Abstract
MR. SYMONDS is an enthusiast, and one of the best type. In the intervals of his clerical work he is pretty sure to be found either with his hammer among quarries, ravines, and railway cuttings, or exploring some crumbled ruin or mouldered encampment, or lecturing volubly to a hill-side auditory on the rocks beneath their feet, or showing his well-known features at the sectional meetings of the British Association. Such have been his favourite pursuits for some thirty years. In the present volume he gives us jottings from the note-books which record his doings during that long period. The book is not a formal scientific treatise, nor does it follow any definite geographical sub-division in the districts described. An introductory chapter of a somewhat miscellaneous kind is followed by ten others devoted to the various palæozoic formations of Wales and the Southwest of England. But the writer does not confine himself to the geology of the various districts, he has much to say about antiquities and natural history, and says it pleasantly enough. Nor does he restrict his remarks to those parts of the country mentioned in the title-page, for he has been away up even into the wilds of Suther-landshire, and tells about the rocks there and the alpine plants, and the minerals, and the old glaciers, and how he broke a trusty rod in fishing for salmon there. He makes his way cheerily wherever he goes, and duly chronicles the kindness shown to him. The perfect honesty and candour of the writer are conspicuous throughout. Now and then, however, the delight with which he has seen a fact for himself leads him to write as if nobody had seen it before him. For instance, on p. 91, he tells that “on an expedition two years ago in company with Captain Price, I ascertained that the quartz-rock of Queenaig with its tubes rests unconformably on Cambrian sandstone.” A very good observation, Mr. Symonds, but not unknown before you and the Captain were up there.
Records of the Rocks. Notes on the Geology, Natural History, and Antiquities of North and South Wales, Devon, and Cornwall.
By Rev. W. S. Symonds (London: John Murray.)
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Records of the Rocks. Notes on the Geology, Natural History, and Antiquities of North and South Wales, Devon, and Cornwall. Nature 7, 461 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/007461a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/007461a0