366 Eevietcs — Prof. S. C. Lewis — Genesis of the Diamond. 



distance from the lakes is too great for the wind to carry the salt. 

 That salt is conveyed in this manner, is clearly proved in many 

 places where granite rocks outcrop in close proximity to salt lakes. 

 Upon these rocks, holes and depressions are met with, in which any 

 rain-water that may fall is caught : and it was from this soui'ce that 

 the original explorers and prospectors obtained a supply of water. 

 It was always considered a certainty that such water would be 

 absolutely fresh, being in fact pure rain-water, but there are 

 exceptions to this rule, for at one place upon a rock, which rises 

 at least 400 feet above the lake-bed level, a flat rock hole was found 

 to be quite salt, in spite of the fact that it held only a few hundred 

 gallons, and was thoroughly washed out and replenished with each 

 fall of rain. It is clear, therefore, that the salt was first blown 

 upon the rocky surface, and then dissolved and carried by the water 

 into the rock hole, since there is no other source from which it 

 could have been supplied. 



It will be seen from the above that the so-called lakes have no 

 claim to that title, but are merely salt wind-planed flats ; and that 

 they do not exist in reality as depicted upon the maps ; therefore it 

 is high time their name was changed, since it is most misleading ; 

 and further, all map publishers should cease to represent them by 

 a symbol which conveys the idea that these dry geolian flats of 

 Western Australia are lakes filled with water. 



la E "V" X IE -VT" S. 



I, — Papeks and Notes on the Genesis and Matrix of the 

 Diamond. By the late Henry Carvill Lewis, M.A., F.G.S., 

 etc. Edited from his unpublished MSS. by Professor T. G. 

 Bonnet, D.Sc, F.R.S., etc. Large 8vo ; pp., including index, 

 72. Two plates and illustrations, chiefly of minerals, in the text. 

 (London : Longmans, 1897.) 



THE late Professor Carvill Lewis is best known to English 

 geologists from his work on the glacier formations of our 

 country — work which has been eminently suggestive of new 

 interpretations, and which a particular school of glacialists has 

 not been slow to utilize. On the other hand, as a Professor of 

 Mineralogy in the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, 

 we must regard him as having been well qualified to investigate the 

 interesting phenomena presented by the diamond-mines round 

 Kimberley. This work was in a great measure based upon 

 specimens shown and information obtained at the Colonial Exhibi- 

 tion in South Kensington as long ago as 1886, when the De Beers 

 mine had perhaps a depth of 500 feet. It is true that mining 

 operations have now extended to a depth of 1,500 feet, and thus it 

 might be thought that Professor Lewis' papers are a little out of 

 date. Excepting, however, that the main mass of the diamond-rock 

 is harder and less easily disintegrated, there does not appear to be 

 such a difference between 500 feet and 1,500 feet as one might 



