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EDITORIAL COMMENT. 
The building of the British Isles.— A. J. Jukes- Browne . 
This little work is an attempt to restore the extinct geogra¬ 
phy of the British Isles from the best attainable evidence. The 
author who a few years ago brought out a smaller volume on 
the same subject but with a less comprehensive scope gives in 
the present work a much more elaborate account of the var¬ 
ious stages of geological evolution which have resulted in the 
existing geographical outlines. That the book must be of very 
great interest to the student of geology either in England or 
in America “goes without saying” (to quote a French idiom) 
and it is scarcely necessary to add that there is abundant evi¬ 
dence to show that the author has spent great pains and much 
time on its production. He sketches the various geologic eras 
in succession and shows what part of the country was formed 
during each of them, so far as it is at present possible to do 
so. He also shows'how the building of one age was often de¬ 
stroyed by the next or by some other that followed : how Brit¬ 
ain has been over and over again a part of a large continental 
mass, whether that mass could properly be called Europe or 
not; how it has been repeatedly submerged and re-elevated 
and how it has been the seat of volcanic action at various 
epochs, and has been cut into by the waves and the tides; how 
its materials have been deposited and eroded and again depos¬ 
ited and again eroded, until after the lapse of ages the existing 
geography was evolved, making it a group of islands, many of 
them very small and sundered from their continental neighbor 
by a “streak of silver sea,” 
Mr. Jukes’ book is one of a kind which will multiply as our 
geological knowledge becomes definite. Such works are the 
natural outcome of clearer ideas of the past history of the 
Earth. Similar treatises may be looked for concerning every 
region and country as its geologists gradually succeed in re¬ 
storing its former outlines. The day may come when we shall 
possess atlases of the past geography of our globe stretching 
back through all the eras of geologic time. 
This is one of the vast labors before the geologist. We 
may fairly call it the sum of all his toil. Not till this is done 
will the Earth’s past be understood or the Earth’s history 
written. It is perhaps beyond hope to look for full details 
