82 Hevieics — Scottish Carboniferous Rocks. 



The author rightly seeks help from all quarters, and as a result 

 of his deliberations he maintains that if a belt of rocks of varied 

 character and some miles in thickness be subjected to fluctuating 

 increases in temperature, then both vertical and horizontal expansion 

 will ensue ; but the principal forces will act horizontally. He 

 points out the stresses and strains, the shearing, the faults and 

 foldings, and the torsion-structure that would be produced by 

 complex movements ; and he observes that slaty cleavage is alwa3'S 

 accompanied by mineral changes in the body of the rock, which give 

 the foliaceous character and supply the necessary cement to bind the 

 ovei'lapping constituent grains. 



His experimental investigations lead to the belief that the forces 

 affecting the earth's crust have been gradually applied, " that 

 mountain ranges are built up by gi'adual and successive creeps, 

 and that a sudden release of pent-up forces takes place on a scale not 

 larger than what is experienced in a great earthquake." 



Book iii comprises Reprints, Speculations, and Closing Remarks. 

 Here the author refers to the supposed permanence of oceans and 

 continents. While the very slowness of the processes has given 

 practical permanency to the main features, yet " The conclusion is 

 forced upon us that movements and intei'changes of such magnitude 

 have occurred in the distribution of the oceans and land masses 

 during geologic time that it would be a misnomer to call them 

 ' permanent ' . . . . the changes are essentially forms of 

 development, the permanence is that of land connection." 



The volume is not one which can be looked upon as eminently 

 readable or popular, nor on the whole is the subject-matter well 

 arranged ; but it comprises a mass of valuable data and of con- 

 clusions based upon observation and experiment that cannot fail 

 to be of service to every student of ' Geomorphology ' and to aid 

 materially in the elucidation of the subject. 



HI. — Recent Researches on the Scottish Cakboniferous Rocks. 



1. — On the distribution of fossil Fish-remains in the Carboniferous 

 rocks of the Edinburgh district. By Ramsay H. Traquair, M.D., 

 LL.D., F.R.S. Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xl, pt. 3, pp. 687-707, 

 with two plates (tables of strata). 



2. — The Canonbie Coalfield : its geological structure and relations 



to the Carboniferous rocks of the north of England and central 



Scotland. By B. N. Peach, LL.U., F.R.S., and J. Horne, LL.D., 



F.R.S. Ibid., pt. 4, pp. 835-877, with four plates. 



rpHE appointment in 1895 of a Committee of the British Association 



J_ to inquire into the possibility of dividing the Carboniferous 



rocks of Britain into life-zones, and the special researches of 



Dr. "Wheelton Hind on the mollusca, of Dr. Traquair on the fishes, 



and of Mr. Kidston and Mr. Newell Arber on the plants, have 



aroused exceptional interest in the subdivisions of the Carboniferous 



system, and in the correlation of these divisions in different areas. 



A great deal has been learned, and while the two papers before us 



