572 Reviews — Green'' s First Lessons in Geology. 



we take this opportunity of congratulating both Professor Dana and 

 the Science to which he so largely devotes his energy on this 

 improved position. 



II, — First Lessons in Modern Geology. By the late Professor 

 A. H. Green, M.A., F.R.S. Edited by J. F. Blake, M.A. 

 pp. vi and 212, with 42 woodcuts. (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 

 1898. Price 3s. U.) 



GEOLOGICAL handbooks intended for the use of beginners take 

 various lines of teaching. Some seem to aim at presenting an 

 abstract of the contents of the more or less complete treatises on the 

 principles, elements, and conclusions of the science. Others, taking 

 a separate line of thought, try to lead the tyro through strata and 

 rock-masses, cliffs and escarpments, valleys and mountains, to the 

 heights or levels hoped for. Of others we may say that a book- 

 knowledge of some branches of the science, laboriously fashioned 

 into a more or less readable category of statements, with borrowed 

 tables and oft-used woodcuts, is offered to the public. There are, 

 however, better guidebooks than such as these for beginners, and an 

 example of this sort is noticed in the Geological Magazine for 

 November. 



Still, there is another kind of first-geology book, which adopts 

 a familiar style with the popular and almost homely language of 

 a well-informed and well-qualified teacher. Such a primer was 

 foi'eshadowed long ago by dialogues with children, in parlour, field, 

 and study. These formal, old-fashioned, didactic, and sometimes 

 pedantic, catechismal or conversational books, intended for the 

 young, are extinct. Nowadays the subject-matters of both questions 

 and answers, taken in their simplest form, run on in paragraphs or 

 chapters, successively as one suggests another, or as they are 

 systematically planned to occur. 



In the " First Lessons in Modern Geology," we have evidence 

 that the teacher is decidedly conversant with the latest descriptions 

 and explanations of geological facts, and that he possesses the power 

 of illustrating his statements by references to analogous affairs and 

 things of current lite and common observation. He moreover freely 

 ofiPers explanations of the nature and conditions of the earth's surface 

 and materials as far as the as yet unschooled mind of the tyro can 

 comprehend them. 



Those to whom a simple primer and some first lessons in geology 

 are useful may be — either (1) young folk and school-children 

 with an aptitude to observe and a wish to inquire about stones 

 and other natural objects in roads and quarries, or in public 

 museums and collections at home ; or (2) more advanced scholars 

 who have to be prepared for professions in which geology is moi'e 

 or less important. Led on by homely remarks on common materials, 

 the student is taught in clear every-day language how to examine 

 them with precision, and step by step to know their aspects, 

 characters, and composition. Thus prepared he is taken to observe 



