418 Notices of Boohs. [July? 
against supposing their adtion to have been “ always of similar 
intensity to that of which we have definite proof in the present.” 
He also lays down a limitation which is sometimes conveniently 
ovePooked by cavillers at geology and geologists. “ The spe- 
cial province of the geologist,” he reminds us, “ is only to deal 
with the Earth after it was in a fit state to receive and support 
life, when the proportion of land to water was probably much as 
it is now, and the climate and physical conditions, though ever 
varying over the same area during the different geological ages, 
were subject to the same laws and attended by analogous pheno- 
mena. . . . To go back to the very earliest history of the Earth, 
when it was part of a nebulous mass, would be to trespass upon 
the region of the astronomer, and when we consider its latest 
history we come upon questions which must be answered by the 
geographer and the archaeologist.” 
The author evidently accepts, in its general principles, the 
dodlrine of Organic Evolution. He quotes, at any rate without 
formal disapproval, the opinion of Prof. Huxley, that “ the less 
regard palaeontologists pay to the deposit from which fossils are 
obtained so much the better, for not unfrequently has a new 
name been given to a known fossil because it has been found in 
strata where it was previously unknown.” The same eminent 
author even longs for “a new race of palaeontologists, utterly 
ignorant of geology ” — a pious wish in which we find ourselves 
unable to join. 
In treating of the economic bearings of geology, Mr. Wood- 
ward remarks that “ the relation between health and geology is 
also a point which has in recent years received a good deal of 
attention, and maps have been published and memoirs written to 
show the. relation between certain forms of disease and geolo- 
gical structure — even between geology and lunacy ! It is well 
known, indeed, that a gravelly, sandy, or chalky soil is more 
healthy than a clay foundation, because the former are pervious 
to water and the latter is impervious. On the former there is 
less consumption than on the latter, as Mr. Whittaker and Dr. 
Buchanan have clearly demonstrated : the artificial removal of 
subsoil water has, however, done much to equalise the condi- 
tions. Again, the water-supply is a most important subjedt, for 
in some small country villages and towns the inhabitants suffer 
very much from its impurity. Situated, perhaps, on elevated 
ground, with a good porous soil, they yet suffer because of the 
disgraceful state of the drainage, the wells being shallow, and 
the sewage and even the churchyards draining into them. The 
cause of teetotalism will not find many admirers when it is 
often the women and children who suffer most from drinking 
impure water, while the men who take their beer are less subjedt 
to disease.” 
We fear that the sentence last quoted will bring down upon 
Mr. Woodward the gravest denunciations of the temperance 
