Geology and Natural History. 389 
If such was the condition of the interior in the early stages of 
the cosmogony, a large portion of the oceans now above the crust 
may once have been beneath it, and thus we gain a novel concep- 
tion of a sense in which the fountains of the abyss may once have 
been broken up. 
A somewhat analogous escape of elastic vapor from beneath a 
— envelope is I believe considered to be now taking place in 
the Sun. 
of its history; while the tests of the tides, and of precession, are 
confined in their application to the present. Nevertheless I am 
disposed to think that, at any rate, what may be termed a super- 
heated condition of the mass still exists at no very great depth 
below the surface. By which I mean that if it be solid the solid- 
Wales Cc 
62 pp. with geological sections. Sydney, New South Wales, 1875. 
—This memoir is a review of the geology of Australia by one who 
has worked long in geological investigations over New South 
Vales. The question of the age of the coal formation 1s fully 
discussed; and between the extreme limits adopted by different 
Writers, the Jurassic period and the Lower Carboniferous, Mr. 
Clarke holds to his old opinion that they are of the latter age. 
fF aseels Phys Geography, 2nd edit., p. 7. 
can Journal i . 264. : : 
; Front fiemies o Probes ot Bomar Motion,” Smithsonian Contribu- 
tions, No. 240, 
§ Nature, vol. iv, p. 344. 
