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THE JOURNAL OF PHYSIOLOGY.
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SOUTH AFRICA from CAPE COLONY to the ZAMBESI. Nev and Revised Edition, 1889. Compiled from the best Colonial and Impera Information. Railways and Roads are shown by Symbols, Governnet and District Boundaries are Coloured Red, and the Areas are various Tinted. Scale, 40 miles to 1 inch; Size, 48 inches by 35. Pri Coloured Sheet, 215.; per Post, packed on Roller. 215 6: Mounted Case, 28s.; per Post, 28s. 6d.; Mounted on Mahogany Rollers Varnished, 328. AFRICA, STANFORD'S COMPENDIUM of GEOGRAPHY and TRAVEL. By the late KEITH JOHNSTON, F.R.G.S., Leader of the Royal Geographical Society's East Africar Exe dition. Third Edition, Revised and Corrected by E. G. RAVESSTO F.R.G.S. With Ethnological Appendix by A. H. KEANE, MAI Lary Post 8vo, Cloth Gilt, with 16 Maps and Diagrams, and 68 Illustration Price 218.

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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1889.

ROCK METAMORPHISM.

Chemical and Physical Studies in the Metamorphism of Rocks, based on the Thesis written for the D.Sc. Degree in the University of London, 1888. By the Rev. A. Irving, D.Sc. Lond., B.A., F.G.S. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1889.)

especially near the crests of the waves, would imply stretching and consequent lowering of temperature, a circumstance favourable to local solidification. Who shall say that in the later and feebler struggles of this kind, as secular cooling went on, and the magma approached nearer and nearer to the conditions required for consolidation, some of these tidal waves may not have become in situ sufficiently rigid to outline some of the earliest lines of elevation?"

This is speculative enough in all conscience. On R. IRVING is well known as a writer on Bagshot p. 29, the author discusses the influence of the salts

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pounder of theories dealing with the metamorphism of suggests that serpentinization and the conversion of rocks. His ideas on this subject are classified under orthoclase into albite are the result of some process of three heads: paramorphism, metatropy, and metataxis." submarine paramorphism" effected by this agency. Paramorphism, according to the author, includes those This, again, is pure hypothesis, there being no facts to changes within in the rock-mass, involving changes in the support such a view. chemical composition of the original minerals and the formation of new minerals; metatropy denotes changes in the physical character of rock-masses; and metataxis, mechanical changes, such as the development of cleavage. Changes brought about by the introduction of a new, or the removal of an old mineral (e.g. dolomitization) are treated under the head of hyperphoric change.

The author writes, he tells us, for those who are willing to look at geological phenomena "in the light of physical and chemical ideas." To all others his dissertation **must read rather like romance than sober science." He is not far wrong when he complains that the chemical side of geology has been neglected since the time of Bischof. The reason for this is to be found in the fact that geologists have been too busily engaged in reaping golden harvests in the demesnes of palæontology and stratigraphy to be much tempted by the allurements of chemical geology. With the resuscitation of petrology, however, the chemical constitution of rocks begins again to present problems of great interest and importance. But the author turns his chemical knowledge to bad account, we think, in applying it to the elaboration of sweeping generalizations. The views he puts forward may or may not be founded on sound chemical and physical axioms; but mere test-tube reactions will not suffice to explain the operations of Nature in the vast laboratory of the universe. The phenomena of metamorphism represent the net result of numerous and often antagonistic forces; and are not always simple reactions that may be expressed by a neat chemical equation.

Dr. Irving appears to be highly gifted with what he terms a "scientific imagination," the meteoric flights of which carry him far above the solid ground of fact or even justifiable theory. An instance of this faculty of the author's will be found on p. 66, where he seeks to explain the origin of foliation in Archæan rocks by the influence of "solar and lunar tides upon the non-consolidated magma in the Archæan and pre-Archæan (sic) stages of the earth's evolution." He proceeds :—

"In such an unequally viscous mass there would be tension, contortion, and shearing to any extent during the tidal pulsations which the magma was suffering. . . Portions already solidified, or nearly so, by segregation or otherwise, as time went on, would by their vis inertia present obstacles around which a fluxion structure would develop itself in the contiguous portions of the yielding magma, giving us perhaps in some cases 'Augengneiss.' The local tension of parts of the viscous lithosphere, VOL. XLI.-No. 1047.

There is a flavour of pedantry in the use of such expressions as "burnt hydrogen" for water (p. 64), or in such sentences as "orthoclase is probably the embryonic silicate of the terrestrial lithosphere" (p. 67). As the old lady is said to have remarked of the word Mesopotamia, there is something especially comforting and satisfying about this last sentence.

are

The pages bristle with "hard words," some of which

new to science. "Vitreosity" has an uncanny sound; "apophytic " is curious; and " dehydrodevitrification" is as inelegant as it is long. Indeed, so technical is the author's language that a clear understanding of his meaning involves constant reference to his definitions. Unfortunately such reference is rendered impracticable by the absence of an index.

The book bears witness to Dr. Irving's extensive acquaintance with foreign chemical and geological literature; references to foreign sources being abundant, sometimes superfluous. Indeed, there is more evidence of the author's acquaintance with literature than with facts derived from original observation. Good ideas may here and there be picked out; and the work no doubt contains some plausible explanations of geological phenomena; but of this we are assured, that the science of geology will not be advanced by those who spend their time in manufacturing wide-reaching generalizations or attractive theories in the library, but rather by those who are content to labour, with the hammer in the field, the microscope in the cabinet, and the balance in the laboratory at the ofttimes wearisome task of unravelling details.

This book may be placed in the same category as Sterry Hunt's "Chemical and Geological Essays." Such books can be recommended to those with a taste for speculation and rumination. To others they may be productive of mental confusion and headache.

HAND-BOOK OF DESCRIPTIVE AND PRACTICAL ASTRONOMY. Hand-book of Descriptive and Practical Astronomy. By G. F. Chambers, F.R.A.S. Part I. The Sun, Planets, and Comets. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889.)

THE avowed aim of the author of this work, since the

publication of the first edition in 1861, has been to keep its pages up to date-to make it a sort of vade mecum to astronomers; and, regarded as a book en

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