Revieivs — Dana^s Mineralogy. 463 



his teachings in mineralogy, we must enter our protest against the 

 introduction of a termination disallowed by all European chemists. 



A valuable bibliography completes the Introduction, containing 

 the titles of about 300 works, memoirs, and papers, which are 

 referred to in tlie following pages. 



In congratulating our readers on the appearance of this standard 

 work of reference, which has been posted up, as far as was possible, 

 to the date of publication, we cannot but again notice the untiring 

 energy and zeal of the veteran author, who, amidst his laborious task, 

 has not failed fully to acknowledge the assistance and obligations he 

 is under to the various men of science during the preparation of this 

 work. 



IV. — An Essay on the Geology of Cumberland and West- 

 moreland. By Henry Alleyne Nicholson, D.Sc, M.B., F.G.S. 

 8vo. pp. 93. 1868. London : Kobert Hardwicke. 



THE author, in a short preface, tells us the origin and scope of the 

 Essay which he has now given to the world. It is an Edin- 

 burgh University Prize Essay of 1867, with additions and corrections. 

 It proposes to give a sketch of the Geology of the Lake District, 

 both from the author's own observations, and from the works of pre- 

 vious writers, whose statements the author has in most cases verified. 

 The work is carefully done, and the essay forms a manual which 

 should be in the hands of every one interested in the structure of 

 the Lake Country, and indeed of every student of Silurian Geology. 



In the introduction, the author describes the general structure of 

 the district, and enumerates the formations which occur within it, 

 pointing out their equivalents in other parts of the country. Here 

 some of his general conclusions as to the absence of certain groups 

 depend upon this identification, which, in the more detailed descrip- 

 tion which follows his introduction, it will be seen is not un- 

 questioned. 



The Lake District seems to have formed an island, during the 

 earlier part at least of many great submergences. Our author 

 says (p. 6), "Near the close of the Devonian Epoch the land again 

 commenced to sink beneath the sea. The subsidence, however, was 

 not sufficient to submerge the more elevated portions of the Silurian 

 area." And further on (p. 8), he speaks of " a steady depression of 

 the sea-bottom, which lasted till the close of the Permian Epoch, 

 without ever attaining to any great intensity, since most of the Per- 

 mian strata show signs of having been deposited in seas of no great 

 depth." And again, (p. 9) — "^ During the Glacial Epoch, the 

 central and higher portions of the Lake District appear to have 

 escaped submergence." 



This may be so ; but when we remember the enormous thick- 

 ness of the Carboniferous deposits in Lancashire, and see that the 

 lower beds only of the series abut against the mountains of the 

 north, we ask what prevented the flow of the later Carboniferous sea 

 over the Lake Mountains : if they were then anything like what 



