REVIEWS. 
267 
REVIEWS. 
Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, No. 6. 
Since our last number this part of the Association's proceedings has been issued. 
It commences with a very good paper by the Rev. Walter Mitchell, on " Crys- 
tallography." This is followed by one on a "New Red Sandstone Quarry," at 
Stourton, in Cheshire, by Mr. Mitchener; and by another on "Brickfields, 
&c.," by Mr. Pickering. There is another paper on which we can bestow an 
equal meed of praise, although its main features have previously been presented 
elsewhere — that by Mr. Rickman on the Dulwich and Peckham beds. 
There is one paper, however, to which we cannot help referring in a special 
but different manner, that on the "Geology of the Isle of Sheppey." We 
do not know why it should be necessary to print such a paper in full, when 
neither the geology, the natural history, the English, nor the spelling is 
at all accurate ; while one is so bothered with italics in the printing, that it is 
difficult to imderstand and appreciate sentences so full of points. 
In the opening sentence we are told of Sheppey that " The island itself is an 
outlyer, having been split off and pushed away to the northward and eastward" (!). 
We do not know by what rule in orthography outlier is spelt ^vith a y ; nor do 
we comprehend how, if it be an outlier, it could be pushed two ways at once. 
We could understand a mass of rock being pushed to the north-eastward ; but 
even then we should stop to enquire who or what it was that pushed it in that 
direction. As little can we understand the second sentence, namely, that : — 
*' tjese (the Sheppey) strata were undoubtedly formed below the waters of the 
Eocene 'period (!) of our theory, though now raised high above the ocean." 
We know there were Eocene seas, on the shores or bottom of which certain 
sft-ata were deposited; but " the water of the Eocene period of our theory" is 
a novel liquid of which we were not previously aware of the existence. We are 
also in some little confusion of ideas as to what it is that is " raised high above 
the ocean." The text does not clearly explain to us whether it is the strata, 
the waters, the Eocene period, or "our theory," which has been thus con- 
spicuously elevated. We do not wish to go into the question of the division of the 
tertiary beds into crag, Bagshot sand, fresh-water formation, and lower tertiary ; 
nor to argue against the decided preference the author thinks this divisional 
arrangement possesses Over "the rather awkward names pliocene, miocene, and 
eocene;'' and there are numerous other matters of which we refrain from speaking. 
Some one said of a book that was praised by our cutting contemporary, the 
Saturday Review, that it must be a good book indeed when that journal praised 
it ; so, on the other hand, when we, who prefer to leave unnoticed what we 
cannot conscientiously praise, say there is one passage in this paper which we 
intend specially to condemn, our readers wiU, no doubt, think that passage very 
bad indeed. The author speaks of Sept aria — those great argillaceous nodules 
of the London clay — as being concentrated round an organic Dody. We do not 
want to quarrel with this idea ; but when we read that " indeed, is it not 
probable that some mollusc or jelly-fish originally formed the nucleus of every 
septaria ; and that the septa were produced after the creature was, perhaps 
suddenly, enveloped in soft or semi-liquid clay by gases evolved from the 
decomposing animal matter, causing the conglomerate to crack in virtual (? sic) 
lines, till other chemicat changes taking place the chinks became filled with 
calcareous spar, often bespangled with crystals of pyrites," we can scarcely 
refrain from grinning like an ogre, throwing our arms about like a windmill, and 
with Dominie Sampson in Scott's novel, shouting "Prodigious," tiU the roof rings 
with our raptures. The nucleus of that great septarian table-top in yonder 
