76 
TUE GEOLOGIST. 
tempt to establish a similar valuable means of intercommunication amongst 
the members of one of the most extensively studied of our sister-sciences. 
We hope it will do well. 
Bamhles in Search of Wild Flov:ers. By Margaret Plues. London. L863. 
Spring-time is coming ; the tender buds are already showing their first 
green tops ; and soon the buttercups and primroses, on meadow and on 
road-bank, will catch the brighter sunshine and bind its rays in golden 
flowers. Truly the geologist may feel rejoicingly the coming return 
of Spring's verdant scenes, for is he not a naturalist of the present 
as well as of the past? In those " sweet flowers," — sun-smiles caught and 
bound to earth, — "the oak-tree and the mountain pine" are lessons of to-day 
for him by which to read the great eventful past to which his mind inces- 
santly reverts. " This world is full of beauty, like other worlds above ; " 
and in the silent rocks, at least for him, are records of perished earthly 
scenes, grander if not as fair as those spread out around. 
" Gather the Roses while you may ; 
Old Time is still a -flyiug ; 
And this same flower, which smiles to-day, 
To-morrow will be dying." 
Amongst the dead leaves that fell in the primaeval forests of our old 
earth, ages before the merry laugh of the maiden Eve was echoed by the 
warbling birds in Paradise, Nature had caught, and in her stony tomb had 
kept, some few faded flowers. AVas it to tell us, who were to live in after- 
times, that the fields the great beasts tenanted, and whom we know now 
only by these dry and sapless bones, were steaming with fragrant perfume 
and gaily painted with living colours ? Or was it to teach that solemner 
lesson, read alike in the pondi^rous mountain, the solid earth, and — 
" In the Rose 
In its bright array — 
Hear'st thou what these buds disclose ? 
' Passing away.' " 
"VVhoerer rambles this coming Spring through " meadows green or 
upland lawn," through " wood or dingle," on " mountaiu-top" or "rugged 
heath " in search of wild flow er, will be much the wiser, and very likely 
very much the happier, for having taken with them the charming bouquets 
of flowers, poesy, and scientific lore so elegantly culled by Miss Plues. 
The Future ; a Journal of Philosophical Research and Criticism, embra- 
cing the most interesting Results of Modern Discovery and Opinion in 
Cosmological, Antiquarian, and Ethnological Science. Edited by Luke 
Burke, Esq., F.E.S. 8vo. Triibner and Co. 1862. 
Those of our readers who are fond of reading scientific subjects dis- 
cussed in an open spirit, will be rejoiced to learn that the above perio- 
dical is again in existence, and will be regularl}^ continued until further 
notice. The twenty-second number of the second volume, w hich is now 
before us, contains a spirited article on the battle in Section D, on the 
" great Hippocampus controversy," by the editor, who in a most elo- 
quent and argumentative manner, whether we agree with him or not, attacks 
