Schvarcz — Geology in Ancient Greece. 373 



are, perhaps, the fragments of a vast continent which existed during 

 the Miocene epoch ; when phenomena of depression marked the com- 

 mencement of the Pliocene epoch, the lower parts of the continent 

 were invaded by the sea and the higher points remained as islands. 



The silver mines of Laurium are of great antiquity and note, but 

 their mineral wealth is said to have been long ago exhausted. 

 Workings are now established at Keratea to obtain the metals left 

 in the refuse from the ancient workings. 



The beautiful saccharoid marbles of Pentelicus and Pares have 

 contributed in no small degree to the prosperity of Greece. The 

 purity of the marbles inspired purity of execution. The quarries 

 dug by the ancients are still to be seen, and many facts tend to show 

 how particular they were, and to what expense they must have gone 

 in order to procure the best stone. 



M. Gaudry concludes with a few oesthetic and religious sentiments. 



H.B.W. 



I^IB^V^IIBAArS. 



I. — The Failure of Geological Attempts made by the Greeks 

 FROM the Earliest Ages down to the Epoch of Alexander. 

 By Julius Schvarcz, F.G.S., President of the Hungarian Asso- 

 ciation for the Promotion of National Education, etc., etc. 

 Eevised and Enlarged Edition. London : Triibner and Co. 1868. 

 pp. 153, 4to. 



DK. SCHVAKCZ is well known in Hungary as a scholar of no 

 mean pretensions, and his voice has long been uplifted in his 

 native land in favour of national education. He is also deeply 

 interested in Geology, and in all questions connected with its history 

 from the earliest times. 



We are so accustomed to consider Geology as the youngest 

 of all the natural sciences, that we are, for the most part, content 

 to date back its pedigree to the days of Werner, Cuvier, Desmarest, 

 Hutton, Playfair, and William Smith, and to consider the works of 

 earlier writers as belonging rather to the mythical part of its 

 history — ^just as the Irish, Welsh, and Druidical legends are re- 

 garded as compared with the modern history of our OM^n country. 



But the childhood of sciences, like that of nations, often affords to 

 the student and historian matter for speculation of no mean interest. 



Thus we find in the sacred books of the Hindoos, passages, which, 

 though veiled in poetic or mystic language, seem to indicate con- 

 siderable advance both in a knowledge of astronomy and physical 

 geology. 



The learned too among the Chinese and Egytians, cultivated habits 

 of observation, and noted many changes in the condition of land- and 

 sea-surfaces, and other physical phenomena, which relate more or 

 less directly to natural science. 



But even in awarding to these, the most favourable degree of merit 



