38 Recent Literature. [ January, 
Carolina, had in his possession many curious forms of gold taken 
from this clay ; one particularly so in the fact that it represented 
a beetle, and this similarity was not one that taxed the imagi- 
nation at all to see the resemblance. It looked just as though 
the insect had been entombed in the clay, and the fine particles 
of gold had insinuated themselves into the cavity, to there aggre- 
gate and take the shape of the insect that it displaced, the lines 
of the sheath upon the back being as plainly delineated as they 
are upon a real insect. He had also gold in the form of leaves 
upon the laminz of slate, where the gold had drifted in between 
the foliations and taken the place of the cellulose. All the gold 
found in this clay was of a peculiarly fine quality. 
To such as believe in evolution, the hypothesis seems possible, 
although we know in the laboratory that gold seems the most 
positively elementary substance of the metallic series. But many 
are led to believe that matter in the various forms of environ- 
ment which we dignify with the name of elements has all been 
evolved from some simple form of substance that once composed 
the primeval cosmos. It seems to assume no more annihilation 
of elementary stability to assert that gold is of a derivative origin 
than it does to believe, as some now do, that bog iron ore (with 
iron a so-called element) is evolved from the life of the Gallo- 
nella ferruginea. 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
GURNEY’S RAMBLES or a NATURALIST. — Although not specially 
interested in ornithology, we have been led on from chapter to chapter 
until all except the special notes, which take up a considerable portion 
of the book, have been conned over, and we have been led to regard the 
work as a very pleasant record, by an observing and evidently experi- 
enced ornithologist, of travels in some of the most interesting regions of 
the Old World. Mr. Gurney discovered but one bird absolutely new to 
Egypt, the lesser white-fronted goose, and this not a “new species.” 
We much relish a foot-note on page 110, in which it is said that “ quite 
seven tenths of the names which have been bestowed on ‘new birds’ 
within the last few years have already sunk into synonyms, and the ad- 
vance of science has thereby been impeded.” This evinces sound orni- 
thology in the author! One chapter is mostly devoted to the sacred 
ibis. An extract will give some idea of the author’s style. “Alas! alas! 
1 Rambles of a Naturalist in Egypt and other Countries. With an Analysis of the 
Claims of certain Foreign Birds to be considered British, and other Ornithological 
Notes. By J. H. Gurney, JR., F. Z. S. London: Jarrold and Sons. 12mo, pp. 
307. For sale by S. E. Cassino, Naturalists’ Agency, Salem, Mass. 
