570 Reviews — Collins^ Mineralogy of Cormoall and Devon. 



that are necessary. The second chapter gives tables of blowpipe 

 reactions from Plattner and Muspratt, and Scheerer and Blandford ; 

 then follow tables of minerals arranged in groups according to their 

 physical properties, e.g., "pulverulent," "capillary," "colour of 

 streak," etc. The next chapter contains a list of the Cornish and 

 Devonian minerals, with the derivation of their names, dates, and 

 of their discovery, and names of those by whom they were first 

 noticed. This list we think might very well have been incorporated 

 in the Glossary forming the second part. Then follow lists showing 

 the different methods of arrangement in vogue amongst collectors. 



Chapter five is devoted to tables of minerals occurring in the 

 different divisions of Cornwall and Devon, in which, as indeed, 

 throughout the book, the naiies are printed in various types, to 

 show their abundance or scarcity. 



These tables seem generally very well prepared, though we notice 

 too great a number of inaccuracies, which we shall hope to see cor- 

 rected in future editions, as they seem principally such as are attri- 

 butable to the work having been hurried through the press, of which 

 many indications are noticeable throughout the book. The last 

 chapter, occupying twenty lines only, is on a most important branch 

 of the subject — " Paragenesis" — and adds a few short lists of 

 minerals " congenial to one another," as the miners say. We 

 thoroughly concur with the author in his wish that all students 

 would carefully register and accumulate observations on this part 

 of the subject, and make them publicly known through any con- 

 venient channel, as also the position in which minerals occur, whether 

 in the walls or joints, etc., of the lodes. The figures of crystals fill 

 ten plates at the end of the second part. As an instance of want of 

 care in revising the authorities from which the glossary is compiled, 

 we would mention that Stenna Gwynn is given as a locality for 

 Wavellite, while under Tavistockite it is correctly stated that this is 

 the mineral, as first noticed by Dana, that really occurs there, and not 

 Wavellite, for which it was formerly mistaken. This book will be 

 found to be indispensable to all who are connected with the mining 

 interests of Cornwall and Devon, being the only work on the subject 

 specially devoted to these two counties ; it will also be found ex- 

 tremely useful to all students of mineralogy. 



i^EiPOiaTS JLisTZD :F>I^oo:E]:^3X)II^^a-s. 



I. — Geological Society of London. — The first meeting of this 

 Society for the present session was held on November 8, 1871. 

 Joseph Prestwich, Esq., F.K.S., President, in the Chair. The fol- 

 lowing communications were read : — 



1. A letter from the Embassy at Copenhagen, transmitted by 

 Earl Granville, mentioning that a Swedish scientific expedition, just 

 returned from the coast of Greenland, had brought home a number 

 of masses of meteoric iron, found there upon the surface of the 

 ground. These masses varied greatly in size ; the largest was said 

 to weigh 25 tons. 



