(1) The Geology of Building Stones (2) British and Foreign Building Stones: a Descriptive Catalogue of the Specimens in the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge

Abstract

(1) THERE has long been a demand for a book A such as that now produced by Mr. Howe. It would be well for all architects, and also engineers, to go through some short course of geological training, leading up to the understanding of a geological map. Mr. Howe has to meet those cases where no preliminary work has been possible, and he describes in a clear manner the essential characters of rock-forming minerals. Quaintly, but properly enough, he includes ice, the mineral most utilised by the Eskimo. Knowing as he does the utility of the microscope, he introduces extinction angles in the table of the felspars on p. 20, but these are left unexplained, and the variation in the angle between the cleavages would surely be more interesting to the beginner. Thin sections of typical rocks are well illustrated in the later pages. The work of Dr. Flett, Mr. Lovegrove, and the author, has probably introduced the microscope to many “practical” men with good effect.

(1) The Geology of Building Stones.

By J. Allen Howe. Pp. viii + 455. (London: E. Arnold, 1910.) Price 7s. 6d. net.

(2) British and Foreign Building Stones: a Descriptive Catalogue of the Specimens in the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge.

By John Watson. Pp. viii + 484. (Cambridge: University Press, 1911.) Price 3s. net.