Bed and its fossil Mammalia, by 

 the hand of Mr. Gunn himself; that is to say, from notes 

 practically completed by him shortly before his death. 



For the task of bringing these matters before the public 

 no better editors could have been chosen. One of them, 

 who, in his Geological Survey work, was brought much 

 in contact with Mr. Gunn, may be called the hereditary 

 geologist of Norfolk. The other has for some years 

 NO. I 148. VOL. 44] 



given great attention to the study of the fossil Mammalia 

 of the Forest Bed, and indeed has made himself the 

 chief authority on the subject. 



In 1864, Mr. Gunn helped to found the Norwich Geo- 

 logical Society, of which he was the first and the last 

 President, retiring from that post only for six years 

 (1877-83) in order that it should be filled by officers of 

 the Geological Survey who were stationed in Norfolk 

 and Suffolk : a graceful compliment. He was also one 

 of the founders of the Norfolk Archaeological Society, 

 an active member of the Norwich Science Gossip Club, 

 and a member of the Norwich Museum, which he 

 enriched by his fine collection of fossil mammals. 



Now that coal has been found underground at Dover^ 

 and that there may be some chance of a search for it 

 being made in the Eastern Counties, it should be 

 remembered that Mr. Gunn was the first to advocate 

 trial-work in Norfolk. 



On the ground that " unanimity does not prevail in 

 regard to the nomenclature of the strata " of the Norfolk 

 cliffs,, Mr. Woodward gives a useful table, on p. 40> 

 showing the classifications of Gunn, of Prestwich, and of 

 C. Reid ; but that of Wood might have been added with 

 advantage ; and he draws attention to the fact that the 

 cliffs are cut back greatly year by year, so that earlier 

 observers may have seen something different from later 

 ones. As the loss of coast is still going on, and the 

 Forest Bed seems not to reach far inland, a happy time 

 may come when that Series will cease to furnish any 

 ground for contention : in this matter the geologists of 

 the future may have to take the work of their foregoers, 

 without the luxury of upsetting it. 



In his account of the Forest Bed Series, Mr. Gunn 

 holds to the view that, as a rule, the trees grew on the 

 spots where the stumps are now found. He describes 

 firstly the Estuarine Soil, then the Forest Bed proper, 

 then the Reconstructed Forest Bed (a division not 

 hitherto recognized, and hardly likely to be, recon- 

 struction seeming to occur in various parts of the Series)) 

 and lastly the Unio and Rootlet Bed ; but it should be 

 noted that other observers take the Forest Bed and the 

 Rootlet Bed to be one. His use of the term Laminated 

 Beds, for the immediate successor of the Forest Bed 

 Series, is unfortunate, as such names usually are, for 

 lamination is common in the Chillesford Clay below and 

 in some of the Glacial Drift above. 



Mr. Gunn's notes conclude with remarks, in some 

 detail, on the Proboscidea of the Norwich Crag and of 

 the Forest Bed Series, and on the Cervidse of the latter, 

 chiefly based, with the plates, on the specimens which he 

 so liberally gave to the Norwich Museum. The notes 

 are followed by a list of his geological and archaeological 

 papers, ranging over forty-eight years, from 1840 to 1887. 



The plates of Mammalian fossils are well executed ; 

 but it is a pity that those of Proboscidea and those of 

 Cervidas are not numbered consecutively, instead of 

 independently. The portrait that forms the frontispiece 

 is a good one, and the book is well printed. 



Few geologists can expect their names to be handed 

 down to posterity by so fine a set of specimens as those 

 of the Gunn Collection in the Norwich Museum, and by 

 so interesting a literary accompaniment as that now 

 noticed. W. W. 



