Geology: Earth History

Abstract

THE first volume of this important work, noticed in NATURE of January 19, 1905, and already in its second edition, dealt with geological processes and their results. In the two volumes now before us, which complete the work, geology is treated from the historical side, and we have a comprehensive review of the history of the earth on systematic lines. The treatment of these two formally separable branches of the science is, however, such as to emphasise the essential unity of the whole. As geological processes were discussed with continual reference to the historical application of the principles laid down; so the evolution of the globe, which is the story of these latter volumes, is regarded consistently from the causal point of view. Indeed, some subjects already considered under the head of geological processes, such as the dynamics of deformation, the causes of glaciation, &c., are now more fully discussed in connection with the particular geological periods which most clearly exemplify the phenomena. Geology: Earth History. By Thomas C. Chamberlin Rollin D. Salisbury. Vol. ii., Genesis, Paleozoic, pp. xxvi + 692. Vol. iii., Mesozoic, Cenozoic, pp. xi + 624. (London: John Murray, 1906.) Price 21s. net each.