90 Reports and Proceedings- — 



It is a great pity that the author found it necessary to change the 

 title, as the adjective in the present one is very aggressive. 



The plan adopted in treating first from the physical, then from 

 the structural, and finally from the evolutionary standpoint of the 

 Earth's crust, is an admirable one, and has been well carried out. 



The author very vi^isely confines himself as far as possible to the 

 geology of the British Isles ; this gives the book a special value to 

 beginners as an educational work, for by expounding to students 

 the features of their own country, and explaining the nature of the 

 changes which have gone on, or are still in progress around them, 

 some of which they may be able to verify for themselves, they gain 

 a sounder knowledge of the subject than they would from the 

 description of the more striking changes, etc., which might be 

 collected from abroad, and with which they could only deal on paper. 



Still, considering the small size of the book, it is a little ex- 

 travagant to devote a whole chapter to the volcanic phenomena of 

 the Island of Eigg, but, on the whole, the problems visible there, and 

 the conclusions deduced from them, form an excellent lesson to the 

 student of what may be done in reconstructive geology. 



The matter in the chapter on deep-sea deposits might well have 

 been expanded at the expense of three of the illustrations, for we 

 find two whole pages devoted to two views of Brooke's deep-sea 

 sounding apparatus, and one to a beautiful figure of a Glohigerina, 

 the latter being the only organism figured from these deposits, the 

 characters of the remaining organisms being left wholly to the 

 imagination of the reader ; in several cases the bare name only 

 being given, without any reference to its nature or to what group 

 the organism belongs. 



The description of the hard parts of a coral as an internal skeleton 

 is hardly worthy of a "modern" book, considering that it has been 

 known for about ten years to be a secretion of the ectoderm and 

 therefore a morphological exoskeleton. Also the definition of the 

 animal of Glohigerina as a speck of protoplasm which has no parts 

 or organs of any kind is hardly in keeping with the otherwise 

 up-to-date nature of the book. 



The illustrations, though in some instances a little lavish, are very 

 good, and many quite new, the coloured maps being especially fine. 



laDBi^oiRTS .A.isriD :piaooE!Ei3Diisra-s. 



Geological Society of London. 



December 19th, 1894.— Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., President, 

 in the Chair. The following communications were read : — 



1. " The Lower Greensand above the Atherfield Clay of East 

 Surrey." By Thomas Leighton, Esq., F.G.S. 



This paper embodies the results of the author's examination of 

 the Lower Greensand of East Surrey during the three years 1892-94; 

 and it is stated that two papers published by the Geologists' Asso- 

 ciation (vol. xiii. pp. 4 and 163) are to be taken as introductory to 



