Reviews—A. J. Jukes-Browne—Building of British Isles. 475 
“ At present,” he admits, “that the maps of early Paleozoic 
geographies are only pictorial representations of the ideal views 
which are suggested to our minds by the inferences obtained from 
the study of a few small and disconnected areas.” This is perhaps 
a somewhat off-hand way of describing the earlier Paleeozoics of our 
country, but he is perfectly right in attaching no particular value to 
such restorations. Pre-Carboniferous geography is very much a 
matter of fancy, and we bear in mind the old saying “ De gustibus 
non est disputandum.” One feature in these early speculations seems 
to enforce itself, viz. the unwillingness of the west part of Anglesey 
to go under water. Both in the Arenig and Llandovery epochs this 
obstinate little island refused to be entirely submerged. The same 
was the case in Lower Devonian times. Even during the epoch of 
the Carboniferous Limestone the north-west corner is represented as 
being still unsubmerged. Surely itis Anglesey, and not Kent, which 
should inscribe “invicta” on her escutcheon. This was connected 
with a block of very old land on the site of St. George’s Channel, 
including a strip of Eastern Ireland, which seems to have been a 
sort of “‘omphalos” of the British Islands. The central portions of 
this block are represented as being land in every one of the fifteen 
maps except the last, though we presume that the author regards it as 
having been covered during the great submergence of the Chalk epoch. 
When we try to restore the geography of the Carboniferous period, 
there is already something more definite to formulate, and ‘“ we 
can point to districts which seem to be the worn-down remnants of 
Carboniferous land tracts.” No one can dispute this, but is there 
such good proof that at this period “there was more land than water 
where the Atlantic now rolls”? This is rather a strong statement for 
so cautious and conscientious a writer as Mr. Jukes-Browne. He 
regards the ‘‘continent ” to which the Paleozoic nucleus of our 
islands was subsidiary as lying to the north and north-west of the 
British area. This “Continent” can be no other than the hypo- 
thetical Atlantis, a creation of the period when oceanography was in 
its infancy. He perceives the unfavourable bearing of this assumption 
upon the general principles of physical evolution, and explains that 
probably the seas and continents of the Paleozoic world had an 
evolutionary history of their own, which culminated in the geo- 
graphical conditions of the Carboniferous period. His views are 
more fully set forth in the last chapter, where he discusses “the 
theory of the permanence of Continents and Oceans.” No doubt he 
will have many opponents, and it is evident that, henceforth, there 
will be two schools of geographical Evolution, and that the results 
will vary materially according to which of these two schools an 
author may happen to belong. 
Reverting once more to the main subject of the book, every 
geologist is aware that, however much of the older rock material 
had been roughly fashioned before the upheaval of the Carboniferous 
deposits, yet the building of the British Isles only commenced in 
earnest during the interval which succeeded the close of this period. 
Then were traced the main outlines of the skeleton of Paleozoic 
