Rei'ieas — Mill's Inteniatioiial Gcogruphij. 39 



principles necessary to the comprehension of the special geography 

 of each individual country. The general description of each continent 

 refers only to the largest and most determinative features, and these 

 are taken in the following order : coasts, surface, geology, climate, 

 flora, fauna, anthropology, history, including territorial changes of 

 the largest order. 



To aiford some further insight into the arrangement of the work 

 we may mention that the principles and progress of geography are 

 treated by Dr. H. R. Mill ; mathematical geography, dealing with 

 the form and dimensions of the earth, and the methods employed 

 for determining and representing the positions of places upon its 

 surface, a chapter full of most valuable and concise information, is 

 by Dr. A. M. VV. Downing, F.R.S. ; maps and map-reading, by the 

 veteran cartographer, E. G. Kavenstein ; the plan of the earth, 

 dealing with its form, is by Dr. J. W. Gregory, F.G.S., of the 

 British Museum,^ and treats of " the tetrahedral theory of the earth," 

 which we need not now discuss here, but refer our readers to this 

 work and to Gregory's original paper (Geographical Journal, 1889, 

 vol. xiii, p. 225). 



The next chapter on " Land-Forms," by Dr. Hugh Robert Mill, 

 treats of the relative divisions of the earth's crust into oceanic 

 plateau, continental slope, continental plateau, and culminating 

 area ; of land-forms, of the materials of the earth's crust, giving 

 the nature of the geological formations, their order of succession, 

 and the subsequent forms and features produced by crustal move- 

 ments, subaerial and marine denudation, and the result of rivers. 

 Sir John Murray and Dr. Mill follow with a chapter on the oceans, 

 which is concise and up to date. In this, as in other parts of the 

 work, in consequence of tlie earnest effort made to condense tlie 

 greatest amount of information into the smallest possible space, the 

 488 text-illustrations suffer in consequence, both in size and quality, 

 and some of them hardly do justice to the work. This will, we 

 hope, be recognized, and remedied in a second edition, which is 

 certain to be called for. Mr. H. N. Dickson follows with a chapter 

 on " The Atmosphere and Climate " ; and Pi'ofessor J. Arthur 

 Thomson, on "The Distribution of Living Creatures," in which 

 the author discusses that most interesting question, the relation 

 of the dry-land and fresh-water faunas to the littoral fauna, the 

 pelagic, the deep-water, and the abyssal faunas, and suggests that 

 a littoral fauna was probably the original one whence have been 

 derived on the one hand the pelagic and abyssal faunas, and on the 

 other those of the fresh waters and dry land. Professor Brooks, on 

 the contrary, maintains that the pelagic fauna was primitive, for 

 there the conditions of life are easiest; while Sir John Murray 

 takes the fauna of the * mud-line,' i.e. the boundary between the 

 abyssal and the littoral (or neritic) regions at an average depth of 

 about 100 fathoms, as the primitive life-zone. Here the minute 

 organic and inorganic particles derived froui the land and surface- 



' Just appoiiitod (as we -write) to the Chair of Professor of Geology in the 

 University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. 



