Cambridge Geological Series Agricultural Geology

Abstract

MR. RASTALL'S well-written and excellently printed book is a treatise on geology for agricultural students rather than on agricultural geology. To say this is no disparagement, since it is obviously intended for the stage in an agricultural curriculum when natural history subjects are predominant, and not for the later years when preliminary scientific conceptions are applied to the study of the soil. A knowledge of chemistry and elementary mineralogy is presupposed, but unnecessary technical terms are carefully excluded. The final chapter, on “The Geological History of the Domestic Animals,” will appeal especially to those whose work is on the farm. The history of life on the globe is, indeed, far more appreciated by agricultural scholars than our text-books would commonly lead us to suppose. The details of British strata, such as the Ashgill Shale and the inevitable Oldhaven Beds, are still reverenced by examining boards, but are far less important than a philosophic outlook on the great romance leading up to man, the tiller of the soil. Mr. Rastall, however, makes good use of his opportunity, and gives us attractive descriptions of the types of country met with on various strata throughout England.

Cambridge Geological Series. Agricultural Geology.

By R. H. Rastall. Pp. ix + 331. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1916.) Price 10s. 6d. net.