Book Notice. 339 



post-glacial valleys associated with glacial features only slightly 

 modified, are, indeed, so common in the north of England that 

 it is needless further to particularise their occurrence.' The 

 explanation given is that the mounds were protected by the 

 snows, whilst the floods formed as the results of thaws quickly 

 cut the valleys and spread fans of gravel on the low ground. 



COAST CHANGES IN YORKSHIRE. 



The Research Department of the Royal Geographical 

 Society is issuing a series of Memoirs on ' Changes on the East 

 Coast Region of England during the Historical Period.' The 

 first of these, dealing with coast changes in East Yorkshire and 

 in the Humber Estuary, by Mr. T. Sheppard, has just been 

 published by the Society in the form of a ' Prehminary Sum- 

 mary Report.' This is divided into sections under the heads of 

 Geological Notes, Lake Dwellings, Historical Evidence, Lost 

 Towns of the Coast, Erosion of the Holderness Coast, Spurn, 

 Hedon, Hull, Lost Towns of the Humber, Ravenser, Erosion 

 in the Humber, New Land in the Estuary, and Thorne Moor 

 and Hatfield Chase. 



Thoughts on Natural Philosophy and the Origin of Life, written and 

 published by A. Biddlecombe. 5th edition. Xe\vcastle-on-Tyne. 39 pp., 



i/-. 



With this pamphlet the author has kindly sent us a circular, upon which 

 two paragraphs are marked as ' interesting and conclusive.' We think 

 it best to give them as far more likely to draw our readers' attention to 

 the nature of the pamphlet than are any words of our own : — 



' One objection that might be made to the compulsory adjacency and 

 collision of the portions of matter is that, if matter had been projected from 

 points along a straight line at sufficient speed, it would have continued so 

 to progress infinitely, without adjacency and collision ; and this no doubt 

 is true. But it is only necessary to state the objection for it to be elimi- 

 nated from the discussion. Matter has now adjacency and collision, 

 therefore as it could not have had it under the supposed conditions of the 

 objection, it is certain that matter has never taken (either originally or at 

 any time) wholly that mode of progression. 



' The only other line is the curve, and around any imaginary tigure we 

 can draw an imaginary curve, or circle ; and for our purpose the curve or 

 ■curves must permit, if necessary, of infinite extension from the centre to 

 the circumference. It is therefore clear that the portions of matter must 

 have moved (either originally or always) through points in an imaginary 

 •circle or circles. The necessity does not exist to bore the reader with long 

 mathematical calculations, the thing is so simple that the calculations and 

 drawings can be made at will. But it is clear that as the portions of matter 

 moved through points in the circle, they must eventually have had 

 adjacency and collision ; and as a result spin, and vertical movement 

 and force, followed by gravitation, electricity and magnetism, together 

 with all the natural phenomena with which we are acquainted, including 

 the sensations of heat and light, as the result of material motion.' 



1909 Oct. I. 



