520 Reviews— Guide to the Invertebrata. 
as Shells, leaves of plants, fishes, teeth, etc.; these are illustrated in 
great variety, as well as the castings of worms and curious tracks 
formed by annelides, and the footprints left by birds and reptiles. 
Coming to remains of once living organisms in Gallery X, the 
Guide gives us figures of Foraminifera, Radiolarians, and Sponges, 
showing the siliceous or calcareous skeletons as they actually occur 
in the rocks. Many of these minute organisms, as well as the more 
massive growths of coral reefs, helped in the older seas of the 
world’s past to build up organic rocks, furnishing strata of vast 
extent and great thickness, such, for instance, as the Nummulitic 
Limestone, which contributes largely to the Pyrenees, the Alps, the 
Atlas Range, the Himalayas, etc. In this gallery, and well illustrated 
in the Guidebook, are the Corals, the Stromatoporoids, and the 
Graptolites, whilst the centre and the eastern side are occupied by 
the fossil plants, including many silicified tree-trunks from Tertiary 
and Jurassic rocks, and a fine case of Cycadean stems, some cut and 
polished. The coal-plants, too, form a large and attractive series. 
Gallery IX, although closed to the general public, is open to students 
and scientific workers, and contains the library and special study 
collections. 
No. VIII contains the beautiful series of stone lilies, mostly from 
the Secondary, Carboniferous, and Silurian rocks. Many excellent 
figures are given in the Guide. After the stone lilies we come to the 
Starfishes and Sea Urchins in endless variety. To these succeed the 
Trilobites and other Crustacea, the giant Pterygotus, and the king 
crabs and scorpions, with many kinds of dragon flies and other insects 
from the Coal-measures upwards; and next these the Bryozoa and 
Brachiopoda. The west side of this large gallery is entirely given up 
to the display of the Gasteropoda and Lamellibranchiata, which, 
commencing with the glacial shells and those from raised beaches and 
the shells from the Peat and Lake deposits, go back in time to the 
earliest Silurian and Cambrian rocks. 
The Mollusca, ancient and modern, form such a vast series that the 
higher forms, the Cephalopoda, Cuttle-fish, Nautili, Ammonites, and 
Orthocerata, require a whole gallery (No. VII) entirely to themselves. 
Probably. in no other museum in the world can such a display of the 
chambered shelled Cephalopods be seen as is exhibited in this gallery, 
of which the Keeper of the Geological Department, Dr. A. Smith 
Woodward, may be justly proud. The largest coiled British 
Ammonite is a Pachydiscus leptophyllus, 8ft. 8in. in diameter, from 
the Chalk of Rottingdean, near Brighton. But this is far surpassed 
by P. Seppenradensis, an Ammonite from the Chalk of Westphalia, 
a cast of the shell of which, having a diameter of 6 ft. 8 in., is fixed on 
the north wall. 
But we must end this notice by commending the lover of natural 
history to purchase a copy of this very admirable Guide, which is 
really a textbook for one shilling, beautifully illustrated with 7 plates 
and 96 text-figures admirably executed, forming a most attractive 
handbook for the student and the casual visitor alike. We compliment 
the Keeper of Geology and his Assistant Keeper, Dr. F. A. Bather, 
the writer, and his colleagues, who together have produced so splendid 
a shilling’s worth. 
