SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



87 



Illustrated Guide to Belfast, Giant's Causeway and 

 Antrim Coast. 177 pp., 6J in. x 4 in., with maps 

 and numerous illustrations. (Belfast : W. and G. 

 Baird, 1898.) 6d. 



The North of Ireland railways are energetically 

 placing the many charming features of their district 

 well before the public, which are sure to be 

 attracted to the region for holiday trips. The 

 visitors could find no prettier or historically more 

 interesting district. In this guide, which is the 

 official handbook of the Belfast and Northern 

 Counties Railway, are many illustrations showing 

 the character of the country. Naturalists will find 

 it a happy hunting-ground, and will get from the 

 chapters devoted to 

 botany and geology 

 much useful infor- 

 mation. These are 

 written by Mr. R. 

 Lloyd Praeger and 

 Professor Grenville 

 A. J. Cole. Many 

 of the illustrations 

 are by Mr. Robert 

 Welch, and are 

 good, as usual with 

 his work. 



Types of Scenery 

 and their Influence 

 on Literature. By 

 Sir Archibald 

 Geikie, D.C.L., 

 F.R.S. (London : 

 Macmillan and Co., 

 Limited, 1898.) 2s. 



net. 



This work of fifty- 

 nine pages consti- 

 tutes the Romanes 

 Lecturedeliveredin 

 the Sheldonian The- 

 atre at Oxford on 

 June 1st, 1898. No 

 one who is not a ge- 

 ologist could have 

 traced the impor- 

 tant influence upon 

 literature which 

 natural scenery has 

 had in the striking 

 manner in which 

 this is shown in 

 the work before us. 

 The scenery of the 

 island is divided 

 into (1) the Low- 

 lands of Britain ; Lily Tank in Herb 

 (2) the Uplands of From " The Royal 

 Southern Scotland 



and the Border Country ; and (3) the Highlands of 

 Scotland, Wales and the Lakes. The character- 

 istic lowland topography is seen east of a line 

 drawn across England from the mouth of the 

 Humber, through the Midlands to the Bristol 

 Channel. West of this imaginary line are found 

 the harder and more durable rocks which, owing 

 to the slowness and diversity of their weathering, 

 have given rise to an altogether different style of 

 river and stream scenery, distinct as possible from 

 the quiet, easy-flowing river-bank country through 

 which the rivers of the east and south-east wend 

 their way. The placid scenery of the eastern low- 

 lands has had an important influence upon the 

 poets of nature, such as Cowper, Thompson and 



Burns ; and Sir Archibald shows how each has been 

 influenced similarly by the lowland scenery around 

 them as they wrote, although he acknowledges the 

 differences which necessarily characterised their 

 respective works. Scott and Wordsworth are 

 characteristic upland poets. The surface of the 

 uplands, where not covered with peat-moss, is 

 uninhabited and clothed with bent or heather. It 

 is in the hollows, which lead down into the main 

 valleys, where the farms and villages have been 

 planted. These strips of land, sunk below the 

 general level, have been carved out by the "waters " 

 now leading through them, and these streams, re- 

 garded with veneration by those who lived upon their 



banks, have played 

 an influential part 

 in upland poetry. 

 Classed together as 

 Highlands, for the 

 purposes of the pre- 

 sent inquiry, is the 

 higher, more rugged 

 and mountainous 

 ground. Each of 

 the varied kinds of 

 rock has its charac- 

 teristic weathering, 

 and with a heavier 

 rainfall than in the 

 lowlands the topo- 

 graphy is bolder an d 

 more diverse. This 

 kind of scenery is 

 depicted in James 

 Macpherson's 

 "Fragments of 

 Ancient Poetry Col- 

 lected in the High- 

 lands," published 

 in 1760, and in his 

 other works which 

 followed. Into the 

 controversy which 

 arose concern- 

 ing the so-called 

 "Poems of Ossian" 

 Sir Archibald de- 

 clines to enter, but 

 prefers to approach 

 them from a scenic 

 and topographical 

 point of view. The 

 author of the poems 

 was twenty - four 

 when his remark- 

 able delineations 

 of highland land- 

 scape appeared, 

 and he showed 

 himself to be a true poet of nature. It is pointed 

 out, curiously enough, that three of the poets 

 chosen for notice in this work have held up the 

 geologist to ridicule: Cowper in "The Task" 

 (book iii., 150), Wordsworth in " The Excursion " 

 (book iii.), Scott in " St. Ronan's Well " (chap, ii.) 

 — all make amusing and more or less sarcastic 

 allusions to the stone-chipping, hammer-armed 

 geologists. Like Hugh Miller, Sir Archibald 

 believes there is yet to come some poetic seer 

 who, looking over the whole purview of geology, 

 will place before man's eye " the inner meaning 

 of mountain and glen." The booklet is to be 

 recommended for its literary as well as its scien- 

 tific importance. — E. A. M. 



aceous Gardens. 

 Gardens, Kew." 



