REVIEWS. 



Summary op Progress of the Geological Survey of Great 

 Britain for 1918. pp. 70, with 3 text-figures. 1919. Price 

 2s. 6d. net. 



THIS publication forms remarkably interesting reading, for 

 several reasons. In the first place we have at any rate a 

 partial lifting of the veil of secrecy that has shrouded some of the 

 more important work of the Survey during the War, and it is 

 possible to make a shrewd guess at the nature of some of the 

 more recondite investigations undertaken by its officers for the 

 Navy, the Army, and the Air Forces. Besides references to the more 

 obvious but exceedingly necessary advisory work on water supply 

 and road-metal at home and abroad and the geology of mining and 

 tunnelling on the Western Front, we are treated to the briefest 

 cataloguing of such tantalizing items as " Eeports on Selection of 

 Quartz-crystals for Anti-Sub marine Division of the Admiralty ", 

 " Report on use of Hexahedric Crystals of Iron-pyrites by the 

 Germans ", " Report on a Prize Cargo ", and others of a similarly 

 mysterious nature. 



As is natural the activities of the small staff that remained were 

 almost entirely diverted to work of an economic nature, or closely 

 connected with the military and commercial necessities of the 

 country. Under this category come reports on the oil-shales of 

 Scotland, possible potash-bearing rocks from North Wales, copper, 

 arsenic, salt, and cannel coal, with a rather full description of the 

 occurrences of the latter in Scotland. There is also an interesting 

 account of the lead and zinc mines in Scotland, including those 

 of Leadhills and Wanlockhead, Newton Stewart, Tyndrum, and 

 Strontian. A deposit of bauxitic fireclay in Ayrshire has been 

 found to posseess high value as a refractory. 



In the way of pure geology the mapping of parts of Banffshire 

 and Aberdeenshire has been revised and a good summary of this 

 work is given. Part of this, by Mr. H. H. Read, has already appeared 

 in the Geological Magazine under the attractive title of " The 

 Two Magmas of Strathbogie ". 



Seven valuable appendices are added to the report, all dealing 

 with boreholes in different parts of the country, namely, Kent, 

 Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, Holywell (FHnt), and 

 a place called Gosmore, which from a previous pubUcation appears 

 to be near Hitchin, although this is not here stated. 



It is highly satisfactory to find that the issue of the extraordinarily 

 valuable series of special reports on the mineral resources of Great 

 Britain is still actively proceeding, three further volumes on iron-ores 

 having just been issued, and that it is intended to keep the series 

 up to date by the frequent issue of nevv^ editions. These publications 

 have evidently filled a gap in the literature of economic geology in 



