RevieKS-— Geological Society s Journal. 31 



tide, could not find guiding channels for their course through 

 what is now chalk down and granite hill. Even geologists 

 have had the fair blank mind of infancy ; and now the furrows and 

 ruts of one style of thought or another, of one prejudice or another, 

 traverses its scarred surface, guided by the weaknesses of unequal 

 observations, faulty judgments, and individual fancy ; so that, even 

 with advancing years and growing experience, each new truth is seen 

 only by glimpses, caught on devious ways, among projecting rocks 

 and thick boughs, and lost awhile in fogs. The "rain-theory" is 

 now in the ascendant; the "marine-theory" is losing ground; the 

 "fracture-theory" is not yet broken down; we still have more to 

 learn. 



The same lesson is taught ^^s by Messrs. "Woods and Duncan, who 

 have some Tertiary fossils of South Australia as their text. Are 

 similar fossils, here and there, conteviporaneous f Wait and learn in 

 this, as in other things. The chances are that they are not. 

 We must call them Somotaxeous. So also Cretaceous fossils, — 

 whether Eastern Echinoderms, in the hands of Duncan, or Indian 

 Cephalopods with Stolickza — they now hold up the finger of 

 caution ; bye and bye they will point to the key of the labyrinth. 

 For the Cretaceous beds of England Mr. Whitaker does good 

 service, with the close, open-eyed, and intelligent observation 

 of a Geological Surveyor. Mr. Whitaker's " Chalk-rock " is a 

 British institution now, but has a very sorry name. The " chloritic 

 marl" (which by the bye is not chloritic at all, b^it glauconitic) , 

 and the Tattenhoe chalk, the "reconstructed chalk," and the " clay- 

 with-flints," are all the better known for his researches ; and his 

 flint-band, holding up the headland at Scratchell's Bay is very inter- 

 esting ; but fig. 1 (p. 401) shows either the rising or the setting 

 sun as we look southwards from that fair bay ! Is it so in the Isle 

 of Wight? 



Waagen and Sandberger supply something on Jurassic Geology ; 

 the latter settles the Jura of Baden ; the former classifies the Upper 

 and Middle Oolites. The Trias and its plants have notices by Kurr 

 and Sandberger; and we are not to forget that its flora has palceozoic 

 genera. 



The palseozoic rocks of the Black Forest, South Africa, New 

 Brunswick, and Cashmere, are released from obscurity or from mis- 

 apprehension ; mistaken relationships are corrected, and more and more 

 strata are snatched from "transition," " Grauwacke," and "azoic," 

 thanks to Godwin-Austen, Matthew, Eiabidge, and Sandberger. 

 Hicks and Salter add new palseontological lustre to the Lingula 

 flags. H. Woodward, iinmasking a false Chiton, gives Cirrepeds a 

 Palceozoic standing ; and among the Crustacea he describes some 

 new Eurypterida from the Old Bed Sandstone and the Lower 

 Ludlow, finding the long-looked-for link between Xiphosures and 

 Eurypterids. Felspars are compactly tabulated by Tschermak. 

 Wallace offers ■ some interesting notions about Aragonite ; and the 

 possible age of the metalliferous trachytes of Hungary is touched 

 upon by Audrian. We heartily recommend to our readers the 



