﻿382 Notices respecting New Books. 



cesses according as v is even or odd, forms, and ought to be re- 

 garded as, an organic whole. 



To prevent misconception, I ought to add that when v is suf- 

 ficiently great, the compound symmetrical logarithmic wave 

 %a log (x 2 — f 2 ) admits of other rectifiable cases besides those of 



the form 2<a log f — -f J above adduced. 



It remains to study the relation between the frequency of 

 each factor and the nature of the corresponding contact between 

 the functions (regarded as loci) into whose resultant it enters. 

 I have reason to hope that Dr. Olaus Henrici, who has 

 done such valuable work in the theory of Discriminants and 

 Resultants, may be disposed to take up this interesting and 

 pregnant question. 



LV. Notices respecting New Books. 



Physical and Historical Evidences of vast Sinkings of Land on the 

 North and West Coasts of France, and South-western Coasts of 

 England, within the Historical Period. Collected and com- 

 mented on by R. A. Peacock, Esq., C.E. 8vo. London and 

 St. Helier, 1868. 

 TN studying the Geology of Jersey, the author was struck by the 

 -*- strong evidences of subsidence in the sea about that island and the 

 neighbouring coasts ; and turning his attention to the subject, and 

 being already strongly imbued with notions respecting the existence 

 of cavities in the earth admitting of, and conducive to, infallings, he 

 took up the matter with energy, and, gathering information from 

 the antiquary, astronomer, engineer, naturalist, geologist, geogra- 

 pher, historian, and philologist, he has compiled and digested the 

 great number of facts and statements carefully arranged in this 

 closely printed and very interesting book, which is illustrated by 

 three outline maps. These collected evidences prove that within 

 the last nineteen centuries, and even so late as the beginning of the 

 fifteenth century, large tracts of land and sea-bottom have sunk, 

 even more than a hundred feet at some places, along the coasts of 

 Western Prussia, Holland, and Belgium, from the Elbe to near 

 Nieuport ; along the coasts of North Somerset, and of Devon and 

 Cornwall, north and south ; in the bed of the English Channel ; 

 amongst the Channel Islands ; along the coast of Normandy and 

 Brittany, from the Seine to Portrieux ; on the north coast of Brit- 

 tany, from about Lannion to the north-west angle of Brittany ; 

 around the Isle of Sein, on the west of Brittany ; and probably also 

 along the French coast in the Bay of Biscay ; whilst possibly the 

 land around Rochelle has risen a few feet since the commencement 

 of the twelfth century. The rich store here accumulated of evi- 

 dences of loss of land, particularly among the Channel Islands and 

 on the north and west coasts of France, has been carefully gleaned 



