Geological Sketches at Home and Abroad Text-Book of Geology

Abstract

II. We now come to consider the quality of the matter contained in the volume, the discrimination exercised in its selection, the validity of the theories presented, and the fidelity with which the science is portrayed. It is the function of a text-book to exhibit to the student an impartial and symmetric outline of the science. Its author is under obligation to present the views which are generally entertained by the great body of geologists, carefully withholding those which are peculiar to himself. From the great mass of available matter he must select that which will afford a well-balanced and comprehensive review, and he must sedulously avoid giving undue prominence to those matters which have special interest to himself by reason of his individual studies. In the work before us this has been accomplished in a manner which may truly excite admiration. Although the author is an original investigator in several departments of the science he delineates, he has permitted his own predilections to give little if any additional prominence to his special topics, and the wisdom he has displayed in the selection of material and the balancing of parts will commend itself to all professional readers.

Geological Sketches at Home and Abroad.

By Archibald Geikie, LL.D., F.R.S. With Illustrations. (London and New York: Macmillan and Co., 1882.)

Text-Book of Geology.

By Archibald Geikie, LL.D., F.R.S. With Illustrations. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1882.)