Reviews—Dr. A. Geikie’s Text-Book of Geology. 4] 
every name and number is so arranged as to lead to some definite 
conclusion, which is either that already accepted among geologists in 
general, or is that which the geological insight or personal bias of 
the author deems it desirable that his readers shall draw for them- 
selves. 
In his preface Dr. Geikie assures us that the book is intended 
primarily for the ordinary student of the science, but trusts that it 
will not repel the general reader. Jf we know anything of the 
habits of students and the desires of the so-called general reader, we 
feel pretty confident that the majority of those who will value the work 
will not be college students, but those who come to the examination 
of the science from without. The young student usually desires to 
rush into medias res, and is impatient of everything that has not an 
immediate bearing upon the matter in hand. He is willing to 
accept any assertion which he can test for himself by means of 
a hand specimen, or put into instant practice in the field. The 
growth of his knowledge to be natural must be essentially synthetic. 
The grand all-embracing theories of the cosmogonist appear to him 
like idle dreams, the study of which is a mere waste of valuable 
time. Until his mind has been thoroughly well grounded in the 
elements of the science, these theories only excite his contempt and 
scorn. ‘To such an one the Manual of Green appears to be the per- 
fection of method, and in this case we cannot help thinking his 
instinct is perfectly correct. 
To commend it to the tastes of the ordinary member of society, 
Geology demands an entirely different style of treatment. When, 
as it happens upon the very rarest of occasions, the educated man 
thinks it advisable to take the opinion of his geological brother, he 
quotes it as a matter of course, as he would that of any other dry 
specialist, if it happens to coincide with his own, without note or 
comment. If, on the other hand, it tends in a different direction, 
he either ignores it altogether, or passes it by with an easy smile of 
assured and conscious superiority. He cannot conceive that there 
can be any attraction in the science itself. Of all sciences it seems 
to him to be the most harsh and inharmonious, wholly devoid of the 
possibility of anything like artistic treatment, and allowing of no 
scope for the exercise of the imaginative faculty. It appears a 
bewildering chaos of disjointed facts and hazy conclusions, possessing 
only the faintest bond of union among themselves, and having no 
relation whatever to the needs or the philosophies of the day. 
The attempt to uproot this old and apparently well-grounded 
conviction, and to prove to demonstration that the science of geology 
is second to none in the interest of its details, and in the scope it 
- affords for the exercise of order, of taste, and of imagination, while 
at the same time that it is indissolubly lmked with the older 
sciences and the higher philosophies, were a task that only the most 
daring intellect could hope to accomplish. But to unite this with 
the endeavour to command at the same time also the attention and 
the respect of the youthful student and the grey devotee of the 
science, is a labour so gigantic that no one less ambitious than Dr. 
