332 Reviews—Geological Survey Summary of Progress. 
the concluding volume of the voyage four years’ later. By this time 
his health had failed. Notwithstanding his efforts, he had been 
carried into the political vortex, of which Geneva was a centre, 
and forced to take a leading part in politics. It was an epoch of 
revolutionary ferocity, such as that of which we have not yet seen 
the end. De Saussure was almost ruined, and his life more than 
once in imminent danger. Then he became an official, but a new 
evil was at hand. Early in 1794 he had a stroke of paralysis, after 
which his journeys were restricted to those in search of health. 
Two years afterwards the anarchists again broke loose, after which, 
notwithstanding the promises of Napoleon, Geneva became the 
chef liew of a French Department. De Saussure did not long survive 
the Republic, which he had done his best to raise, for he passed away 
peacefully in his town house on 22nd January, 1799. 
Except for a dyspeptic tendency, his health was good, he was 
capable of much endurance, and his intellectual vigour was 
remarkable. Repeatedly he anticipated the conclusion of other 
workers. The intellectual gap between his writings and those of 
Scheuchzer is remarkable. The two writers were separated by about 
half a century, but the Itinera Alpina abounds in stories of dragons 
lurking in caverns, flying through the air, or haunting Alpine 
recesses, while De Saussure writes as a man of science. On only 
one important matter does he go wrong. He failed to obtain a sound 
idea of glacier motion, and attributed moraines and perched blocks 
to great catastrophes and floods. But, excepting these, which, had 
health been maintained, he might have corrected, he surpassed all 
his predecessors, except Leonardo de Vinci. 
SumMARY oF PRoGRESS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF GREAT 
‘ Britain. pp. 70, 3 text-figures. 1919. 
iA is highly satisfactory to find that with the return to more normal 
conditions generally the officers of the Geological Survey have 
been able to resume the work upon which they were engaged in 
pre-war days in the Montgomery-Shropshire district and the 
Warwickshire-Staffordshire district. 
In the first of these districts the most interesting work 
accomplished would appear to be the completion of the mapping 
of the Ordovician rocks, the adoption of the terms Caradocian and 
Ashgillian for the upper members of the series, and the recognition 
of the advent of Pentamerus as indicative of the beginning of 
Silurian. In the Warwickshire-Staffordshire area important work 
relative to the demarcation of the Middle Coal Measures (Grey 
Productive Measures) has been carried out. 
Notes relative to lead, zinc, and copper mines in various parts 
of the country are given, and the borings for oil in Derbyshire and 
Staffordshire are also reported on. 
In Scotland the Highland work was resumed in the North and 
Central Highland district, and the revision of the coalfields continued. 
