124 Reviews— Taylor's Geological Essays. 
do those on Geology. Doubtless this peculiarity may be partly ex- 
plained when the peculiar nature of geological research is taken into 
account; for, while in every other physical science the investigator 
must be either a good mathematician or a skilful operator, both of 
which qualities imply education, in Geology, as we all know, a 
quarryman, a coastguardman, and a blacksmith have become good 
observers, and even, in the first-mentioned case, a polished writer 
and a bold and ingenious theorist. 
Notwithstanding this isolated case of success in geological litera- 
ture, it would be far better if Geology could limit the actions of her 
humbler votaries to original work ; but the fatal notoriety attached 
to ‘writing a book’ is to them a stumbling-block and to us 
foolishness. 
The work now before us well illustrates our meaning ; it is one oP 
the most absurd books on a geological subject that we ever remember 
to have read, for the author (who is noé the late Mr. John Taylor, of 
mining celebrity) knows just enough of geological phenomena usually 
to misrepresent them ; and, although he writes of ‘Tales told in 
Athens,’ he has such remarkable opinions as to the right spelling of 
the names of fossils, that we feel assured that in a knowledge of 
Latin and Greek and of the subject of which he treats he is equally 
wanting. 
As an example of the author’s knowledge of paleontology and 
comparative anatomy, we give the following paragraph from 
p. 1138 s— 
But what is most characteristic of these palseozoic corals is this: whilst 
those of the present day have their septa, or radiations, either in fours, or a 
multiple of four, the former have always a multiple of six. . . 
The septa were formed by the animals as furrows, along which to thrust their 
tentacles, so that beautiful as the fossils themselves are, when they served as 
dwelling- “places to their jelly-like inhabitants, they must have been more 
beautiful still, for then the summit of each was adorned by a coronal of bril- 
liantly coloured tentacles, like those of the common sea-anemone. In fact, 
the only distinction betwixt the anemone and these fossils is this, that the 
former have a leathery envelope only—whereas the latter are encased in a 
calcareous defence. 
It is bad enough to be told that the paleozoic corals have their 
septa in sixes, and that the recent Zoantharia have them in fours ; but 
here we may charitably suppose that the author has been looking at 
facts through a bad glass, which inverted nearly everything and dis- 
torted the rest; but when he writes of septa being formed as fur- 
rows, along which tentacles were thrust, and of corals having a 
calcareous defence, we perceive that he is completely ignorant of his 
subject. 
We have already mentioned his bad spelling; when tr eating 
of fossil reptiles, he remarks of one of them, ‘This goes by the classic 
name of shyneosaurus, which “being interpreted,’ means the 
“ beaked lizard.” ’ ‘The italics being his own, the sentence contains 
a satire on itself. We also read of Caryophylla sexdecimale, and 
of many other species spelt on the same plan ; of Syringipora, Rhyn- 
conella, Cellipora, Producto, Buccinium, and so forth. 
