Guide to the Geology of London and the Neighbourhood

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IT is a matter of great satisfaction to geologists that the Geological Survey are again giving to the public some of the accumulated stores of information of which they are necessarily possessed, by resuming the series of large and complete memoirs which had been in abeyance for many years before the publication of “Whitaker's Geology of the London Basin,” Part I., in 1872—a series now so well continued by the works of Judd and Topley. These, however, are comparatively expensive, and enter into minute details, so that although the whole of the information contained in the small book under notice has already been given at greater length in Mr. Whitaker's work mentioned above, or will be in a similar promised publication on the “Drifts of the London Basin,” it will be of great use to a large number of persons who would not care for a more detailed description. A special Geological Map of London and its Environs, with all the Drift beds indicated, has lately been published, and for the last two years the Geological Model of London on a six-inch scale has been the admiration of all visitors to the Jermyn Street Museum: the pamphlet now before us is designed as a handbook to these. It commences with a description of the construction of the model, a matter of no small difficulty, considering the accuracy of the representation. The description of the various formations which enter into the London area, with their resulting features and scenery, though necessarily short, contains the cream of all the known facts, and what is better still, the reasons for all the not self-obvious determinations of the age and relations of the beds. Another most valuable portion is the series of tables of localities where the different formations may now be studied, showing no less than 154 places worthy of a geological visit within twenty miles of London. With regard to the general structure of the district, Mr. Whitaker is careful to refute the idea that the Tertiary beds were deposited in an eroded hollow of the chalk, as is often supposed; unfortunately, however, his section gives them rather the appearance of being so. We should also notice that although, on the evidence of fragments of Ammonites and Belemnites, he prefers to refer the red beds of the Kentish Town section to the Lower Greensand, none of this formation is represented in the section as lying beneath this part of London.