Revieivs — V. BaWs Jungle Life in India. 229 



material resembling fine flour in appearance and feel, and of a 

 creamy-white tint." Carefully wrapping this material in a news- 

 paper, he took away the prize, with the object of submitting it to 

 minute investigation. The result is given in the work before us. 

 The material when prepared for examination weighed about three or 

 four ounces, and yielded a number of Foraminifera, and Entomo- 

 straca, fragments of Echini, Annelida, Cirripedia, Polyzoa, Brachio- 

 foda, Lamellibranchidta, and Fishes ; and in addition the beautifully 

 varied Sponge-spicules, which Dr. Hinde has now figured and 

 described. These spicules, which he studied at Munich with the 

 hearty co-operation of Prof. Zittel, he has grouped under no less 

 than twenty-one genera, including nine new species. In a 

 postscript he refers to the recent work of Prof. SoUas (Ann. and 

 Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 5, vol. vi. pp. 38i-395, 437-4G0), wherein that 

 author describes a number of sponge-spicules from flint-nodules of 

 the Chalk at Trimmingham in Norfolk. Prof. SoUas has placed 

 them under seventeen genera, of which no fewer than thirteen are 

 new, and Dr. Hinde admits that " nearly all the forms present at 

 Trimmingham " are included among those he describes from 

 Horstead. We must leave the students of sponges to settle these 

 differences. Dr. Hinde discusses the difficulties that attend the 

 exact identification of isolated spicules "from the fact that in the 

 skeletons of both fossil and recent sponges, very many [foreign] 

 spicules get intermingled with the sponge." " Another difficulty is 

 owing to the fact of the same form of spicule being common to 

 several different genera of sponges," while " in other sponges, there 

 are six or seven difi'erent forms of spicule in the same species." 

 But setting aside these perplexities, Dr. Hinde has done excellent 

 service to science in developing and illustrating the treasures of this 

 single flint-nodule from Horstead. Although he does not attempt to 

 discuss in detail the question of the origin of the flints in the chalk, 

 he makes some remark upon it, and observes " that the beautifully 

 perfect state of preservation of the various delicate fossil organisms 

 in the interior of this flint, when compared with the nearly complete 

 obliteration of their structures in the enveloping chalk, points to the 

 conclusion, that the period in which the flints were formed must 

 have been previous to that consolidation of the mass of the chalk by 

 which the smaller fossils were mostly destroyed." To the many 

 interested in flint-formation. Dr. Hinde's work offers plenty of 

 material for careful study, while at the same time it furnishes an 

 excellent example of what may be done by patient investigation in 

 a somewhat restricted field. H. B. W. 



III. — JoNGLE Life in India; or the Journeys and Journals of 

 AN Indian Geologist, By V. Ball, M.A., Geological Survey of 

 India. 8vo. pp. 720. (London, De la Ptue & Co., 1880.) 



OUR Indian Geological Survey has now been in active progress for 

 about a quarter of a century. As early as 1851, the late Dr. 

 Oldham went to Calcutta for the purpose of making preliminary 

 observations, but it was not until 1856 that he was enabled to 



