474 Revieics — The Survey Memoir on the Scottish Uplands. 



becomes a geologist. The host of the political British colonies and 

 possessions scattered over the continents and the oceans, what are 

 they to the host of British colonies and settlements scattered 

 throughout the geological literature and practice of the entire 

 geological world ? Not a single map of any large district issued 

 by the Geological Survey of any country, not a geological text- 

 book published in any language, not a geological lecture delivered 

 by any teacher, or a geological paper read by any amateur, from 

 London to Tokio, from the St. Lawrence to the Plate, but shows 

 how the geological nomenclature of every land has been colonized 

 verbally by British settlers, who, in their stiff, self-sufScient, 

 masterful way, enforce order and contentment among the aborigines 

 around. 



Of course, to the old geological hand all these things are but 

 prosy platitudes — contemptible because they are so familiar. But 

 who knows ? Some day, perhaps, may arise a Kipling, who shall 

 suddenly touch with them, burning, the hearts of the people, that 

 they may open their eyes and see. 



In the meantime, however, it is good to know that the science of 

 geology is still advancing amongst us from discovery to discovery, 

 that the amateur geologist is still one of the natural products of the 

 British soil. It is pleasant also to note how the national Geological 

 Survey issues year after year its maps and its memoirs, not only 

 those dealing with areas well known of old to be conspicuous for 

 their abundant mineral resources, or fruitful in geological interest, 

 but also with areas which for the time being may seem to be but 

 barren and desolate solitudes in both regards. And this, again, 

 is but right. Who among the officers of those surveying ships 

 of Britain, sent out a century or two ago to map the unknown 

 coasts of America, Africa, and Australia, imagined even in their 

 wildest dreams that the lonely lands they outlined would, in the 

 no long distant future, teem with English-speaking populations, the 

 pride of the mother country, and rich, powerful, and prosperous, for 

 whose safe and certain advent these early surveys had prepared the 

 road ? Who, again, among British geologists, official or non-official, 

 can take upon himself to say what hosts of new and important 

 geological facts, rich in new deductions destined to advance the 

 honour of British science, or to add to the wealth of the country, 

 intellectual or material, may not follow from the careful mapping 

 of apparently unpromising areas ? 



We have, indeed, a very good illustration of this in the case 

 of the region described by the memoir we are reviewing. The 

 Geological Surveyors, as in duty bound, practically deferred the 

 complete mapping of this apparently unpromising region until all 

 the neighbouring parts of Scotland, rich in materials of economic 

 value, had been surveyed and mapped. Stage by stage, however, 

 the Upland work has been taken up, until at last we have a com- 

 plete outline picture of the structure and possibilities of the region. 

 And in place of the older view of the unpromising nature of its 

 geological formations they are found to be wonderfully rich ia 



