118 Scientific Reviews. 
A New System of Geology, in which the Great Revolutions of the 
Earth and Animated Nature, are reconciled at once to Modern 
Science and Sacred History. By ANDREW URE, M.D. F.R.S.E. 
&c. Longman & Co. London, 1820. 
Outlines of Geology, being the Substance of a Course of Lectures 
delivered at.the Royal Institution. By W.'T. Branpe, F.R.S. 
Post 8vo. Murray. London, 1829. 
THERE is a deep felt interest connected with the progress of 
every branch of science, which lasts as long as the elements of that 
science remain uncontroverted and changeless. And we view with 
admiration the rapid and dazzling rise of a new branch of philoso- 
phy, which promises in its elevation to throw open the first pages 
of the hidden history of the globe, and to unfold the primitive pic- 
ture of organization. 
Geology, or more properly Geognosy, the science on which the 
works before us treat, is on all hands allowed to offer one of the most 
admirable examples of the brilliant ascendancy of a branch of ob- 
servation, which assumed in so short a time the constancy and in- 
fallibility of a science, and that of such extent and universality, that 
the meteor course of the greatest intellects, could scarcely follow the 
bright train of facts which sprung from this new science. 
Originating in the most simple materials,—hecoming more ex- 
tensive in its progress, and finally embracing so many objects of 
research, that the study of the fossil kingdom became linked with 
the natural history of the terrestrial surface. Physical Geogra- 
phy was alone wanted, that it should embrace the whole science of 
observation. 
It therefore naturally resulted that, unprepared for the new pur- 
suits which geognosy would lay open, even its oldest professors 
were liable to err in their opinions with the youngest student of its 
principles ; but certainly error will no where be found to have 
crept so far, as where the correlative branches of natural science 
are not made the necessary companions of all geognostic researches. ~ 
These observations have been called forth, not solely on account 
of the two works before us, but because erroneous opinions still 
keep their place in most of the elementary works of our coun- 
try, while the last two of these which have been given to the 
public, have not even been brought down to the present state of the 
science. In consequence of which, more especially when geogra- 
phical remarks, that is to say, observations on the identical rocks 
from which analogous formations have been named, cannot, as in 
the United States, and other countries distant from the present 
centres of science, be easily made, a career of error is begun, whose 
course is so rapid, that, as in the first-mentioned country, it is lay- 
ing the foundation of a new science, when the names used in Eu- 
rope to denominate one thing are applied to characterize another, 
