Miscellaneous. 395 



The 13th chapter is headed " Fire forms continents, water transforms 

 them." In page 165 is a sentence headed " It is onlj fire which keeps 

 our heads above water. It is only owing to subterranean igneous 

 action that the solids of the globe are not submerged below shall I 

 say 3,000 feet of water." In page 111 is this passage in reference to 

 Madeira and Teneriffe, " These islands exemplify the contrary effects 

 of the contrary causes — fire and water, and vividly pourtray the per- 

 petual contest between the two powers. They show us that rain, 

 which we consider only as a productive power, is the destroyer, the 

 dissolver of continents, and that subterranean igneous action, which 

 we consider as a destructive power, is the producer, the replacer of 

 continents." In page 184 is this passage : " Subterranean igneous 

 heat is the quarryman who raises the block. Eain is the artist, 

 who shapes its surface. We owe the beauty of the surface of the 

 earth to water, not to fire. Could the labourer of Pares with justice 

 write, non me Praxiteles fecit, on some divine production of the 

 artist ? Did Baily form his exquisite Eve or the workman of the 

 Carrara quarries ? " In page 138 a paragraph is headed " Mountains 

 while rising may be decreasing in height." Suppose the Alps to 

 have been rising six inches ia a century for myriads of years, if their 

 denudation has been seven inches they have been decreasing in 

 height. 



Mr. Forbes is mistaken in supposing that "the old leaven re- 

 mains " of the dispute between the Neptunists and Yulcanists or that 

 it had anything to do with the formation of the surface of the earth. 

 The question was simply whether certain trap rocks were formed by 

 fire or were precipitates from water, which question was settled 

 long ago. 



I am, however, glad that while Mr. Forbes thinks that he difi"ers 

 from " Eain and Elvers," because he has not read it, he, in fact, 

 agrees with the book entirely ; and the doctrines of his lecture are 

 the doctrines of " Eain and Elvers." I am also glad that in the 

 paper which precedes Mr. Forbes's, my friend Mr. Kinahan, attributes 

 so much to Meteoric abrasion. But I wish that he would change 

 this (as Humboldt would say) "exalted form of speech," for the 

 more humble title of Eain and Elvers. 



Geoege Gtbeenwood, Colonel. 



Beookwood Paek, Aleespoed, 3rcZ July, 1870. 



3vriSOEX,Xi.A.35r:E!OTJS. 



CoNGEEss OP Alpine Geologists at Geneva. — ^A meeting of 

 Geologists interested in the Alps, under the presidency of Professor 

 F. J. Pictet, with Professor Favre for Vice-President, and MM. E. 

 Favre and E. Sarasin as Secretaries is convened for the 31st August 

 and 1st and 2nd September. The aim of the meeting was to assem- 

 ble together at Geneva, the savants of the two sides of the Alps, and 

 of the eastern and western extremities of the chain, in order to unite 



