84 Iteviews — Wallace's Island Life. 



The general succession of the Carboniferous Series in Scotland 

 has been modified to meet the author's latest views on Car- 

 boniferous classification, or more properly into four groups, 

 instead of thi'ee, as in England. These do not correspond in every 

 way with the subdivisions adopted by the Geological Survey of 

 Scotland. We cannot help thinking some further useful details 

 might have been gleaned about the Scotch Coal-fields fi-om some of 

 the more recently published '' Explanations of Maps " of the latter 

 body. The available Coal in Scotland for future use is estimated at 

 about 9,043,000,000 tons. 



In Ireland, the Antrim Coal Series is now assigned by Prof. Hull 

 to the position of the Lower Coal and Ironstone Group of Scotland 

 (= Edge Coal Series, or Middle Carboniferous Limestone Group of 

 the Geological Survey), and the Yoredale Series of the North of 

 England. 



The account of the Indian Coal-beds has been completely revised. 

 The age, following the views of Messrs. Medlicott and Blanford, is 

 now stated to range from the Permian to the Upper Jurassic. There 

 are thirty-seven separate fields, of which five only are regularly 

 worked. 



The information concerning the Australian Coal-fields is hardly 

 up to date, and might advantageously be increased now that such 

 a large mass of information has been brought together relating to 

 the productive beds of New South Wales, and the unproductive strata 

 of Victoria. We are, however, very glad to see that the views of 

 the late Kev. W. B. Clarke have been more closely followed in this 

 work than those of others who have written on the subject, although 

 less conversant with it. 



In the account of the African and Canadian Coal-seams, Professor 

 Hull has availed himself of recent Reports and Surveys. 



We must, in conclusion, congratulate the author upon having 

 again brought his useful and important task to a most successful 

 termination. We shall look forward, in the future, to the appear- 

 ance of another and enlarged edition, with even greater feelings of 

 pleasure than the perusal of the fourth has afforded us. As before, 

 the work is published by Mr. Ed. Stanford, and everything appears 

 to have been done to render it as complete and accurate as possible. 



XL — Island Life ; or, the Phenomena and Causes of Insular 

 Faunas and Floras, including a Eevision and Attempted 

 Solution of the Problem of Geological Climates. By Alfred 

 EussEL Wallace. (Macmillan & Co. : 1880.) 



THE author desires this volume to be regarded not only as a 

 popular supplement to his Geographical Distribution of Animals, 

 but as a work complete in itself. He considers that the treatment 

 of the subject has been placed on a sounder basis owing to the 

 establishment of a number of preliminary doctrines, of which the 

 most important are those " which establish and define (1) the former 

 wide extension of all groups now discontinuous, as being the neces- 

 sary result of Evolution; (2) the permanence of the great features 



