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REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. 
How to Study Geology: a Book for Beginners, by Ernest Evans. 
Swan Sonnenschein, 1907, 272 pp. In this little book the Natural 
Science Master at the Burnley Municipal Technical School has presented, in 
a form very suitable for a beginner, a series of essays on geological 
phenomena, illustrated by a profusion of blocks—some old—mostly new. 
Mr. Evans has for some time been lecturer to the Co-operative Holiday 
Association, and presumably the present work is the result of his notes 
which have been put together in connection therewith. By a series of simple 
experiments, also, many geological phenomena are explained. We hardly 
expected to find ‘Signs of the Ice Age in Great Britain’ dismissed in less 
than half a page. Fig. 8, showing two sets of inverted strata on the sides 
of an intruded mass, is surely an impossible section; on Fig. 12 ‘left’ should 
be ‘right’ and ‘right’ should be ‘left’; we have never seen a brick wall 
built across a glacier, as apparently shown on Fig. 31; and on Fig. 50 we 
are informed that ‘the amount of reduction of the figures is denoted by x4, 
which means reduced one half,’ whereas the amount of reduction, except in 
a very few cases, is zo¢ denoted; on page 53, line 8, ‘size’ should be ‘ side.’ 
These, however, are minor matters, which can be put right in the next 
edition. 
‘In Starry Realms,’ 372 pp.. 1907; ‘In the High Heavens,’ 384 pp., 
1907; and ‘ Great Astrononers,’ 372 pp., 1907. 
Messrs. Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., are to be congratulated upon the 
way in which they are issuing some very useful and popular works on natural 
science at a reasonable rate. We have already referred to some of these 
publications in these columns recently. We have received the three 
well-known volumes named above, by Sir Robert Ball, F.R.S., cheap 
editions (3/6), which the firm have just placed on the market, and there is no 
doubt they will meet with a ready sale. In this way much is being done to 
popularise the natural sciences. In the first volume named Sir Robert has 
necessarily had to revise the chapters on ‘ Shooting Stars’ and on ‘ Photo- 
graphing the Stars.’ He also anticipates that the recent discoveries in 
Radio-Activity ‘will shortly cause some modification to be made in our 
present views as to the sustentation of the sun’s heat.’ In the second volume 
the discoveries recently made in reference to the satellites of Jupiter are 
referred to, and in this he also deals at some length with the nebular 
theory. Further consideration of this subject only makes Sir Robert 
feel more confident that the nebular theory does really express the law of 
nature. The additional matters in the third volume, as might be expected 
rom the nature of the volume, are not of much moment. 
Thomas H. Huxley, by J. R. Ainsworth Davies, M.A. J.M. Dent & Co., 
1907. 288 pp. Naturally in the excellent ‘English Men of Science 
Series,’ now being issued by Messrs. Dent, a volume devoted to Huxley 
must be amongst the first, and Mr. Davies has written a very interesting 
narrative of the life and work and hardships and successes of one whose 
name is a household word, though it must be admitted that to some he is 
perhaps better known as an ‘agnostic’ than as a man of science. But all 
who peruse the present small volume must marvel at the great work he did 
—too well known to all readers of this journal to require particularisation 
here. It is sufficient to state that it is a readable and concise account of the 
achievements of this great master, though there is much already familiar to 
those who have read the ‘ Life and Letters,’ an admirable work which has 
admittedly been made good use of in the present volume. A useful feature 
are the appendices (a) Chief Biographical Sources (21 items): (4) List of 
Published Works (276 items); and (c) Classification of more Technical 
Works. There is a good index. 
1907 June Tr. 
