REVIEWS. 



239 



without wishing to say there is no such tiling as an elevation of the land, 

 we would certainly ask geologists to bear in mind the possibility of* 

 there being variations in the level of the sea. The slow change in the 

 direction of the polar axis, and the possibility of alterations of the axis 

 itself, suggest at least two causes which might effect very considerable 

 differences in the bulging of the sphere of waters round our globe ; and 

 some such natural and recurring changes as would be thus brought about, 

 seem more likely than so many jumpings up and down of that solid land, 

 which at any rate appears to be very steady just now. Then, what Mr. 

 Geikie, who is referred to on the point, considers as evidence of upheaval 

 within the historical period, Mr. Carruthers looks upon in a very different 

 light. 



The Bixth and concluding lecture has for its subject the special effects of 

 the Physical Geology of the country on population and industry, a subject 

 of general interest, and although briefly yet clearly treated, the concluding 

 paragraphs deserve quotation. 



" It is interesting to go back a little and inquire what may have been 

 the condition of our country when man first set foot upon its surface. We 

 know that these islands of ours have been frequently united to the Conti- 

 nent, and as frequently disunited, partly by elevations and depressions of 

 the land, and to a great extent also by denudations. When the earliest 

 human population reached their plains, they were probably united to the 

 Continent. Such is the deliberate opinion of some of our best geologists. 

 They do not assert it as a positive fact, but they consider it probable that 

 these old prehistoric men inhabited our country along with the great hairy 

 mammoth, the rhinoceros, the cave-bear, the lion, and the hippopotamus ; 

 that they travelled westwards from the continent of Europe, along with 

 these extinct mammalia, over that continuation of the land which originally 

 united Great Britain to the Continent. But in later times denudations and 

 alterations of level have taken place, chiefly, I believe, great denudations 

 of the chalk, and of the strata that cover the chalk, and then our island 

 lias become disunited from the mainland. And now, with all its numerous 

 inlets, its great extent of coast, its admirable harbours, our country lies 

 w ithin the direct influence of the Gulf stream, which influences the whole 

 climate of the west of Europe ; and we, a mixed race of people, Celt, Scan- 

 dinavian. Saxon, IS T orman, more or less intermingled in blood, are so hap- 

 pily placed that, in a great measure, we have the command of the com- 

 merce of Europe, and send out our fleets of merchandise from every port. 

 We are happy, in my opinion, above all things in this, that by denudation 

 Ave have been dissevered from the continent of Europe, for thus it hap- 

 pens that, uninfluenced by the immediate contact of hostile countries, and 

 almost unbiassed by the influence of peoples of foreign blood, during the 

 long course of years in w hich our country has never seen the foot of an 

 invader, we have been enabled so to develope our own ideas of right and 

 wrong, of political freedom and of political morality, that we now stand 

 here, the freest country on the face of the globe, enjoying our privileges 

 under the strongest and freest Government in the living world." 



In the objections we have made to certain topics, we have not wished 

 those objections to stand against the book. They hold, one might say, 

 Equally against any other popular book on science at the present time, and 

 rather against geologists generally than books at all. ' The Physical 

 Geology ami Geography of Great Britain' is a little book deserving of 

 more than one edition, and will be deserving of very many when Professor 

 Ramsay gives his mind to the two points wo have criticized, especially 

 the first, and rewrites those portions. It will be then a work that will 



