386 Notices of Books. [July, 
least the exterior portion of it, have been formed of mineral 
particles solidified before they met to form a globe ?” 
He thinks it “ natural to suppose ” that the earth was, in the 
beginning, a perfect spheroid, as symmetrical as if it had been 
turned in a lathe. He complains that “ the most remarkable 
and eventful crisis in the history of our globe is passed over in 
silence by the geologist, who begins his history of the earth’s 
formation with uniformity and the established routine of Nature; 
that is to say, he supposes equilibrium to be established, the 
conflict of natural forces being at an end and the earth’s system 
complete, and yet affedts to start from the beginning.” 
The alternate rising and sinking of the land, generally admit- 
ted by geologists, he denies, or seeks to ascribe it to fluctuations 
in the level of the sea. That the testimony of the coral islands 
must not be negledted he admits. This testimony, we suspedt, 
he will have great difficulty in reconciling with his views. 
In a sedtion on the effedts of lightning we are told that, “ at 
Graaff Reynett, in the eastern division of the Cape Colony, the 
Court-house was some years ago struck by lightning ; and the 
bell-wire running through the building, and altogether about 
80 feet in length, fell to the ground, cut into small pieces of 
equal length (about three-quarters of an inch).” A precisely 
similar occurrence has since been witnessed in a workhouse in 
the North of England. As further freaks of lightning we find 
it mentioned that 2000 goats, driven for shelter into a cave in 
Abyssinia, were all killed by a single stroke of lightning. It is 
also stated that some years ago a French regiment, on the march 
near Lyons, was completely prostrated by lightning, the men 
being all thrown down in succession (?), but none Killed. These 
fadts will furnish eledtricians with matter for study. The meteors 
known as “ fire-balls ” he considers eminently unaccountable. 
“ Their frequent occurrence and dangerous charadter are well 
attested ; yet nothing is known with certainty of their nature.” 
That they are rightly to be classed with eledtricity he doubts. 
“ Compadi eledtricity, hovering slowly in the air, apparently 
without either attraction or repulsion, rolling on the ground, and 
then suddenly exploding like a bombshell, is a compound of con- 
tradictions hardly conceivable.” “ It is for chemists to decide,” 
he adds, “ whether gaseous matters generating eledtricity may 
not by some means be concentrated in the atmosphere, and ex- 
plode by mixture with oxygen gas at a certain stage of their 
combustion.” Globes of a gaseous mixture rolling on the 
ground, or slowly hovering in the air and behaving like potassium 
when thrown upon water, are also not very readily conceivable. 
The author’s explanation of “ glacial epochs ” is to some ex- 
tent that of Mr. James Croll, v/hose chronology of the cold 
periods he however rejedts, though praising him for “ having had 
the courage to condemn Sir Charles Lyell’s dodtrine of uniformity, 
generally received by geologists.” 
