168 JRemeivs — Dawson^s Dawn of Life. 



The " Eecord" is divided under tlie following heads, namelj' : — 

 (1) Stratigraphical and Descriptive Geology, 160 pages ; (2) 

 Ph3^sical Geology, 25 pages ; (3) Applied and Economic Geology, 

 10 pages ; (4) Petrology, 24 pages; (5) Mineralogy, 40 pages; (6) 

 Palaeontology, 80 pages ; (7) Maps and Sections, 10 pages ; (8) Mis- 

 cellaneous, etc., 28 pages. With an index of 19 pages. 



On the average, there are as many as five abstracts to a page, but 

 occasionally, where the subject-matter requires to be given in greater 

 detail, they are more full. 



It would be but a poor compliment to pay the Editor and his able 

 staff, to say that the work is perfect; but as a first year's result it is 

 highly satisfactory, and the general plan seems admirable, although 

 we think the palgeontological section might be classified in greater 

 detail with advantage. 



We shall look forward with pleasure to the appearance of vol. ii. 

 for 1875, and cannot help prophesying a great increase both in its 

 contents, and also in the number of its subscribers. Meantime, we 

 would record our best thanks to the compilers and editor, for the 

 manner in which thej'^ have carried out the work so far. 



Y. — The Dawn of Life ; being the History of the Oldest 

 Known Fossil Remains, and their Relations to Geological 

 Time and to the Development of the Animal Kingdom. 

 By J. W. Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S., E.G.S., etc. 8vo. pp. 239, 

 8 Plates and 49 Woodcuts. (London : Hodder & Stoughton, 

 1875.) 



WE are all so fully aware of a grand uniformity of plan pervading 

 creation, and of the limits of variety and modification in organic 

 growth being far beyond our knowledge, that the naturalist regards 

 any apparently strange unconformist in the ranks of the animal or 

 the vegetable world as a subject of curiosity — that is, of inquiry and 

 research, rather than of astonishment and blank wonder. So also 

 the mineralogist and the chemist look on every newly-discovered 

 substance coming under their notice as necessarily part and portion 

 of the great but varied cosmical mass of matter, whether organic or 

 inorganic. It cannot be really strange ; it has its relationships and 

 alliances ; it falls into systematic order with this or that known 

 group of things. 



Thus prepared to recognize a wide range of analogies, similarities, 

 and identities, the biologist and the mineralogist sooner or later 

 work out the natures and alliances of the objects submitted to their 

 examination more or less completely ; and systematic knowledge, or 

 science, increases. 



It is rare indeed now-a-days that a question arises as to whether 

 a material under examination be of organic or inorganic origin ; but 

 \\i the case of Sir William Logan's fossil known as Eozom Cana- 

 dense there are still such doubts felt and expressed ; and to clear 

 these up is the purpose of Dr. Dawson's book before us. 



In the treatment of the vexed question whether Eozoon be a fossil- 



