546 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
passed away ■with the individual, but those of his labours associated with the 
human passions or sympathies, often endure for ages ; thus the book outlives its 
author, and becomes a necessity to even successive generations. In geological 
science, Dr. Auckland was one of tlie earliest and brightest stars ; no man an- 
swered more truly in his particular vocation to the calls of his age than he ; but 
the phases of geological piogress with which he lias been so worthily associated 
hfive passed away, and it is by the one work under notice that the link with pos- 
terity by his authorship and scientific efforts will be pre-eminently perpetuated. 
Imbibing, as he naturally did, the " diluvial " doctrines of an older stage of the 
science, and supporting them by an elaborate volume, conspicuous for its learning 
and research, he had the moral boldness and honesty, upon maturer conviction, to 
demolish the hypothesis he had supported, and to aid in propagating, if he indeed 
did not really originate, those opposite views which are now universally accepted. It 
is not, however, in this brief notice that we have to do with the man, nor his 
general labours, but it is with a special book, written and adapted to a special pur- 
pose — the reconciliation of the Scriptural account of the creation of the earth 
with its geological history. This beautiful work — for beautiful it is, both in its 
composition, its diction, and its illustrations, as well as in its theme and design — 
caused at the time of its appearance a great sensation, and it still remains the 
most valuable popular disquisition upon fossils in the English or any other lan- 
guage. Modifications, amounting to little or no more than a few foot-notes, by 
three of the most eminent of modern naturalists, only have been made to this 
posthumou.'? edition of the Bridgewater Treatise on Geology and Mineralogy, and 
yet the work is not behind any of the numerous others of its class and subject 
which have been produced in the interim between its first appearance and its 
third ; and some of those have been from no inferior pens. 
One new feature appears in the present publication as an addition to the original 
scries of excellent plates — a representation of the restored forms of extinct saurians, 
by Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins. 
However imperfect such attempts might be, it would be a worthy effort of the 
human mind to clothe anew with fleshly form the age-dry and stony bones of those 
extinct beings which have passed, like the visionary pictures of a dream, away, im- 
measurable ages before the first footstep of man pressed down the grassy pile of 
Eden's verdant carpet. Mr. Hawkins' pictures of these great beasts of the geologic 
eras have a life-like look, .and an appearance of reality beyond the artistic skill 
displayed in their composition ; and we willingly render our tribute of praise and 
thanks for his efforts in this direction, whether in regard to his lithographic 
pictures, his great models at the Crystal Palace, or those smaller statuettes which, 
from our mantel-pieces, familiarise our eyes with those extraordinary life-forms 
of primeval days. 
Of the original book, we joined in praise with thousands of other readers, and 
of the present we would add that it has the additional advantage of an elaborate 
biography of its author from the hand of his son, the pleasure of I'eading which is 
enhanced by traces of filial affection, while of its truthfulness we are assured both 
by its style and the certainty of the intimate sources from which the writer has 
derived his materials, but the length of which we think might have been advantage- 
ously curtailed. 
Many, indeed, we hope, will be successive editions of this memorable treatise, 
and the more numerous the readers, the more numerous will be those who will 
feel the noble sentiment and truth of its concluding passage, and will close its 
pages with the sincere conviction that " The earth, from her deep foundations, 
unites wiih the celestial orbs that roll through boundless space, to declare the 
glory and show forth the praise of their common Author and Preserver ; and the 
voice of natural religion accords harmoniously with the testimonies of revelation 
in ascribing the origin of the universe to the will of one eternal and dominent In- 
telligence, the Almighty Lord and Supreme First Cause of all things that subsist, 
' the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, ' ' before the mountains were brought 
forth, or even the earth or the world were made, God from everlasting, and world 
without end.' " 
