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HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY

COUNCIL.

APPOINTMENT OF SECRETARY FOR PURPOSES OF TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION.

The Technical Instruction Committee of the County Council are prepared to receive applications for the Post of Secretary for purposes of Technical

WANTED, Position as Practical Assistant in Astronomical, Physical, Electrical, or Mechanical Laboratory, by Intelligent Man (age 42). An expert Workman with Small Tools, r accustomed to Making, Designing, and Using Scientific Instruments & for Invention and Research, including Photography.-TARLETON, SO Road, Waterloo, Liverpool.

Instruction, carried on in the Administrative County of Hertford. The ALBERT EDWARD JAMRACH

Salary will be at the rate of £250 with travelling expenses and other disbursements incurred under the directions of the County Council, or of the Committee. The Officer will be required to reside in London or at a convenient place to be approved by the Committee and to provide such accommodation as may be requisite for the due performance of his duties. All necessary Books and Stationery will be supplied. Particulars of the duties of the Office can be obtained on application to me, at my Office, in St. Albans.

The appointment will be made subject to Three Months' Notice on either side, and the Officer will be required to commence his duties at an early date.

Applications in the Candidate's own Writing must be sent to, or left at, my Office, in St. Albans, not later than NOVEMBER 28, 1892, and should state the Name, Age, Place of Residence, Qualifications, and Business (if any) of the Candidate. Copies only of Testimonials should (in the first instance) be forwarded.

The County Council deprecates personal Canvassing.
RICHD. NICHOLSON,
Clerk of the Hertfordshire County Council.

St. Albans, November 10, 1892.

THE YORKSHIRE COLLEGE, LEEDS. DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL, MECHANICAL, AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING.

No further Entries of Day Students for the Engineering Laboratories or Drawing Office can be taken until next Session, when the number will be limited to 60. Applications for admission will be received up to SEPTEMBER 30, 1893. A paper in Elementary Mathematics will be set for all

(Late CHARLES JAMRACH),
NATURALIST,

180 ST. GEORGE STREET EAST. Implements of Savage Warfare, Idols, Sacred Masks, Peruvian Potte Netsukis, China, Lacquer, Gongs, Shells, and other Curios.

MINERALOGY.

SAMUEL HENSON,

97 REGENT STREET, LONDON, W. ESTABLISHED 1840. Late 277 STRAND Choice Mineral Specimens, Gem Stones, Carved Opals, Polished Again Rock Crystal Balls, Fossils, Rocks, and Rock Sections. LATEST ARRIVALS.

Ruby and other Varieties of Cassiterite on Quartz, Australia, Bea Blue and White Calamine, Adamite, Laurium, Crystallized Brucite, Mela phlogite, Roscoclite with Gold, Apophyllite, Mexico, very Beautiful Deskt Terminated Vanadinite, Arizona, Phenacite on Quartz, Colorado, Lug Crystal of Pyroxene, Pink Grossular, Ruby on Matrix, Burma, Diate aceous Earth, Hakodati, Japan.

Candidates, except such as have passed the Victoria Preliminary, or the F. H. BUTLER, M.A. Oxon., Assoc. R. S. Mines

London Matriculation, or other approved Examination. Those who have passed the Victoria Preliminary Examination will be in a position to proceed, if they so desire, to the B Sc. Degree in Engineering (Honours or Pass).

Prospectus may be obtained from the SECREtary.

SCIENCE SCHOLARSHIPS.

Special facilities are afforded by the extensive Laboratories of
PENYWERN HOUSE MILITARY AND ENGINEERING COLLEGE

2 PENYWERN ROAD, EARL'S COURT, S.W.
Principal-

NATURAL HISTORY AGENCY,

158 BROMPTON ROAD, LONDON. Dealer in Rocks, Minerals, Fossils, and other Objects of Scientific Interest.

NOW ON VIEW:-A large and varied assortment of Rock-specimen, n cently obtained from West Shropshire and North Wales, including numer Diabases, variegated Volcanic Ash, Agglomerate, and Breccia, Quartz from the Stiper Stones, Spotted Schists, and Granitite; also, a Collection exceptionally fine polished examples of Labradorite, Green Aventuri Quartz, Agate, Jasper, and other Ornamental Stones; Pyrite after Pyn tite from Cornwall: Chalk Polyzoa from Kent; and a Consignment Ostrich Eggs.

G. W. DE TUNZELMANN, B.Sc. (Lond. Univ.), M.I.E. E. COLLECTIONS OF MINERALS,

Telegrams-" Tunzelmann, London."

Students are regularly sent to the College by Leading Educational Authorities, whose Names are given on the Prospectus.

BIRMINGHAM SCHOOL BOARD.

The Board requires the services of a Chief Assistant Mistress for the New Scientific and Technical School in Waverley Road, Small Heath. The successful Candidate will be expected to take the greater part of the responsibility of the Girls' Classes, under the superintendence of the Head Master. Salary, £180 per Annum.

Applicants should be good practical Teachers, with a sufficient knowledge of French and the Sciences underlying Domestic Economy, in addition to the usual English Subjects.

For Form of Application apply by Letter addressed to the CLERK of the School Board, Birmingham.

PALEONTOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.

The Volume of the Palæontographical Society for the Year 1892, containing the continuation of the Monographs on the Stromatoporoids, the Paleozoic Phyllopoda, the Jurassic Gasteropoda, the Inferior Oolite Ammonites, and the Devonian Fauna, with Forty Quarto Plates, is now ready. The Annual Subscription is One Guinea. Information with regard to Membership and Back Volumes can be obtained on application to the Honorary Secretary, Rev. Prof. T. WILTSHIRE, 25 Granville Park, Lewisham, London, S. E.

TO MUSEUMS AND COLLECTORS.

FOR SALE.-Twenty (20) Drawer Insect Cabinets, British Museum Pattern, Solid Mahogany throughout, Best Make. Price £25 each, together or separately.-DRUCE & Co., 68 and 69 Baker Street, Portman Square, W.

To Collectors and Buyers of Precious and Fancy Stones.-R. C. NOCKOLD, Diamond and Oriental Stone Merchant, 12 Frith Street, Soho, W., has a very large assortment of Specimen Stones, cut and uncut. Inspection invited.

ROCKS, OR FOSSILS,

For the Use of Students, Science Teachers, Prospectors, &c., and illustrate the leading Text-books, in Boxes, with Trays.

50 Specimens, 10s. 6d.; 100 do., 21s.; 200 do., 481. New Price List of Minerals, Rocks, and Stratigraphical Series of Four Post Free.

ROCK SECTIONS for the MICROSCOPE from 1s. 6d. each, Post Fr CATALOGUES GRATIS.

CABINETS, GLASS-CAPPED BOXES, TRAYS, HAMMERS, & always in Stock.

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Sale by Auction.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22.

A VALUABLE COLLECTION OF BRITISH BIRD SKINS AND EGGS, INSECTS, &C.

MR. J. C. STEVENS will sell by Auction at his Great Rooms, 38 King Street, Covent Garden, on TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, at half-past 12 precisely, a Collection of British Birds' Skins, many with the labels, from the well-known Collections of Messrs. H. B. Sharpe, Dresser, Howard Saunders, &c., and data. Various eggs, including many of Gordon Cumming's, the Swift Terns of Major Butler, &c. Also British Insects, which are all genuine and perfect without exception, and a few Clutches and Nests, Beetles, Shells, Locusts, Dragon. flies of America, &c., &c.

On View the Day prior, from 10 till 4, and Morning of Sale, and

Catalogues had.

ON SALE BY

MACMILLAN & BOWES,

CAMBRIDGE.

ACTA ERUDITORUM; from its commencement in 1684 to 1734, and Supplementa 1692-1734, in 32 Vols. NOVA ACTA ERUDITORUM, 1735 to 1763, and Supplementa 1735-1742. Indices.

6 Vols., 1693-1743 in 3 Vols.

In all 51 Volumes, Small 4to, Calf Gilt; some Volumes Stained, and Six Volumes badly injured by damp. £5.55.

Sets of this important Work very seldom occur for Sale. It contains the Papers of the most Eminent Scientific Men of the Day, including John, James, and Daniel Bernouilli, Leibnitz, Euler, Hevelius, Huyghens, Ďe la Hire, Descartes, Cassin, and many others, and includes many important papers of English Scientific Men.

ARCHIMEDIS OPERA, cum Eutocii Ascalonitae_commentariis. Ex recensione Jos Torelli, cum nova versione Latina. Accedunt Lectiones variantes ex codd. Medices et Parisiensibus. Fin

tall Copy. Folio, Calf Gilt, 1792. 18s.

LIVING SPECIMENS FOR THE ASTRONOMICAL REGISTER, Vols. 1 to 24 (1863 to

MICROSCOPE.

Volvox globator, Spongilla fluviatilis, Hydra viridis, Melicerta ringens, tephanoceros Eichornii, Lophopus crystallinus, and other beautiful Speciens of Pond-Life; also Amoeba, Vorticella, Paramecium, and other types Par the Student of Biology. Specimen Tube, with Drawing and Description, s. Post-free.

T. E. BOLTON,

'FARLEY ROAD, MALVERN LINK.

BIOLOGY.

Specimens for Dissection.

Finely-preserved Specimens of all the Types required for Science Courses -especially the London B. Sc.

SPECIAL AT PRESENT:-Aurelia, Calcareous sponge, Holothurians, chinus, Uraster, Ascaris, Distomum, Nereis, Astacus, Apus, Lepas, Valiotis, Sepia, Amphioxus, Seyllium, and fully 300 other forms for disction. Also Chara, Vaucheria, Spirogyra, Fucus, Peziza, &c.

MICROSCOPICAL SLIDES.

Recent mounts include some very lovely expanded Zoophytes (Pennaria, ndendrium, Obelia, Alcyonium, &c.); interesting Larval forms (e.g. of obster, Porcellain Crab, Ascidian, Squid, Goby, Comatula, &c.), the rare elagic Worms (Syllis, &c.). Also many specially New and Beautiful lides, such as Fruits of Selaginella and Chara, and Sections of Flower id Fruit Buds, &c.

Price Lists free on Application.

. SINEL, Biological Laboratory, JERSEY NEW LIST OF MICROSCOPIC SECTIONS OF ROCKS AND MINERALS,

ONTAINING MANY NEW AND INTERESTING SPECIMENS
ROM COLORADO, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, BRAZIL,
HUNGARY, SCOTLAND, WALES, CORNWALL, &c.
Now Reduced to 1s. 6d. each. All one Price.
SPECIAL SETS FOR PHYSIOGRAPHY.

So Lists of Collections of Minerals, Rocks, and Fossils, Apparatus and
Appliances, Single Minerals, Chemical Minerals, Empty Cabinets, &c.
NOVELTIES IN PRECIOUS STONES.

ALL LISTS FREE OF

JAMES R. GREGORY,

S CHARLOTTE ST., FITZROY SQUARE, W.

STANLEY

ematical Instrument Manufacturer to H. M. Government, Council of India, Science and Art Department, Admiralty, &c. hematical, Drawing, and Surveying Instruments of every description.

the Highest Quality and Finish, at the most Moderate Prices.

Illustrated Price List Post Free.

F. S. obtained the only Medal in the Great Exhibition of 1862 for
ence of Construction of Mathematical Instruments, and the only
MEDAL in the International Inventions Exhibition 1885 for Mathe-
Work. Silver Medal, Architects' Exhibition, 1886.
Fess:-GREAT turnstile, HOLBORN, LONDON, W.C.

1886), in Numbers, £5 10s.

A complete Set of this important Work, wanting 4 Numbers of Volume One.

TO SCIENCE LECTURERS.

See Mr. HUGHES'S PATENT COMBINATION OPTICAL LANTERN, used by late W. LANT CARPENTER, Esq., Prof. FORBES. New Triple constructed for B. J. MALDEN, Esq., this season. New Oxyhydrogen Microscope. Grand Results. Docwra Triple, Prize Medal, Highest Award. Supplied to the Royal Polytechnic Institution, Dr. H. GRATTAN GUINNESS, Madame ADELINA PATTI, &c. Patent Pamphagos Lantern Science Lecture Sets. Novelties Cheapest and Best. Elaborately Illustrated Catalogue, 300 pages, 1s.; Postage. 5d. Smaller do., 6d. Pamphlets Free.-HUGHES, SPECIALIST, Brewster House, Mortimer Road. Kingsland, N.

THROAT AND COUGH

Soreness and Dryness, Tickling and Irritation, inducing Cough, and affecting the Voice. For these symptoms use

EPPS'S GLYCERINE JUJUBES.

In contact with the glands at the moment they are excited by the act of sucking, the Glycerine in these agreeable Confections becomes actively healing. Sold only in Boxes, 7d., and Tins, 1s. 1d., Labelled. JAMES EPPS & CO., Homœopathic Chemists, LONDON.

HOLLOWAY'S PILLS

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BIOLOGY: Text-Book of Elementary. Adapted for the Use of Students for the Examination presented by the Conjoint Board of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons. By H. J. CAMPBELL, M.D., Senior Demonstrator of Biology in Guy's Hospital. 136 Cuts. 6s. [This day. PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY: Introduction to By Dr. THEODOR ZIEHEN (Jena). Translated by C. C. VAN LIEW and Dr. OTTO BEYER. 21 Illustrations. 6s. [This day.

"We want such a book badly. We can recommend Ziehen as exceedingly well adapted to give the student a clear idea of the score and the methods of the new science of physiological psychology."- Nature. PETROLOGY: Text-Book of. A Description of the Rock-forming Minerals, and a Chief Types of Igneous Rocks. By F. H. F.G.S. of the Geological Survey of U.K. 7s. 6d. THE

Synopsis of the HATCH, Ph.D., With 86 Cuts. [This day.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF DISEASE IN GREAT BRITAIN. By Dr. ALFRED HAVILAND. With 8 Coloured Maps. Large 8vo. 155. [Ready.

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Commencement in 1841 t 1888

£15 155.

(1841 to 1880 are Bound in diff rent Bindings, Rest in Numbers) Of the Greatest Interest to all connected with Horticulture, Agriculture, Botany, &c, and indispensable to Botanical Gardens. Illustrated with Coloured Plates. Very Rare. (£32 in Quaritch's Catalogue.) Journal of Mental Science. A Set from the Commencement in 1853 to End of 1890. 31 Vols. Half Calf. Rest In Numbers.

£15 158. This Periodical was originally Published as the Asylum Journal of Mental Science. Nos. 6 and 14 of Asylum Journal are Missing in this Set. otherwise it is Perfect. Very Rare.

Practitioner. A Monthly Journal of Therapeutics and Public Health. Vols. -44, Bound in Half Calf, 1868 to June 1890, £6 10s. Mind. A Journal of Psychology. Parts 1-60, 1876-1890.

£6 65.

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INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.

The New Volume in the above Series, entitled "MAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD," with III Illustrations and

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THE COLLECTED MATHEMATICAL PAPERS OF AR HUR CAYLEY. Sc. D, F.R.S., Sadlerian P fessor of Pure Mathematics in the University of Cambridge V 1. I.-IV. Now Ready. Demy 4to, £1 5s. each. (To be complet in 10 vols.) [Vol. V. Nearly Ready. ON ANALYTICAL

A

TREATISE

STATICS. Vol. II. By E. J. ROUTH, Sc. D., F.R.S., Fellow the University of London; Honorary Fellow of St. Peter's College, Can bridge. Demy 8vo, 10s.

A TREATISE ON THE THEORY OF FUNCTIONS OF A COMPLEX VARIABLE. By A. R. FOR SYTH, Sc. D., F.R.S., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Deny 8vo. [In the Prea

The JURASSIC ROCKS of CAMBRIDGE. Being the Sedgwick Prize Essay for the Year 1886. By the late L ROBERTS, M A. Demy 8vo, 3s. 6d.

FOSSIL PLANTS AS TESTS OF CLIMATE. Being the Sedgwick Prize Essay for 1892. By A, SEWARD, M.A., St. John's College. Demy 8vo, 5s.

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London: C. J. CLAY & SONS, Cambridge University Press Warehouse, Ave Maria Lane.

With 224 I lustrations, 8vo, 10s. 6d.

CHEMICAL LECTURE EXPERIMENTS. Non-Metallic Elements.

By G. S. NEWTH, F.I.C,

Chemical Lecture Demonstrator in the Royal College of Science, South ensington.

EXTRACT FROM PREFACE:

The object of this book is two-fold. Firstly, it is intended to supply cher cal lecturers and teachers with a useful repertoire of experiments sai for illustrating upon the lecture-table the modes of preparation, and the pr perties, of the non-metallic elements and their commoner and more import comp unds. Secondly, it has been the author's ol ject to furnish the chem student with a book which shall serve as a companion to the lectures be m attend-a book in which he will find fully described most, if not all, of experiments he is likely to see performed upon the lecture table, and wha will therefore relieve him from the necessity of laboriously noting them a often sketching the apparatus used. In this way the student will be spar much unnecessary and distracting work during the lecture, and will there: be better able to give his undivided attention to the explanations or 17 ments of the lecturer. London: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.

Works by JAMES SULLY, ·M.A., LL.D., Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at the Univers College, London.

OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY.

NEW EDITION, Revised and Largely Re-written. Crown 8vo, je

THE HUMAN MIND:

A TEXT-BOOK OF PSYCHOLOGY. 2 Vels. 8vo, 215.

London: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.

Fourth Edition, pp. 300, 55.

Maps, by G. Frederick Wright, D.D., PROTOPLASM: Physical Life and La

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HERE have been many attempts to frame a popular definition of man. To call him a "story-loving animal" would not be the worst of them. It may indeed turn out, when we understand monkey-talk a little better than now (and the hope that we may is, we are assured, not unreasonable), then it may be that this will prove to be not an exclusive definition. But this by the way; the description will hold for the present. Hence the delight with which we listen to all that the various branches of history, the history of the growth of knowledge included, have to tell us. It is the stories which first attract us, and they retain their charm long after we have learned that the study of history has other ends to fulfil besides the satisfaction of that craving for story-hearing which lies deep in our being, and the gratification of a natural curiosity to learn about things which we have not seen. But the conviction that history should be to us something more than a string of ancedotes soon forces itself upon us.

In tracing the growth of any branch of knowledge, in noting the steps by which, one by one, each advance has Į been made good, our interest lies first of all in the acquaintance, almost of a personal character we may say, which we make with the pioneers of a movement of which we see not perhaps the full development but the ripening fruit. We watch with absorbed attention their approach to the unexplored land; we follow them along the tracks by which they first traversed it; we stand by while they note and record all that is novel and characteristic in its features; we mark the birth and growth of the conceptions which their exploring work gives rise to; we live over again their fascinating life of discovery and deduc

tion. But beside and beyond all this, their story, like the stories of all history, carries with it a lesson; and their caution or rashness, as the case may be, in generalizing and drawing conclusions, serves as example or warning to us. We look up to candour and a readiness to court criticism and give up explanations which are shown to be untenable; anything like partizanship and a weakly parental predilection for the children of one's own brain we look down upon with sorrowing pity.

The history of the steps by which a knowledge of the geology of a country has been arrived at is written in the uccessive versions of its geological maps. The appearnce of a map which embodies the results of the latest esearches into the geology of Scotland tempts us to look ack upon the carlier efforts to unravel the complications f its geological structure. And this all the more because e are dealing with a country in which Geology, as we now it, may be said to have come to the birth; and ecause it is to Scotchmen that we owe the first showing rth of these principles, whether of observation, de luc on, or inductive confirmation, which have been the guide

of geologists ever since. To Hutton, the precursor of Lyell, to Hall, the scientific ancestor of Daubrée, and to the line of illustrious followers who have carried on with such brilliant success the work which they started.

Among the earliest attempts to deal with the geological mapping of Scotland are the maps of Macculloch's "Western Islands," which bear the date of 1819. It is hard for us to realize how much of Scotland was at that time without adequate topographical delineation. Our present Ordnance Maps are far from being a credit to the Department which issues them, and the language which attends an attempt to use them on the mountainous moorlands, though not a whit stronger than is justifiable under the circumstances, had better be left to melt into thin air around the spots where it was uttered. But our geological life is one of luxury compared with Macculloch's, whose atlas is one string of apologies for the inadequate maps on which he had to record his observations. The map of the Isle of Man "is obviously very inaccurate, but there was only a choice between it and two others equally unworthy of confidence." The map of Staffa was drawn under every unfavourable circumstance, and cannot fail to be inaccurate, having been merely paced with the assistance of a pocket compass in a severe gale of wind and rain."

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Macculloch seems to have projected, but never completed, a geological map of the whole of Scotland. The materials collected by him were however utilized by the Highland Society in the construction of a general map in 1832.

Passing by the maps of Boué, and a sketch of Murchison's and Sedgwick's, laid before the Geological Society in 1828, we come to the publication of Nicol's "Guide to the Geology of Scotland" in 1844.

In a country where the rocks are so largely unfossiliferous, it is natural, even necessary, that the earliest geological maps should be more of a lithological than a stratigraphical character, and this is the case with the maps so far noticed. In the map which accompanies Nicol's guide, and which he says is based on Macculloch's, some of the main varieties of the crystalline schists are distinguished, but the order in which they occur is not indicated. One colour comprises all the red sandstones, the Torridon, the Old Red, and even the red rocks of Dumfriesshire; under the head of "Porphyry and Trap" are lumped together all the volcanic rocks, including those of the western islands and of the central valley; only two of the groups which we now call formations are separated, the "Carboniferous" and the “Lias and Oolite." But the great leading features in the physical geography of Scotland are sharply marked out, the three regions into which it naturally falls are lucidly delineated, and the work is crowded with local details that betoken acquaintance with the work of others and patient investigation of his own.

At the meeting of the British Ass iation at Glasgow in 1855 Murchison gave an account of the result of the joint work of Nicol and himself in the north western Highlands. The existence of three great sub-divisions had been clearly established; what we now know as the Hebridean or Lewisian Gneiss at the base, the Torridon sandstone resting unconformably on it; while above that, and separated from it by another unconformity, came the

limestones and quartzites of Durness and Loch Erriboll, in which Peach had recently discovered fossils. The last group appeared to be conformably overlaid by a great mass of crystalline schists, which came to be known afterwards as the "Upper or Eastern Gneiss." Though the fossil evidence was then incomplete, Murchison saw nothing in it to forbid the belief that the Durness beds were of Lower Silurian age, and his conjecture was confirmed by the discovery of better specimens. This conclusion was announced in a paper read before the Geological Society in 1858, in which it was also stated that the author looked upon the Upper Gneiss as metamorphosed Silurian.

In the meantime Nicol had read a paper before the Geological Society (1856), in which he describes the joint explorations of himself and Murchison, and some subsequent work of his own. He recognizes the same main sub-divisions as Murchison, but still leans to the old notion that the Torridon sandstone belongs to the Old Red; this involves the assigning a later date to the Durness Beds, and these he thinks may be Carboniferous. But he is content to hold this merely as a provisional hypothesis till further fossil evidence is forthcoming. With respect to the Upper Gneiss he is very cautious, suggesting that it may be a newer metamorphic group, or may be merely a portion of the lower, that is Hebridean, gneiss forced up by some great convulsion. This latter solution was evidently present very vividly to his mind, for it is repeated, as a possible explanation, no less than three times.

Here a very important difference of opinion between Murchison and Nicol makes its appearance.

It was probably about this time, but the map bears no date, that Nicol issued a new geological map of Scotland. In this all gneiss is denoted by one colour; but the explanation states that the author does not consider all the Scotch gneiss to be of the same age; that the tract of this rock, with associated quartzite and limestone, stretching from Aberdeenshire through Perthshire to the Breadalbane Highlands of Argyllshire, may be a newer formation; while he is disposed to look upon the great mass of gneiss, extending from the north coast of Suther land southwards through Ross-shire and Inverness-shire, rather as belonging to an older period. The Torridon sandstone is distinguished by a separate colour, though the author is still inclined to class it with the Old Red.

Nicol expounded his views to the British Association at Aberdeen in 1859, and again in a paper read before the Geological Society in 1860. He adduces many reasons for doubting the existence of an upward conformable succession" from the Durness Beds to the Upper Gneiss, and explains the sections on the supposition that this rock is the Hebridean Gneiss brought up by faults. Though the expressions, "forced up by convulsion" and "pushed up over," which he uses in his paper of 1856, seem to show that the notion of what we call "Thrust Planes" was present to his mind, the sections of this paper hardly bear out that inference. He neatly twits Murchison with failing to see that the principles which he had applied with such success to an explanation of the structure of the Alps were equally applicable to the North-west Highlands. In 1861 Murchison stoutly maintained his view regarding the Upper Gneiss ; with an ad- !

vocate's skill he hits Nicol hard on his weak point, justly urging "that local interferences of eruptive rock nowise set aside broad data." In the same year was issued the "First Sketch of a new geological map of Scotland by Sir R. I. Murchison and A. (now Sir A.) Geikie," in which Murchison's views vere adopted.

Here then was a promise of a fair stand-up fight between two champions, each well able to hold his own. But the promise was not fulfilled. The combat would have been far from equal. On the one side there were the pull which wealth and social position bring with them; the advantage which accrues from living in London and having thus the ear of a great centre of scientific life; and that pushing ambition, that eagerness to secure precedence in discovery, which so often go along with an active and energetic disposition. On the other side there were comparative social insignificance; residence in a hyperborean region far more difficult of access than now; a happy indifference to fame based on a confidence that the settlement might be safely left to time, and that the world would go on pretty much as heretofore, whichever of the two turned out to be nearer the truth: more than all a reluctance to embitter the closing years of life with anything that looked like an altercation with an old and esteemed friend and fellow-worker. So, because it takes two to make a quarrel, the fight never came off. Naturally, under these circumstances, (and can we blame it? the world took the man who vigorously pushed his views. at his word; he had plenty to say in their favour and said it well; no one gainsaid him; his contention was ac cepted. There will be those who, without presuming to blame, do not covet success on such terms; and whose sympathies go out towards the peace-loving old man who was content to bide his time and possess his soul in silence.

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And so the "Upper Gneiss" and "the upward conformable succession" held their own; and in the geological map of Scotland, issued in 1876 by the present Director-General of the Geological Survey, the crystalline schists of the Central Highlands are designated 'Metamorphosed Lower Silurian." It would be tedious to enumerate all the points in which this map is an improvement on the "First Sketch" of 1861, but the student will find it an instructive exercise to compare the two maps, and ascertain by reference to memoirs on special districts how each correction and addition was arrived at.

The Highland problem remained in abeyance for nigh a quarter of a century, though during that interval the minds of many geologists were constantly recurring to t and evidence was being accumulated to help towards its solution. But it came to the front again, and like a giant refreshed with sleep, when Prof. Lapworth in his “Secret of the Highlands" (1883), and other workers in the same ground, began to throw doubt on the explanation which had so long held the field. When the Geological Survey were able to take up the question and work out the ground with precision and detail that no observer could attain to single handed, the anticipations of their in mediate predecessors were substantially confirmed, and of the earlier observers it came out that Nicol was neare the truth than his illustrious antagonist.

It calls for no small exercise of judgment, in an edeavour to depict the geology of so complex a district ca

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