A Text-Book of Geology

Abstract

THE fourth edition of the deservedly popular “Lake and Rastallæ remains unaltered in plan, but a considerable number of minor changes and a few brief additions have been made. For the most part these are insufficient to indicate to the student the remarkable developments in geological interpretations that are at present in full swing. It may be that the authors feel that the time is not yet ripe for, the incorporation of modern advances into the scheme of au elementary text. Certainly it would be difficult to introduce the newer outlook into any already existing text-book. Nevertheless, more attention might have leen given to isostasy; the structure of the crust as revealed by earthquake records; the work of the Carnegie Institution of Washington on the nature of volcanic activity; and the far-reaching consequences of the recognition of radioactivity as a source of internal energy. Only nine lines are devoted to the continental drift hypothesis, and vulcanieity in all its forms is still regarded as “merely a secondary effect of the greater class of phenomena dependent on the cooling and contraction of the globe as a whole.”

A Text-Book of Geology.

By Philip Lake R. H. Rastall. Fourth edition. Pp. xiv + 520 + 33 plates. (London: Edward Arnold and Co., 1927.) 21s. net.