Reviews — Nicholson's Manual of Palceontology. 567 



this work will always retain a permanent value for its minute and 

 faithful description of these organic remains, and all students of 

 Palaeontology will be indebted to Dr. Nicholson for thus bringing 

 together in a single volume the history of this important division. 

 We can only express the hope that what the author has here accom- 

 plished for the old order of the Tabulata, he may be induced to 

 undertake for the other orders of the Palaeozoic corals. 



III. — A Manual of Paleontology for the Use of Students, with 

 a General Introduction on the Principles of Paleontology. 

 By Henry Alleyne Nicholson, M.D., D.Sc., Ph.D., F.E.S.E., 

 F.G.S. ; Professor of Natural History in the University of St. 

 Andrews. 2nd Edition. Revised and greatly enlarged. In two 

 vols. Royal 8vo. pp. 1070, with 722 Woodcut Illustrations. 

 (Edinburgh and London : William Blackwood & Sons, 1879.) 



THOSE who, like the writer, can carry back their intimate acquaint- 

 ance with geological events for more than a quarter of a century, 

 cannot fail to be astonished at the change which has arisen in 

 the literature connected with their special branch of study, and 

 particularly that which relates to text-books and works for the 

 use of students. In 1855, "' Lyell's Elements " had already attained 

 its 5th edition ; it was the book, and almost the only book, for 

 the learner. Previously Mantell's works, Buckland's Bridgewater 

 Treatise, and Conybeare and Phillips, were the only really good 

 sound books to consult ; now there are more than a dozen authors 

 ready to impart to us out of their stores of geological and palaeonto- 

 logical knowledge, things old and things new. 



Happy is that student who obtains the aid of a really sound 

 geological Mentor, one who is able to guide his steps in safety 

 amidst Glacial epochs, Volcanic eruptions, Pluvial periods, Eozoonal 

 Limestones, Evolutionary ancestral forms, and Quaternary deposits, 

 into the haven of Truth. 



Not only have our teachers vastly multiplied, but our subject of 

 study has divided itself, so that, like a complex system of railway 

 lines, one may travel on the Physiographical branch, or the Geo- 

 graphical one, on the Stratigraphical, the Penological or the Palaeon- 

 tological — and may be, and we trust are, all moving forward, but 

 on quite different roads, so extensive has our subject become in 

 the last twenty-five years. 



Formerly a geologist was also a mineralogist, and a palaeontologist; 

 now a man may be a geologist without knowing either of these 

 subjects ; or he may be a crystallographer, a petrologist, a mathe- 

 matician, or a chemist, and yet not a mineralogist; or, a palaeon- 

 tologist, or zoologist, and yet not a geologist ! 



Certainly the more one studies the relics of bygone ages in the 

 light of forms of life still existing on our planet, the more we are 

 able rightly to understand "The Ancient Life History of the Earth." 



Prof. H. Alleyne Nicholson, the writer of the Manual of Palaeon- 

 tology now before us, is peculiarly fitted for the task he has set him- 

 self to perform. He is not only a sound practical geologist, but he 



