40 
Reviews an l Extracts, 
her to take her flights in solitude.’’ Mr. Matthews, who is now engaged collect¬ 
ing'subjects of Natural History in South x4inerica, found a nest of this insect in a 
wall at Chiswick, where they destroyed the grapes in the garden in September, 
and having caught a male and confined it in an open box, he was enabled to take 
specimens of the female that came and settled there, this led him to think the first 
was a female. He also saw the Melecta Punctata entering and coming out of 
of this nest, as if they lived together, which renders Mr. Kirby’s supposition very 
probable, that they deposit their eggs in the nest of A. Retusa. The plant that 
accompanies the A. Hawnrthana is the Crested Hair-grass; {^Aira Cristata) com¬ 
municated by Professor Ilenslow. 
5.—Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. By Robert Jamieson, 
Regius Professor of Natural History, Lecturer on Mineralogy, &c. 
Quarterly. 8vo. 7s.6d. 
The reasons for introducing into our pages, the contents of a work, like the one 
before us, will need no explanation, for the recollection of its being the valuable 
production of the pens of so many eminent and able writers on the subjects of 
Natural History, and its Conductor, being one whose merits have long been ap¬ 
preciated, will render any attempt to prove its utility unnecessary; we have only 
therefore, to add, that we consider it a work well calculated to give the general 
reader, correct ideas of the interesting discoveries made in the diflTerent branches 
of this Science. We shall, therefore, not be sparing of our extracts from a work 
of such importance. 
The Number for April, contains. 
On the Diluvial Theory, and on the Origin of the Valleys of Auvergne, By 
C. Daubeny, M.D., F.R.S,, Professor of Chemistry in the University of 
Oxford, &c. &c. 
This is an interesting paper, on a subject on which the opinions of Geologists are, 
and long have been, unsettled and conflicting Their principal difference, as Dr 
Daubeny states, seems to be, that one, supposes the igneous and aqueous agents 
at work to be proceeding at all times in a gentle but uniform manner; while the 
other, imagines periodical returns of violent action, with intervals of comparative 
tranquility, and thus accounts for the elevation of large tracts of land, by the 
short but forcible operation of those agents, which, according to the former hypo¬ 
thesis, have occasioned both, by an action that compensated for its inferior energy 
by its longer duration. Neither of these explanations, (adds the writer) ought to 
be viewed as inconsistent with the actual course of nature; for it is evidently 
quite conceivable, that the sa ne catastrophes, both of fire and water, which we 
have a knowledge of from History, may at some future period again occur. Dr 
Daubeny, goes on to say, that there seems no reason to question, that in volcanic 
districts, the common rocks of the country are sometimes heaved up around a cir¬ 
cumscribed area; 'and if similar examples cannot be pointed out in other countries, 
it ought not to excite our surprise, that where all other indications of igneous 
action are wanting, this one should not occur. And if it is granted that the throw¬ 
ing up of a cone of Trachyte, serves as a prelude to the volcanic operations which 
are generally witnessed, an additional reason, he says, will exist for admitting 
that such convulsions would have attended the first breaking' out of a volcano in a 
new district, as might have brought about an extensive flood, when a sea or lake 
was contiguous: and by operations like these. Dr. Daubeny proves the origin cf 
the Valleys of Auvergne. 
