88 Reviews—Transactions of New Zealand Institute. 
IV.—Arms in Pracrican Grotocy. By Professor Grenvinte A. J. 
Cote. .: Sixth edition. 8vo; pp. xvi, 431, with 2 plates and 
136. text-illustrations. London: Charles Griffin & Co., 1909. 
Price 10s. 6d. 
FYWVHAT a geological handbook should pass through six editions in the 
course of eight years is the most satisfactory testimony to its 
merits, and we heartily congratulate the author on the well-deserved 
success of his work. ‘The volume has remained of the same dimensions 
since we noticed the issue of the fourth edition in 1902, but it has 
undergone sundry revisions and alterations needful to bring the 
subject-matter up to date. As a companion and practical guide to 
geology''the work is excellent. In the preliminary chapters the 
student will learn how to equip himself for field observations and the 
collection of specimens, while the main portions of the volume give 
precise and abundant information on the modes ot examination and 
determination of minerals, and of rocks, sedimentary, igneous, and 
metamorphic. The final part deals with the examination of fossils, so 
far as ‘the invertebrata are concerned, and the author has rightly 
endeavoured to keep the limits of the genera as wide as possible. 
Thus we are glad to see such a name as Rhynchonella spinosa 
perpetuated in place of the modern subdivisions of the genus, which 
are useful only to a palseo-zoologist. 
V.—Trawnsactrions or tHE New Zeatanp Insrirure, vol. xl, for 
7 1908, issued June, 1909. 
le an article on ‘‘ The Geology of the Quartz Veins of the Otago 
Goldfields”, Mr. A. M. Finlayson points out that these veins 
would suffice to account for the alluvial gold, and that no other source, 
such as had been suggested with reference to the schists, supplied any 
appreciable quantity. 
Dr. P. Marshall describes a nephelinitoid phonolite from Rarotonga, 
and a similar rock has been found near Signal Hill, Dunedin, by 
Mr. C.:A. Cotton, who gives an account of other varieties of phonolite 
from that district. Mr. R. Speight records the occurrence of a horn- 
blende-andesite in the Solander Islands. Dr. Marshall describes some 
new species. of fossil Cephalopods from strata im the neighbourhood of 
Mandeville and Kawhia Harbour. ‘hey include Broncoceras, Ortho- 
ceras, Arcestes, Phylloceras, and Avgoceras. Among other fossils are 
Ostrea, Gryphea, Trigonia, Ialobia, and Spirvferina. Dr. Marshall 
remarks :.‘‘ Since several of these are not known in strata older than 
the Jurassic, it is probably right to class these strata as Jurassic, 
thereby ignoring the presence of the archaic genera here mentioned. 
This conclusion seems all the more reasonable when the present isolated 
position of the Dominion is considered. It is quite possible that 
another ‘period of isolation had terminated at the beginning of the 
Jurassic period. An old fauna which had lived on during the period 
of isolation would then be mingled with the invading newer and more 
vigorous types. Such an explanation might reasonably account for 
the rapid change in life-forms which has caused Sir James Hector to 
class a conformable series of rocks as of an age extending from Permian 
to Jurassic.” 
