156 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. V., No. 107. 



Much more is to be done, especially in sweep- 

 ing away the distinction of real and personal 

 estate, in forbidding the settlement of land, 

 and by establishing a cheap and compulsory 

 registration of land-titles. There must also 

 be a revision of local taxation. Such changes 

 must be gradual. The remedies for present 

 evils are not to be sought so expectantly in 

 philanthropy as in the modification of laws and 

 privileges. Other countries, as well as Eng- 

 land, suffer from bad government, and even the 

 United States is not free from disastrous laws. 

 When government goes beyond its proper func- 

 tion, it makes itself responsible for failures, and 

 engenders the belief, that, if man is unhappy, 

 government has made him so. 



The condition of London is then briefly con- 

 sidered, — ' the greatest manufacturing town 

 in the world,' which levies an octroi duty on 

 coal to an amount " which seems insignificant, 

 but is sufficient to' kill such manufactures as 

 depend on its prodigal consumption." Bad 

 as the condition of London labor is, the author 

 is persuaded that it is not so bad as was that 

 of all urban labor sixty years ago, and that the 

 metropolis is not so ignorant or unclean as it 

 was twenty years ago. The unrestricted recep- 

 tion of foreigners is condemned. While ap- 

 proving of charities in extraordinary cases, 

 the author opposes compulsory and govern- 

 mental charit}' on a general plan. " To adopt 

 such an expedient would be to despair of the 

 recuperative power of modern industry," and 

 the relief of poverty would soon absorb all the 

 products of labor. Henry George's plan for 

 the nationalization of land is condemned ; so 

 is entail. Migration is commended. Small 

 land-holdings are most desirable. The advan- 

 tages of trade-unions are pointed out with 

 frankness and emphasis. Finally, the author, 

 seeking for measures which will tend toward 

 the just distribution of material comforts, takes 

 courage for the future in the recollection, 

 confirmed by careful historical studies, that 

 England has taught mankind the machinery of 

 government, and that its free institutions, now 

 spreading through the civilized world, depend 

 upon enlightened public opinion. "The re- 

 forms which have been effected are the work 

 of the people, and they are to be traced in the 

 stubborn perseverance with which Englishmen 

 have criticised their own condition, and have 

 discovered that from themselves only can the 

 remedy be found." 



Before concluding this inadequate notice of 

 a very important book, we may mention that 

 the last eight chapters, comprising the modern 

 facts, have been reprinted by themselves for 



general circulation. We may also call atten- 

 tion to an elaborate treatise, well adapted to 

 collateral study, on the subject of taxes and 

 taxation in England, — four octavo volumes 

 just given to the public by Stephen Powell, 

 assistant solicitor of inland revenue. 



A NEW GEOLOGICAL MAP OF CANADA, 

 WITH AN OUTLINE SKETCH. 



This sketch of the physical geography and 

 geology of Canada has been prepared to ac- 

 company a new geological map, prepared by the 

 geological survey, in two large sheets on a scale 

 of forty miles to an inch. Both the map and the 

 sketch derive their materials from a review of 

 all the topographical and geological work 

 that has been accomplished in Canada, and 

 give, in graphic and condensed form, a general 

 view of the present state of the physical explo- 

 ration of the northern part of our continent. 

 The physical geography is not treated with so 

 much attention as it deserves : indeed, the 

 pages of the sketch that are devoted to this 

 subject are more occupied with descriptive 

 than with truly physical geography, and leave 

 much to be said. The geology is given more 

 space, as is natural in the present stage of 

 development of the two studies. Many of its 

 topics will probably continue to excite a con- 

 troversial interest in the future, as they have 

 in the past : as, for example, the great St. 

 Lawrence and Champlain fault, and its contin- 

 uation in a series of dislocations " traversing 

 eastern North America from Alabama to Can- 

 ada," as well as the relation of the formations 

 on either side of it ; the Lake-Superior cop- 

 per-bearing series, which Dr. Selwyn regards 

 as lower Cambrian ; the subdivisions of the Ar- 

 chaean, of which only two — the Laurentian 

 and Huronian — are recognized, and even 

 these are not always clearly defined, while the 

 so-called Norian is denied existence in Canada. 

 Intrusive and eruptive masses of Archaean 

 date are properly mentioned with emphasis, al- 

 though they have " been singularly overlooked 

 or ignored by most writers on American geol- 

 ogy." Dr. Dawson's ' western section,' being 

 a region of more recent exploration, has hardly 

 yet reached the controversial stage. His de- 

 scriptions of the several levels on the plains 

 east of the mountains, and of the little that is 

 known about the northward extension of our 

 Cordilleras, are here presented in good form 



Descriptive sketch of the physical geography and geology of 

 the Dominion of Canada. By A. R. C. Selwyn and Q. M. Daw- 

 son, Montreal, Dawson bros., 1884. 55 p., map in 2 sheets. 8°. 



