Itevietcs — Ansted's Geogra'phy and Geology of Leicester. 163 



of the crystalline rocks, and on this head no doubt Mr. Jukes would 

 now modify the views he then held ; but, in 1842, it is not unlikely 

 that Professor Ansted would have agreed with him. In 1860, the 

 Geological Survey of Great Britain issued a Memoir by Mr. Hull, 

 on the Leicestershire Coal-Field, in which Charnwood Forest came 

 in for rather a scanty notice ; but it must be recollected that the 

 memoir professed only to deal with the country included in sheets 

 71 S.W., and 63 N.W., of the Survey Map,i and that at least half 

 the Forest lies outside the limits thus assigned, a fact that should 

 certainly have been noticed by the author. 



Lastly, in 1862, a short notice of the rocks of Charnwood Forest, 

 by Professor Eamsay, was published in the third edition of the 

 Descriptive Catalogue of the Eock Specimens in the Museum of 

 Practical Geology in Jermyn-street. In the same year, the late Mr. 

 Coleman, who had devoted some years as an amateur to the subject, 

 drew up for White's Directory a short, but most lucid and compre- 

 hensive account of the geology of the county. Of this Professor 

 Ansted has largely availed himself, not withou^t, however, indulging 

 in a somewhat severe, and, as we think, mistaken criticism on some 

 passages in it. 



Good service would then be rendered by any one, who, after 

 a study of these materials, followed by careful work in the field, 

 should draw up a monograph on the geology of the county, full 

 enough to be a guide to the beginner, and pointing out to the ex- 

 perienced worker the difficulties still wanting solution. We cannot 

 say that the book before us at all supplies this want. The author 

 has certainly availed himself largely of the labour of his fore- 

 nmners, and often with scant acknowledgement ; but we find little 

 trace of independent investigation in the field, nor can we see much 

 that is new in the book, unless it be a statement that the author is 

 the first who has asserted the metamoi-phic origin of the crystalline 

 rocks of Charnwood Forest, which statement we believe to be per- 

 fectly new, and shall now shew to be unfounded- 

 After quoting some passages from the works of Mr. Jukes and 

 Mr. Coleman, Professor Ansted proceeds thus : — " That the rocks of 

 Charnwood Forest, hitherto described as igneous, are strictly meta- 

 morphic; that the syenitic and porphyritic rocks there exhibited 

 really alternate with the slates, and are strictly contemporaneous ; 

 that the whole series therefore is nothing more than a series of 

 altered stratified rocks, with few intrusive or trappean rocks, is a 

 suggestion that may startle the geological reader, as it seems to con- 

 tradict, in a matter hitherto regarded as beyond question, all the 

 opinions of those geologists who have hitherto described the country "^ 

 (p. 11). 



In this passage Prof. Ansted claims to be the first to have put 

 forward the view that the rocks in question are metamorphic. We 



\ Whether such a restriction, attempting to tie down geological description by 

 artificial limits be the best method or not, is not here the question ; the regulatioa 

 exists, and the author, as an officer of the Survey, must comply with it. 



' The italics in this passage are our own. 



