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THE GEOLOGIST. 



deserve a wide range. We hope to see this done, and Mr. Stanford 

 realize a goodly return from many successive publications. 



The Great Stone Booh of Nature. By D. T. Ansted, M.A., E.E.S., E.G.S. 

 London and Cambridge : Macmillan and Co. 1863. 



The ' Great Stone Book of Nature ' would perhaps have been better 

 called the pretty little book of Geology. What's in a name, indeed ? and 

 what's in a title, so long as the owner of the one and the contents of the 

 other are good ? We have just reviewed one good little book, and here is 

 another. Great men nowadays seem given to little things ; and, truly, from 

 such small seed sown broadcast, we may expect to reap a good crop when 

 the seed shall have ripened to harvest in the next generation. Prettily 

 Mr. Ansted opens his pretty book. " All know what is meant by the Book 

 of Nature. But nature is rather a library than a book ; for it is the ge- 

 neral and well-stored receptacle of all that has ever been created, of all 

 we know and all we have not yet learned, of all that is animate and all 

 that is inanimate, of all that is happening and all that has happened, not 

 only on the earth, but above the earth, and within it and around it. No- 

 thing once existing has entirely disappeared. Everything has been photo- 

 graphed and is preserved for use and reference somewhere and somehow. 

 Every year something is discovered that was not before known ; but there 

 remains so vast an amount of material yet unknown and unrecorded, that 

 we may be quite sure it will never be exhausted, however long the human 

 race may remain on the earth, or however highly the faculties of man may 

 be developed." In the river-bed and sea-beach, in the sun, wind, rain, and 

 frost, Mr. Ansted finds the key to the language of the great stone book of 

 the world ; he then opens its leaves and shows us the stones of the great 

 stone book. Then he points out the placements and displacements of the 

 stones of the great book, in the brick-pit and gravel -pit, in the quarry, 

 the mine, by volcanos and earthquakes and other disturbances of rocks. 

 Now come the pictures of this great stone book — wonderful pictures, too, 

 they are. Next the treasures, — gems rich and rare, metals precious, — the 

 more really precious the more useful. And so through his brief narration 

 of the world's own special wonders, we are brought to the end of his 

 pretty little book that prettily tells the great story of the Great Stone 

 Book. And Mr. Ansted shuts up his little book, teaching the lesson our 

 young friends will ever learn by an earnest study of the great book itself. 

 "We may never in this life succeed in discovering the whole plan, for it 

 is not likely that finite powers can grasp the Infinite design. But each 

 endeavour that is made humbly and honestly will be productive of good, 

 and the student will rise from the study of any part, either of the work 

 or the method, with wider and clearer views, and be better fitted to per- 

 form his other duties and be useful to his fellow-men." 



