30 Reviews — Green s Geology for Students and General Readers. 
one department of the Science, and to be content with a less perfect 
grasp of the rest. If in the second part of this publication we 
should find as broad and comprehensive views of the stratigraphical 
and palseontological sides of geology, as we have here presented to us 
of the physical, then we tliink Mr. Green will be entitled to rank among 
the select few who may claim an approach to geological omniscience. 
The style of this book reminds us somewhat of De La Becbe’s 
writings. The reasoning is logical, and the language simple and 
forcible ; but occasionally marred by a certain ronghness wliich jars 
against the reader’s taste. We would in particnlar instance the con- 
stant recurrence, especially in the earlier chapters, of the word 
“latter,” wliich, even when correctly used, breaks the current of 
the thoughts, and obliges one to hark back to catch an author’s 
meaning. But when there is no “ former ” to answer to it, then 
the phrase is distressing. Thus where (p. 56) weare told that qtiartz 
occurs “ usually as glassy lumps, wliich fill up the spaces between 
otlier minerals, and are sometiiiies seen to have moulded themselves 
on the latter,” we are irresistibly led to ask, wliat the lumps would 
have been like if they had moulded themselves upon the former ‘l 
Througliout the book everytliing is made subsidiary to pure 
geology. The petrological part is treated from a geological point 
of view, and rocks, wliich the petrologist would separate in his 
museum, are classed together as merely modifications of the same 
original deposit under different aspects and degrees of meta- 
morpliism. Indeed, upon this subject of metamorpliism, the autlior 
appears to hold stronger opinions tlian are usual regarding the 
extent to which it may be carried ; and attributes to that agency 
many granites and Plutonic rocks, which are connnonly looked upon 
as never at any former time having been deposited by water. The 
sections which relate to contortions, and to the special characteristics 
of mountainous districts, are particularly clear and decisive ; as is 
likewise the treatment of Denudation. In reading the first ten chapters 
the ready-made geologist, though he may not learn much that is 
new, will nevertheless receive pleasure from feeling his knowledge 
so lucidly classified, and happily illustrated; while the learner, 
without being burthened with long lists of stratified deposits and of 
names of fossils, will gain a general view of the physical principles 
upon which the Science rests. 
But when we come to the two concluding chapters, the eleventh 
and twelfth, which treat of the more speculative parts of the Science, 
the case is altered. We believe that very many of our best-informed 
geologists would receive instruction from a careful study of fliese 
chapters. Yet we must confess that we think Prof. Green has, to 
use a cant phrase, “ scamped ” some parts of this division of the 
work. He has, from his early training, capabilities for grappling 
with the harder problems of Physical Geology which few, even of 
our very best geologists, are fortunate enough to possess. We tliere- 
fore look to liim to give no uncertain sound upon questions of this 
nature. To take an instance: We are disappointed where, on p. 517, 
he teils us, that “ the data in geological questions are too scanty to 
