268 Reviews—Huzley’s Fossils in the Museum of Geology. 
experience, that ‘Roman Cement’ and ‘Portland Cement’ are 
equally good in situations which remain permanently damp, but are 
unsuitable for dry places; and ‘Portland Cement,’ being caustic, 
is pleasant neither to the fingers, nor to the curly inhabitants of an 
aquarium. 
A CATALOGUE OF THE COLLECTION OF FossILs IN THE MusEuM OF 
GEOLOGY, WITH AN ExpLtanatory IntropuctTion. By THomas 
H. Huxtey, F.R.S., Lecturer on Natural History in the Royal 
School of Mines; and Ropert EtHeripesr, F.G.S8., Paleeontolo- 
gist. 1865. 
OR upwards of twenty years the Geological Surveyors have been 
carefully collecting, sorting, and arranging British Fossils in 
such wise that, with perseverance, judgment, and science, they have 
now obtained for the Nation so fair and complete a Collection that 
every successional group, and every local development, of strata is 
clearly illustrated by its organic remains in the Museum of Practical 
Geology, commenced by De la Beche at Craig’s Court, since placed 
in Jermyn Street, and enriched with a noble series of the fossils and 
minerals, mineral products, and mining appliances, not only of Great 
Britain and the Colonies, but of all other parts of the world, as far as 
necessary for the purposes of a National School of Mines, and one of 
the most careful and elaborate of Geological Surveys. 
Descriptive Catalogues of the Musuem generally, and of the 
Rock-specimens, by Robert Hunt, A. C. Ramsay, and their assistants, 
have long since appeared, and been reproduced with additions; and 
now we have a full Catalogue of the multitude of Fossils—the ‘ Medals 
of Creation,’ far more numerous than any numismatic series, far 
more intricate in their relationships, often more difficult to decipher, 
and as valuable to miners, farmers, and all who have to do with the 
stony structure of the earth, as coins are to the historian. 
The care, knowledge, and judicious discrimination indicated by 
the 380 pages of well-determined names of so many selected fossils, 
either collected by the Survey, or presented by private geologists, 
are associated with the clear-sighted and well-applied philosophy of 
the ‘Preliminary Considerations’ on the meaning and value of 
Fossils, and on the study of Paleontology, or Science of Ancient 
Beings; together with a ‘Brief Exposition of certain principles of 
Natural History,’ and the ‘ Applications of Natural History to the 
elucidation of Fossils or Paleontology,’ including a brief but 
interesting summary of the geological history of Animals and 
Plants, especially with reference to the long persistence of several 
orders, and the absence of any definite proof of a progressive deve- 
lopment of animal and vegetable life having existed, as far as 
fossils show. A Table of the Classes and Orders of the Animal 
Kingdom (excepting soft animals), and a Table of the Fossiliferous 
Rocks, accompany this Preface. 
