May 2, 1912] 
NATURE 
229 
Leeds University a sum of 75,000l., which has been 
augmented by donations from leading textile firms 
and machinists. The company’s total contributions 
amount to 160,0001. for educational purposes in 
relation to the textile industries. 
MEMOIRS OF THE GEOLOGICAL 
SURVEY. 
HE ‘Summaries of Progress’’ issued by the 
Geological Survey of Great Britain are not by 
any means dry official reports, but contain a number 
of results, available for general use, which otherwise 
might remain unknown for several years. One of 
the chief features of the Summary for 1910, issued in 
June, 1911 (price 1s. 6d.), is W. B. Wright’s account 
of the district round Loch Ba in Mull. This is 
accompanied by a map and sections, one of the latter 
(p. 36) showing the immense number of inclined in- 
trusive sheets of basic rock that penetrate the 
“hybrid”? mass of gabbro invaded by granophyre on 
the slope of Glen Forsa. On p. 39 it is mentioned 
that G. W. Lee’s work in Morvern has led to the 
detection of two new localities for Cainozoic sedi- 
ments among the basalts. The thin Cainozoic coals 
of southern Mull are discussed on p. 40. | Carbon- 
iferous strata have received attention in Denbighshire 
and Warwickshire, where the observations are certain 
to have a considerable economic bearing, since these 
areas have not previously been mapped on the six- 
inch scale. In Appendix iii. (p. 80), R. G. Carruthers 
describes a mass of Lower Cretaceous sandstone, 
associated with fossiliferous Cainozoic clay and 
Boulder-clay, which rests on Old Red Sandstone in 
the heart of Caithness. This huge block, in which 
a quarry 160 yards long has been opened, has been 
investigated with the aid of borings, for the expense 
of which a grant was made by the Royal Society— 
whether of London or Edinburgh is not stated. The 
results show that the mass is an erratic brought in 
by the North Sea ice, and we become impressed by 
this further evidence of the wide extension of marine 
Cretaceous strata between Scandinavia and Britain 
in former times. 
A second edition of the Explanation of Sheets 326 
and 340 of the English map appeared in 1911 (price 
1s. 6d.). The joint colour-printed map was published 
(price 1s. 6d.) in 1906. On this, the Clay with Flints 
is shown, covering with great regularity the plateaus 
of Cretaceous rocks. The district includes the famous 
landslip between Lyme Regis and Axmouth, which 
occurred in 1839, and was described by W. D. 
Conybeare, then vicar of Axminster, and speedily 
illustrated in Lyell’s ‘‘ Principles of Geology.’’ It is 
pleasant to find that active author A. J. Jukes-Browne 
still associated with H. B. Woodward and W. A. E. 
Ussher in the preparation of the present memoir. We 
are interestingly reminded on p. 4 that W. Buckland 
was born at Axminster, while H. De la Beche lived 
at Lyme Regis from 1817 to 182t. 
The long-continued borings into the concealed 
Coal Measures in Kent have added to our knowledge 
of the overlying Mesozoic rocks, and the results are 
now described by G. W. Lamplugh and F. L. Kitchin 
(On the Mesozoic Rocks in some of the Coal Ex- 
plorations in Kent,’ 1911, price 3s. 6d.). Lower Lias 
rests on the Carboniferous at Dover, and the upward 
succession of Jurassic and Cretaceous strata is prac- 
tically complete, with a break between the Kim- 
meridge Clay and the base of the Hastings Sand. At 
Brabourne, however, between Folkestone and Ash- 
ford, even Portland beds are represented, with Pur- 
beck beds above them, while Triassic marl and 
conglomerate occur below the Lower Lias. The 
NO. 2218, vor. 89| 
' Paleozoic rocks, here of doubtful age, are reached at 
1g21 ft. from the surface, while the boring begins in 
Gault. Correlating the two sections, G. W. Lam- 
plugh states (p. 35) that they are, so far as he knows, 
‘‘unparalleled in Britain—or ... in any other part 
of the world—in the geological range and continuity 
of formations proved by them to exist in actual super- 
position in a single small area.’”’ The shorthand 
habit of recording horizons merely by a specific name 
leads to the anomaly of frequent references to the 
‘““Mammillatus zone,’? as a familiar term, while the 
zone-fossil is called in the same pages Douvilleiceras 
mammillatum. The crypts bored by Pholadidea from 
the Sandgate beds at Dover down into the Atherfield 
Clay still retain the shells in them, and are interest- 
ingly illustrated in the frontispiece. This occurrence 
is described on pp. 12 and 102. 
Clement Reid, George Barrow, and others of the 
staff write on ‘‘ The Geology of the Country around 
Tavistock and Launceston’? (1911, price 3s.). The 
accompanying colour-printed map, Sheet 337 (price 
1s. 6d.), shows that for ‘‘ around’? we should read 
““between,’’ and that those who visit Tavistock for 
its comfortable proximity to Dartmoor must consult 
Sheet 338. The section at the foot of the map is a 
pleasing illustration of the possibility of working 
without an exaggerated vertical scale, and would have 
pleased the master, De la Beche. The interesting 
lavas at Brent Tor—the memoir preserves this spell- 
ing, though the map does not—are shown (p. 52) to 
possess pillow-structure and to be of the albitic 
‘« spilite ’? type. We should like to know the author 
of the charming sketch on p. 53. Dr. Flett remarks 
that Rutley’s memoir on Brent Tor was “‘ the first to 
contain the results of microscopic investigation of 
rock sections.’? Clifton Ward, however, was_prob- 
ably the pioneer in his Lake District memoir of 1876, 
while the Brent Tor memoir appeared in 1878, not 
1876, as is here stated. The radiolarian cherts of 
Carboniferous age form a considerable feature on the 
map, and the new boundaries introduced show the 
importance of revision in this historic area. D. A. 
Macalister describes the tin and copper mines in 
detail, including those of Calstock and of the granite 
land of Bodmin Moor. 
An important memoir on ‘‘ The Geology of the 
Glasgow District ’’ (1911, price 4s. 6d.) has been pre- 
pared by almost the entire staff of the Scottish branch 
of the Survey. It is accompanied by a composite 
colour-printed map of the district, with vertical and 
longitudinal sections (price 2s.), and it seems almost 
unfortunate that either of these works should be pro- 
curable without the other. The numerous and 
energetic attendants at geological classes in Glasgow 
will welcome these publications, equally with the 
members of the well-known local Geological Society. 
The elaborate subdivision of the igneous rocks may 
be a phase of the present epoch; but it comes natur- 
ally from a land where mineral studies have been 
developed with a traditional aptitude for classification. 
By means of letters on the map, as well as by more 
general colours, five types of basalt of Calciferous 
Sandstone age are distinguished, and also four others 
intrusive in the strata of the district. The separation 
on a map of intrusive from clearly contemporaneous 
rocks of the same composition is easily defensible, 
since the forms of the outcrops may convey no in- 
formation. The coloured vertical sections on the 
margins of the map serve admirably to illustrate the 
contrast between the coal-bearing beds of the Clyde 
Basin and those of central England or South Wales. 
The memoir takes its place at once among our text- 
books as a work to which all interested in European 
stratigraphy will refer. It will equally be the 
' authority on the economic geology of a district where 
