EEYIEWS. 



157 



occupied his attention with such good results as the book before us bears 

 witness to. This book, written far away from libraries and museums, at 

 Penola, in the South Australian bush, not only gives evidence of its 

 author's good judgment in choosing geological research as means of intel- 

 lectual amusement, of his extensive reading, his acuteness of observation, 

 and sensible generalizations, but it is a good example of what may be done 

 in rendering a geologist's knowledge of one locality available to neighbours 

 and to the world at large. Without aiming at a high scientific standing 

 (for which indeed its many verbal errors in nomenclature, and its scientific 

 shortcomings, unfit it), this work will do good service both in the Colonies 

 and at home. " In the former, the number of scientific readers is com- 

 paratively few, though in no parts of the world perhaps is a greater in- 

 terest felt in matters of the kind," says the author; and indeed, what with 

 their gold-seeking, water-seeking, and coal-seeking, their search for build- 

 ing-materials, their road-makings, etc., our colonial brethren may well have 

 occasion to be alive to scientific subjects, and to geology in particular. 



There is very much relating to the extinct volcanos of South Australia, 

 and to the caves and their bone-breccias, to be found in Mr. Woods's in- 

 teresting book ; for all of these have their place in the geological history 

 of the limestone tract which the author more particularly works out. In 

 the late Tertiary period the Bryozoa had it all their own way here, in a hol- 

 low sea-bed, and rivalled corals in the accumulation of extensive reef-like 

 deposits of calcareous matter, until volcanic agency interfered for awhile, 

 to be succeeded by the deposits of shelly matter by ocean- currents for 

 a long period, followed by a perhaps longer era of upheaval and slow 

 denudation, accompanied by other volcanic disturbances; the extinct craters 

 due to this are still existing. The upheaved Bryozoal limestone weathers 

 into arid sand ; it is also extensively excavated by subterranean water- 

 channels, supplying the local wells to a large extent. 



These changes have been gradual, the author thinks ; and during that 

 long time the marine fauna was considerably changed, but the terrestrial 

 fauna in a less degree. 



The author has some useful observations, in his early chapters, on the 

 relation of physical geography to geological conditions, and on the general 

 physical character of Australia. His description of the soil, swamps, 

 vegetation, and faunal peculiarities of the district in which he interests him- 

 self, affords many useful hints to the palaeontologist as to local accumu- 

 lations of minute organisms, of certain lake-shells, and of mammalian 

 bones. The " Biscuits-flats " of Southern Australia have long puzzled 

 those who have seen them ; but Mr. Woods explains the origin of the cal- 

 careous "biscuits," by showing that these round fiat plates are really the 

 sun-dried marly cakes that have been formed in little depressions of the 

 ground in the rainy season (p. 45). 



W r e hope that this highly interesting and well-constructed work will 

 fulfil its object as an instructive book among the public fully as well as it 

 served, whilst in preparation, to amuse its solitary, hard-working author 

 in the Bush. 



Studi Stratigrafici e Palcontologici sulV Infralias nelle "Montague d< I 

 Golfo della Sjpezia; del Prof. Giovanni Capellini. It o. Bologna. 1862. 



The Lower Liassic formations of the neighbourhood of Spezia have been 

 long interesting to British geologists, the labours of De la Heche and .Mur- 

 cfrison having rendered I hem to a certain extent familiar to us. The ex- 

 cellent memoir which Profi Capellini has produced gives an elaborate eata- 



