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Terebratulina striata, is still living 1 , being thought to be identical with T. 
caput serpentis . Although this identity is still questioned by some naturalists 
of authority, it would certainly not surprise us if another lamp-shell of equal 
antiquity should be met with in the deep sea.” We have given at length 
Sir Charles’s words because they have so much weight ; not simply because 
they are his, but because of the weighty evidence they bring forward. We 
do not see how they can be received with the slightest doubt ; and we are 
the more surprised that Dr. Carpenter, although no geologist, should have 
countenanced such a view, the more so as there is no reason to believe — indeed 
much against the belief — that the chalk has been continuous down to the 
present. In fact, to use Sir Charles’s concluding remarks, “ To talk of the 
chalk having been uninterruptedly forming in the Atlantic from the Creta- 
ceous Period to our own is as inadmissible in a geographical as a geological sense.” 
We have been unable, from want of space, to say a word of the many valuable 
discoveries of Dr. Falconer in India, of Professor Heer’s observations on the 
Upper Miocene of Switzerland, or of Mr. Carruthers’ numerously quoted 
observations on fossil plants. But we mention them as particularly worthy 
of note, and thus we close our notice of one of the finest text-books which 
for years has appeared in this country. 
THE SUN.* 
T HE author of this work is, we say it without the slightest ill-feeling, or 
the remotest tinge of satire, a most remarkable man. We say this, because 
within the last two years we have witnessed some of his work, and because 
we are taken with the most intense surprise at the vastness of his labours. 
In our last number we noticed briefly an extensive work entitled “ Other 
Worlds than Ours,” and now we have before us a still larger one of nearly 
500 pages, on the most interesting, as it is certainly now the best examined, 
subject in Astronomy — the Sun. And it must not for one moment be 
imagined that this is a mere popular work. It is indeed rather more tech- 
nical, although it is addressed to the general public. A work which deals 
with the subject of spectroscopy in the most recent manner, with the theories 
of the sun’s surface, taking into ample discussion the views of Loewy, De la 
Hue, Secchi, Nasmyth, Dawes, and Stewart, which goes into the terribly 
difficult problems of prominences and chromosphere, dealing with the obser- 
vations of Young, Dr. Zollner, and Respighi, and, lastly, which narrates the 
several results obtained as to the corona and zodiacal light, is not a book 
which can be hastily read, or one for which the reader is not highly indebted 
to the author. Now, such a work is that which Mr. Proctor has set before 
us. We can of course notice but a very feeble portion of so deeply interest- 
ing a volume, though we wish we had space to go into a thorough review 
of it. But we may notice from the book the author’s account of Professor 
Respighi’s researches as to those singular projections of luminous matter 
from the sun which have of late years attracted so much attention, and 
created so much discussion among astronomers. Professor Respighi thinks 
* 11 The Sun : Ruler, Fire, Light and Life of the Planetary System.” By 
Richard A. Proctor, B.A., F.R. A.S. London : Longmans, 1871. 
