466 Reviews — Geological Survey of Yesso, Japan. 



retained by Government to explore the petroleum grounds of India — 

 a work which came to an abrupt end after Mr. Lyman's examin- 

 ation and honestly unflattering Eeport of the Punjab Oil Lands was 

 published. 



Mr. Lyman now signs himself at Shiba, Yedo, Chief Geologist 

 and Mining Engineer of the Geological Survey of Japan. His 

 assistants are Mr. Henry S. Munroe, a fellow-countryman ; Mr. T. 

 Yamauchi, Mr. H. Satow (Interpreter, etc.), Messrs. Inagaki, 

 Kuwada, Misawa, Takahashi, Kada, Saka, and Saito, with Mr. Y. 

 Akiyama, and Mr. S. Ichichi, Quartermasters to the two American 

 gentlemen. 



Of the whole of these, the head of the Survey reports favourably, 

 and says of the eleven Japanese, that even though young and in- 

 experienced, and for the most part wholly ignorant at the outset, 

 not only of geology, but of surveying, drawing, and even almost of 

 common arithmetic, they have been very useful, partly because they 

 have eagerly and rapidly learned what they could in a very short 

 time, and partly because such surveys require much work of com- 

 paratively simple character. He notices the benefit to themselves 

 and to the empire of the knowledge they have gained by their 

 season's labour, adding, " They are not only the first Japanese, but 

 the first Asiatics to undertake the study and practise of geology; 

 and although the training of native geologists in India has been 

 begun nearly at the same time (or is soon to begin), I trust that 

 ours will continue to take the lead, and that Japan will become in a 

 few years independent of foreign countries in their profession." 

 This might by the author's countrymen be called rather " tall 

 talk," after eight months' progress from the state of ignorance 

 described ; but the chief of the Survey writes, to say the least, hope- 

 fully ; and we may perhaps expect to see the march of geological 

 science yet aided by the writings of our precocious but distant 

 Japanese brethren in these very pages. 



The Preliminary Eeport is little more than a pamphlet of 46 pages, 

 published at Tokei by the Kaitakushi, and unaccompanied by maps 

 or sections ; still its printing and general neatness of production 

 would compare most favourably with anything of the kind in 

 Europe or America. 



The survey of the ground itself has evidently to be topogra- 

 phically made, contemporaneously with its geological exploration ; 

 doubtless a great advantage. We observe, however, that Mr. Lyman 

 is pursuing the system of Prof. J. Peter Lesley, of Philadelphia, 

 namely, the delineation of the surface of the ground on the map by 

 contour lines, and also by imaginary contours of the strata under 

 ground, endeavouring to show their positions at various depths, and 

 also at the outcrop. This we look upon as a mistake. In the first 

 place, the system can only be applied to stratified rocks, and would 

 only give approximately correct results if the bands were always 

 equidistant, and the curves of the strata themselves of fixed geo- 

 metrical forms. Observations made at the surface can onl}'- be taken 

 for what they are worth ; and even if the strata were always as 



