Reviews —Damon’s Handbook to the Geology of Weymouth. 171 
REVIEWS. 
poke 
HANDBOOK TO THE GEOLOGY OF WEYMOUTH AND THE ISLAND OF 
PorTLAND ; witH Notes ON THE Naturat History oF THE 
Coast anp NrEIGHBOURHOOD. By Ropert Damon, F.G.S., &c. 
London, E. Sranrorp. 1864. 8vo. pp. 199, with 33 illustrations. 
HIS deservedly popular Handbook was published in 1860, and 
we have just received the reprint in 1864. We are sorry to 
find that it is only a reprint; for no handbook can be in print for 
four years and not need re-editing, however carefully it may have 
been brought out at first. We have compared the two editions, 
and, with the exception of the title-page, no change has been made.* 
This is the more to be regretted on account of the evident public 
appreciation the book has received, which is attested by the sale of 
the first edition since 1860. A careful notice of this book, by one 
who evidently knew the geological features of the country well, ap- 
peared in the ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History’ for 
December, 1860; and the author would have done well had he pro- 
fited by the suggestions and corrections therein furnished. We add 
a few fresh suggestions to the list therein given, confining our 
remarks to paleontology. Among the fossils figured from the Port- 
land Stone (p. 79) is a curious example of a mass of Jsastrea, a 
coral most abundant in the Oolite, which had been bored into by a 
burrowing mollusk (Lithodomus). The burrows afterwards became 
filled with fine calcareous mud, which penetrated also between the 
septa of the coral. The coral was eventually in great part dissolved 
away, leaving the casts of the borings of the Lithodomi exposed to 
view, their surfaces sometimes covered by the star-like impressions of 
the coral. Mr. Damon says (p. 78) the coral only coated the rock 
in which the Lithodomi bored, whereas his figure shows that it was 
in the substance of the coral itself that the burrows were made. The 
fossils of the Portland Stone occurring in the ‘ Roach’ beds are all in 
the same condition of casts, Lrigonia gibbosa and Cerithium Port- 
landicum being the two most abundant forms. Speaking of the 
recent Trigonia pectinata (p. 82), the author says it occurs in 
‘Swan River, New South Wales; it should be Sydney Harbour. 
Another variety occurs on the coast of Tasmania. 
At p.165 we find ‘ 7rigonellites is now regarded either as the 
gizzard of the animal, or the operculum or valve.’ In the ‘ Geologist’ 
for September, 1860, p. 328, Mr. S, P. Woodward published a 
figure of Ammonites subradiatus from the Inferior Oolite of Dundry, 
near Bristol, with the operculum in sitéi. Of their true nature we 
did not think any one was now ignorant. The author also quotes 
the exploded hypothesis of the use of the siphuncle in the Ammonite 
and Nautilus, as an apparatus for adjusting the specific gravity of the 
* A woodcut (Vertebree of Ichthyosaurus) printed upside-down, at page 168, 
remains still in the same position, 
