Notices respecting New Boohs. 315 



annual catalogue raisonne of the works produced in each country 

 would, the author suggests, be more satisfactory and useful, and 

 more likely to be well elaborated. He has, therefore, given much time 

 and energy to the production of the present work, which is not a 

 meagre catalogue with contracted notes on the contents of papers, 

 pamphlets, and books, but is intended to be readable and useful to 

 scientists, conveying all the important facts and arguments brought 

 out in the papers, and thus indicating the actual progress of 

 Geology in all its branches, as advanced or treated of in the one 

 Country under notice! 



The British area with its actual epitome of geological phenomena, 

 and its numerous local Societies studying the same, and very often 

 taking foreign geology also into their consideration, is peculiarly 

 fit to supply an annual series of both practical and theoretical 

 observations, worthy of full notice in such a periodical volume as 

 J. P. Blake's 'Annals of British Greology' now before us. 



In many of the abstracts composing this volume, for 1890, the 

 author offers critical observations, enclosed in square brackets 

 [ ], where the facts seem to be obscure, the arguments incomplete, 

 or the conclusions not proved, the statements thus appearing to be 

 obviously erroneous or inconsistent. Such interpolated remarks, 

 if sound and well directed, may be valuable as well to the writer 

 criticised as to the reader of the bibliography ; and even mistaken 

 criticism, the author thinks, may in some cases be better than none, 

 being merely personal opinion open to correction. 



We expect that few geologists, besides the Author, could be 

 found equal to the all-round work of making such fair and lucid 

 abstracts of numerous papers on all the subdivisions of the science 

 as those in the present volume. A sound acquaintance with all 

 the subjects has made him also an able critic, rarely influenced by 

 his personal views. Thus the strictures in Article no. 440, p. 208, 

 deserve notice ; and in the Articles nos. 138 & 139, pp. 52-56, 

 several apt and just criticisms come in w T here wanted to support 

 the claims of the Murchisonian against the Sedgwickian school, 

 respecting the history of the " Silurian-and-Cambrian" controversy, 

 and the determination and naming of the subdivisions of those 

 palaeozoic strata. On the other hand, in Article no. 259, at 

 page 146, the first half of the critique does not show a mastery of 

 the sections referred to. In Article no. 665, at pp. 305, 306, the 

 term " Coralline Limestone " might, according to the fossils men- 

 tioned, have been accompanied with the critical correction [JNTulli- 

 poran Limestone]. So also in Article no. 249, at pp. 128, 129, 

 the critical correction [Polyzoan Crag] might advisedly have fol- 

 lowed the term " Coralline Crag." 



We may note that there are very few clerical errors, considering 

 the technical character of the text, and the many lists of strata, 

 fossils, analyses, &c. The book is well and clearly printed ; and 

 wiuh its varied and carefully collected information, as noticed 

 above, must be of great use to geologists in many ways. We hope 

 that it will be well supported, and continued; so that succes- 



