Géologie de Jersey

Abstract

CONSIDERING that Jersey became subject to the Crown of England at the time of the Norman Conquest, English geologists may agree with M. de Lapparent's complaint as to the neglect the island has hitherto received. Although the Geological Society of London made it their earliest care to publish in 1811 (not 1817, as quoted in the opening of this little volume) Mac-Culloch's paper on the Channel Isles, although at the present time more than one worker is engaged in further removing the reproach, M. Noury is even now well to the front in providing in a handy form an account of the structure of Jersey serviceable to inhabitants and visitors alike. The character of this well-printed brochure presupposes, however, some general knowledge of geology, and the author is perhaps not so uniformly happy as, let us say, the Rev. W. S. Symonds in placing his facts before the intelligence of the untrained tourist. Some controverted matters, moreover, of purely speculative value are introduced, such as the construction of the primitive crust (p. 126), the succession in time of granite, syenite, and diorite, and the formation from these of schists and gneisses by disintegration in a heated ocean. The description of the prevailing rocks is the work of a close observer in the field; and the careful mention of such materials as have been artificially introduced (“cultivated rocks,” one might almost call them) cannot be too highly praised. Future geologists will thus be spared the description of gneissic fragments (p. 6) imported as ballast from Brazil. Géologie de Jersey. Par Le P. Ch. Noury S.J. (Paris: F. Savy; Jersey: Le Feuvre, 1886.)