Abstract
THE manuscript of this book was left by the late Prof. Green in a somewhat unfinished condition, and the editor was asked to prepare it for the press. The book is described in the preface as being practically a primer, yet in the third lesson, dealing, among other matters, with the constitution of quartz, after the barest statement of the proportion by weight in which silicon and oxygen combine chemically, and the introduction, with no explanation, of the term “atomic weights,” we read: “All this the chemist would express shortly by writing for silica SiO2; Si standing for twenty-eight parts by weight of silicon, O for sixteen parts by weight of oxygen, and the 2 under the O showing that in silica the oxygen is in the proportion of twice sixteen. SiO2 is called the chemical formula for silica.” Is this the kind of information to place before a beginner receiving his third lesson in geology? Later on in the same lesson the chemical composition of orthoclase is dealt with in a similar manner. If the beginner himself were consulted, we imagine his third lesson in geology would be his last. Had the editor omitted these little digressions, which cannot be understood by mere reading, the educational value and the interest of the book would have been much enhanced.
First Lessons in Modern Geology.
A. H. Green M.A., F.R.S. J. F. Blake Pp. viii+208. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1898.)
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First Lessons in Modern Geology. Nature 59, 52 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/059052d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/059052d0