268 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
A GEOLOGIST’S NOTE-BOOK .* 
M R. John Edward Lee, a well-known geologist and archaeologist, and the 
translator of Keller’s admirable work on Lake-dwellings , has pub- 
lished the contents of his note-books on geological subjects under the title of 
Note-book of an Amateur Geologist. As he commenced the study of geology 
under the auspices of Prof. Phillips at a very early period of the latter’s 
career, it will be easily understood that the notes that he has accumulated, 
and here offers to the public in an unvarnished state, extend over a very 
considerable number of years ; and as Mr. Lee has been in the habit of 
travelling over the continent of Europe as well as in his own country, his 
observations refer to an exceedingly wide range of surface. The earliest 
notes of all relate to the Isle of Wight, and date from 1829, in which year the 
author also visited France, as appears from notes and sketches of geological 
phenomena both at Boulogne and in the neighbourhood of Paris. His residence 
at Hull at this time, which no doubt brought him into contact with John 
Phillips, next led to his devoting some attention to parts of Lincolnshire and 
Yorkshire, and in 1840 we find him making a trip to the Baltic. Subse- 
quently the mountain-limestone district of Yorkshire, the Western Islands 
and the Giant’s Causeway, the Eifel and other parts of Germany, Switzer- 
land, and Italy, were visited by him, whilst others of the notes attest geolo- 
gical activity in many parts of the United Kingdom. 
Wherever he went, however, Mr. Lee seems to have kept his eyes open, 
and to have noted both with pen and pencil whatever struck him as remark- 
able in the geology of the localities he visited. As might be expected also 
from the disciple and intimate friend of John Phillips, his geological tastes 
by no means flowed into a single channel, and we find him taking the same 
interest in bits of stratigraphical geology, examples of contortion and up- 
heaval of strata, glacial phenomena, traps, basalts, and other igneous rocks, 
intrusive and otherwise, matters of surface geology and even palaeontology, 
so that the guest at his table has a tolerably various repast spread before 
him. As a man of taste as well as a geologist, Mr. Lee seems to have 
paid particular attention to cases in which geological structure of one kind or 
another has a marked influence upon scenery, and many of his best sketches 
have for their object the illustration of such points. 
Mr. Lee has with justice interpreted his Note-book a little widely, that is 
to say, he has included in it reprints of a few papers, chiefly on palaeontolo- 
gical subjects, that he has from time to time published. In this way we get 
papers on the Sponges of the Yorkshire Chalk, on Saurian Remains from the 
Wealden, on the Microscopic Structure of the Scales of Lepidotus, on the 
Geology of Nettleton Hill in Lincolnshire, on Cupressocimus, &c. The book 
is thus a summing-up of the results of its author’s studies in geology during 
a long life, and naturally fc its contents are of a sufficiently miscellaneous 
nature. The drawings and sketches make 209 plates, and the notes, which 
occupy ninety pages, consist, for the most part, of very brief explanations of 
* Note-book of an Amateur Geologist. By John Edward Lee, F.G.S., 
F.S.A. 8vo. London : Longmans. 1881. 
