Abstract
THE merit of a work on local geology or natural history may be of two distinct kinds. The author may be an original investigator of a little-known area, and his book a positive addition to our knowledge; or the volume may be a tapestry, into which the scattered threads of information are worked by one who has the mastery of them all, and who presents us with the picture they have formed in his mind. It is to excellence of this latter kind the authors of “West Yorkshire” aspire. They have gathered from the contributions of all local observers, and have so assimilated the material with their own knowledge, as to render the substance of their book a useful outline of the geology and botany of the district they have chosen to illustrate. An area included within the region of Prof. Phillips's classical work on the mountain limestone districts of Yorkshire, and upon whose coal-bearing; and associated strata so much good work has been done by the Government Survey, does not leave much roomier novelty in its geology, though the bofany, espceially as treated in this book, is in rather a different case. The great merit of the work would therefore consist in the lucid and comprehensive manner in which it presents the scattered information to us as a whole. This, however, it scarcely possesses in as great a degree as most of the books of its class.
West Yorkshire: an Account of its Geology, Physical Geography, Climatology, and Botany.
Part I.—Geology. By J. W. Davis, F.G.S., F.L.S. Part II.—Physical Geography and Botanical Topography. By J. W. Davis and F. Arnold Lees, F.L.S. With Maps and Plates. (L. Reeve and Co., 1878.)
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West Yorkshire: an Account of its Geology, Physical Geography, Climatology, and Botany . Nature 18, 276 (1878). https://doi.org/10.1038/018276a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/018276a0