74 
IEA IO ORES, 
| NOVEMBER 22, 1906 
of the Coal period, the author does not hint at any 
definite geological fact, save that mosses and bull- 
vushes (query Equisetaceze) became gigantic trees. 
After upheavals in the Permian period we arrive at 
the ‘‘ Age of Monsters,’’ by which the author means 
the Ichthyosaurus and the Plesiosaurus, which (after 
Blake’s picture in Hawkins’s ‘‘ Sea Dragons’’) have 
a mighty battle, the Ichthyosaurus coming off con- 
queror. We next introduced to ‘‘ The Giant 
Newt’’ (probably the Pariasaurus?), then to the 
Atlantosaurus, moving with his head in the clouds! 
Pages of grandiloquent poetry, after the pattern of 
Pope’s translation of Homer’s Iliad, are devoted 
to an impossible battle between herds of armed 
herbivorous Dinosaurs and armies of carnivorous 
ones, the author apparently being unaware that the 
latter were extremely few in number compared with 
the former, just as the herbivorous mammals were as 
a thousand to one carnivore on the African plains 
before ‘‘man the destroyer’? came upon the scene 
with his ‘* shooting-iron.”’ 
“And howls of anguish and of beasts dismayed 
Strike on the air. In crowded cohort stand 
The monsters of the plains, begirt on every hand. 
Their roaring foes, less huge, but of a shape 
Obscene and foul beyond a parallel, 
Rush on to decimate with jaws agape 
The remnants thus enclosed. These slowly fell ’’ (p. 58, 
vv. 40, 41). 
In canto the tenth the author gives us ‘*‘ A Day with 
an Iguanodon,’’ and with the late Mr. J. L. Toole 
we are inclined to exclaim, ‘“‘ oh! what a day we are 
having.” 
are 
““In ten enormous strides he fared a mile. 
Towering above the tree-tops as he strode 
He soon was in his den amid the ferns 
(p. 69, v- 31). 
In the eleventh canto we reach the Tertiary period, 
and have the first glimpse of ape-like man reflecting 
on the scene from a tree overlooking a pool at which 
the Dinotherium, Palaotherium, Anoplotherium, 
Mastodon, Dinoceras, Megatherium, and Mylodon (as 
was their habit!) came down to slake their afternoon 
thirst. The author is so pleased with this idea that 
he repeats on pp. 76, 77, vv. 32 and 38, and p. 82, 
v. 15, the same scene. 
He goes on (in canto. thirteen) to describe ‘‘ The 
Earthly Paradise,’’ and on pp. 85, 86, gives an un- 
lovely picture of humanity in its early stage, but on 
p. 87, vv. 27-34, evolves from the baser herd a 
superior pair endowed with finer instincts; but on 
p- 89, v. 35, he admits :— 
““Yet were they both but brutish beasts, amid 
That garden of delights, that Paradise,’’ &c. 
‘The male on lank and shaggy shanks upreared, 
Whose breast and back unsightly bristles drape, 
Whose monstrous snout protuberant appeared, 
Whose brutish jaws seemed evermore to gape 
With teeth and tusks of dire revolting shape 
v. 36). 
The flood follows, then cave-dwellers are depicted, 
and the use made of stones as weapons, of skins as 
clothing, and the discovery of fire-making, the sling, 
the spear, bow and arrow, and so on. 
The whole material is woven up into a poetic and 
exaggerated form which, to our way of thinking, 
NO. 1934, VOL. 75 
bestowed ”’ 
” 
(p- 89, 
\ Sait 5 
renders it highly unsatisfactory. 
Kitchen-middens, 
lake-dwellings, the continent of Atlantis, the capture 
of the first horse, the potter’s art, the origin of orna- 
ments, of music, singing and dancing, are intro- 
duced. Then legends are touched upon, the domesti- 
cation of the dog, the wandering minstrel, and, lastly, 
a legend of the “Ice age’”’ into which we cannot 
follow the learned author. Mr. Rowbotham’s 
legendary lore and his talent for versification may be 
admirable, but his geology and paleozoology are 
extremely shady, and we do not recommend him as 
a guide to follow in his reconstructions of the past 
history of the earth or of prehistoric man. 
MATHEMATICS FOR SCHOOLS. 
(1) Elementary Geometry based on Euclid’s Elements. 
By F. Purser. Pp. viit+121. (Dublin: Hodges, 
Figgis and Co., Ltd.; London: Longmans, Green 
and Co., 1906.) 
(2) Geometry, Theoretical and Practical. Part i. By 
W. P. Workman and A. G. Cracknell. Pp, x+355. 
(London: University Tutorial Press, Ltd., 1906.) 
Price 3s. 6d. 
(3) Elementary Geometry. Books vi. 
W. M. Baker and A. A. Bourne. Pp. 390-477. 
(London: G. Bell and Sons, 1906.) Price 1s. 6d. 
(4) A Shilling Arithmetic. By S. L. Loney and 
L. W. Grenville. Pp. 186+xxiv. (London: Mac- 
millan and Co., Ltd., 1906.) Price, with answers, 
and vii. By 
Is. 6d. 
(5) Junior Arithmetic with Answers. By W. G. 
Borchardt. Pp. viii+221+xl. (London: Riving- 
tons, 1906.) Price 2s. 
(6) A Junior Arithmetic. By C. Pendlebury, assisted 
by F. E. Robinson. Pp. xii+204. (London: 
G. Bell and Sons, 1906.) Price 1s. 6d. 
(7) A Preliminary Course in Differential and Integral 
Calculus. By “A. H. ‘Angus. Pp.’ vi+108: 
(London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1906.) 
Price 2s. 6d. 
(8) A College Algebra. 
viii+595. (London and Boston: 
By Prof. H. B. Fine. Pp. 
Ginn and Co., 
n.d.) Price 6s. 6d. 
(9) A New Trigonometry for Beginners. By R. F. 
D’Arcy. Pp. viii+84. (London: Methuen and 
Gos, nido)ie Pricel2s: 6d: 
(10) Elementary Descriptive Geometry. By C. H. 
McLeod. Pp. ix+118. (New York: John Wiley 
and Sons; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 
1905.) Price 6s. 6d. net. 
(1) i ae Mr. Purser’s ‘‘ Geometry ’’ the subject-matter 
corresponds essentially with that of the first 
six books of Euclid, and the treatment is on similar 
lines, but the propositions are differently arranged, 
and are grouped, with the object of showing the 
reasons for the sequence adopted. Euclid’s defini- 
tions of parallels and proportion are adhered to, 
though the defective statement of the former on 
p- 17 must be due to an oversight. No exercises are 
provided, and teachers will find little to induce them 
to adopt the book in their classes. 
(2) In the ‘Geometry’? by Messrs. Workman and 
Cracknell we have a very full treatment of angles, 
