August 22, 1901] 



NA TURE 



395 



educational value and with serious consequences to our 

 native fauna and flora. The teachers have it in their 

 hands to impress upon their pupils that nothing is to be 

 gained and everything to be lost by plucking every 

 flower because it looks pretty, by raiding every nest 

 because it is good sport, or by killing every insect that 

 looks strange. If by proper tuition the child can be 

 made to realise how infinitely more instructive and 

 interesting is the living organism than the dead " speci- 

 men," a well-organised course of nature study should 

 have as distinct a moral influence as it is intended to 

 have an intellectual influence in moulding the character 

 of the pupil. For this reason we should like to see in 

 such works as those under consideration special and 

 emphatic recommendations to teachers to repress all 

 unscientific collecting. R. Meldola. 



HEDDLE'S MINERALOGY. 



The Mineralogy of Scotland. By the late M. Forster 

 Heddle, M.D., F.R.S.E., Emeritus Professor of 

 Chemistry, St. Andrews. Edited by J. G. Goodchild, 

 H.M. -Geological Survey, F.G.S. Two vols. Pp. 148 

 and 212. (Edinburgh : David Douglas, 1901.) 



NO book is of more use to the practical mineralogist 

 and collector than one which describes in a de- 

 tailed manner the mineral localities of a country. Among 

 the best examples are the le.xicon of Zepharovich and 

 Becke for .\ustria ; that of Frenzel for Saxony ; and, on 

 a much more elaborate scale, the treatise by Lacroix on 

 the mineralogy of France and her colonies, which is still 

 in progress. 



Greg and Lettsom's " Mineralogy of Great Britain and 

 Ireland" (1858) is also a very useful book of reference, 

 but scarcely adequate at the present date. Much of 

 that work was actually due to Prof. Heddle ; and it was 

 known that he was for many years collecting materials 

 for a " Mineralogy of Scotland " ; no man possessed 

 anything like his intimate knowledge of Scotch localities, 

 so that a treatise of considerable importance and 

 magnitude was expected from him. 



After his death the unfinished manuscript was left to 

 Mr. Alexander Thoms, who placed the work of com- 

 pletion in the competent hands of Mr. J. G. Goodchild. 

 The present handsome volumes are the result, and it is 

 evident that no trouble has been spared in their produc- 

 tion. The book is a worthy monument of Prof Heddle's 

 lifelong labours, and will rank with the above-mentioned 

 treatise of Lacroix. 



Mr. Goodchild's task must have been a heavy one. 

 There was a great mass of detail to be sifted ; many of 

 the localities have been difficult to identify, having been 

 phonetically spelt by the author in his early journeys and 

 not existing in the maps ; further, it is not known to what 

 specimens many of the figures relate, or what is the 

 meaning of their symbols. 



Prof. Heddle was an expert draughtsman, and there 

 are no less than 103 plates, each containing about eight 

 figures beautifully drawn and engraved. But many of 

 these are taken from other sources, and their origin is 

 doubtful. Confronted with the impossibility of making 

 a trust worthy selection, the editor has thought it best to 

 NO. 1660, VOL. 64] 



publish all the figures, though many of them have, perhaps, 

 little direct bearing on the mineralogy of Scotland. 

 These figures, and the numerous chemical analyses 

 quoted throughout the book bear witness to Prof. 

 Heddle's untiring industry. 



In addition to these plates, a remarkable feature of the 

 book is a number of beautiful and elaborate stereographic 

 and gnomonic projections drawn by .Mr. Wilbert Good- 

 child. The only book which has hitherto been provided 

 with such complete stereographic projections is Des- 

 Cloizeaux's " Manuel de Mineralogie," and even they are 

 not so elaborate as those which adorn the present book. 

 The gnomonic projections are quite a new feature, and 

 will probably be found useful. The book is, further, pro- 

 vided with very complete tables and indices of mineral 

 names, localities, pseudomorphs, &c. 



A great part of such a book as this must necessarily 

 consist of a mere list of localities ; but, in addition, an 

 account of the crystalline forms and of the physical and 

 chemical properties is given for each mineral, and under 

 some species will be found a good deal of interesting 

 comment and historical information — conspicuous ex- 

 amples are gold, silver, galena and niccolite. 



The reader's attention may be particularly directed to 

 the description of agate and onyx, where he will find a 

 very interesting and suggestive account of their probable 

 mode of formation. 



The most important part of the book is the description 

 of the mineral localities ; errors in the other portions are 

 not of so much account, but it may be noted that it is 

 not correct to call the form x of quartz a double three- 

 sided pyramid, nor the face a the twin plane of pyrites. 



The term gleit-face is a curiously hybrid expression for 

 the glide-plane {Gleitebene) of calcite, and some of the 

 terms used in the description of the varieties of agate, 

 such as Jasp-agate, Oonachat;E, Hjemachatie, Hajma- 

 ovoid agate, can scarcely be regarded as satisfactory. 



One failing inseparable from a posthumous work of 

 this character may be noted ; the reader, not knowing 

 how much is generally established fact, and how 

 much derived from incomplete or inadequate notes 

 of the author, cannot feel equal confidence in all the 

 statements. It is difficult, for example, to feel entire 

 confidence in the occurrences of some obscure minerals, 

 or in the identification of many of the crystal forms. It 

 would have been well if Mr. Goodchild could have dis- 

 tinguished in some way those statements which he has 

 been able to confirm from his personal knowledge and 

 from his own extensive experience or from that of others. 

 An appendix which contains some of his own observations 

 is for this reason particularly valuable. 



The book, as a whole, is remarkably free from the 

 ornate style and the tinge of romance displayed by 

 many of Prof. Heddle's published papers. It must long 

 remain the standard treatise on the mineralogy of Scot- 

 land. It is satisfactory to know that the author's ex- 

 tensive collection of Scotch minerals is in the Museum of 

 Science and Art at Edinburgh, and has been carefully 

 arranged and made intelligible to the public by Mr. 

 Goodchild, to whom the hearty thanks of all mineralogists 

 are due for the labour and care which he has bestowed 

 both upon the collection and upon the present treatise. 



H. A. MiERS. 



