REVIEWS. 



269 



its amazing depth, the great extent to which it is developed 

 both at home and abroad, the interesting Hnks which it fur- 

 nishes in the Zoological scales or the vast period of time 

 which it represents. There are localities in which the depth 

 of the Old Red Sandstone fully equals the elevation of 

 Mount Etna over the level of the sea, and in which it con- 

 tains three distinct groups of organic remains, the one 

 rising in beautiful progression over the other. Let the rea- 

 der imagine a digest of English history, complete from the 

 invasion of JuUus Ceesar to the reign of that Harold who 

 was slain at Hastings, and from the times of Edward III, 

 down to the present day, but bearing no record of the Wil- 

 liams, the Henries, the Edwards, the John, Stephen and 

 Richard, that reigned during the omitted period, or of the 

 striking and important events by which these several reigns 

 were distinguished. A Chronicle thus mutilated and incom- 

 plete would be no unapt representation of a geological his- 

 tory of the earth in which the period of upper silurian {so 

 called) would be connected with that of the mountain lime- 

 stone, or of the limestone of Burdie House, and the period 

 of the Old Red Sandstone omitted.*" 



A lengthened description follows of this formation in 

 the south of Scotland, but we shall pass this over without 

 any remark as a mere inspection of any geological map 

 will convey more readily than words, an idea of its extent 



* We append in a note, apart from the comments on the merits of 

 this work, our objections to the insertion of these local terms, especially 

 in this present instance ; we find Mr. Miller vitiating the assertions of 

 some foreign Geologists as to the absence of the Old Red Sandstone 

 formation ; and condemning them for the omission of it in their synop- 

 tical tables, but in the paragraph, almost next following to that in 

 which he states his opposed views, he proceeds to make a comparison 

 in which he speaks of strata by their local appellations, and introduces 

 fresh subjects for dispute, — Editor of the Geologist. 



