One leading feature of the work offers a very aggressive invitation to criticism. Scotchmen are commonly accused of looking upon the whole universe through Scotch spectacles, and here we have a Scotchman treating a subject which affects nearly the whole of the globe, and devoting about half of his book to the details of Scottish glacial deposits; while England has but one-third of the space allowed to Scotland, Ireland but a thirtieth, Scandinavia less than a tenth, North America a sixth, and so on with the rest of the world. Disproportionate as this may appear at first glance, further acquaintance with the work justifies the pre-eminence which Mr. Geikie gives to the Scotch glacial deposits. Excepting Norway, there is no country in Europe which affords so fine a field for the study of the vestiges of extinct glaciers as Scotland, and Scotland has an advantage even over Norway in being much better known in geological detail. Besides this, we must always permit the expounder of any subject to select his own typical illustrations, and welcome his ability to find them in a region which he himself has directly explored. Mr. Geikie’s connection with the geological survey of Scotland has afforded him special facilities for making good use of Scottish typical material, and he has turned these opportunities to such excellent account that no student after reading “The Great Ice Age” will find fault with its decided nationality. The leading feature—the basis, in fact—of this work deserves especial notice, as it gives it a peculiar and timely value of its own. This feature is that the subject—as compared with its usual treatment by other leading writers—is turned round and presented, so to speak, bottom upwards. De Saussure, Charpentier, Agassiz, Humboldt, Forbes, Hopkins, Whewell, Stark, Tyndall, etc., have studied the living glaciers, and upon the data thus obtained have identified the work of extinct glaciers. Chronologically speaking, they have proceeded backwards, a method absolutely necessary in the early stages of the inquiry, and which has yielded admirable results. Geikie, in the work before us, proceeds exactly in the opposite order. Availing himself of the means of identifying glacial deposits which the retrogressive method affords, he plunges at once to the lowest and oldest of these deposits, which he presents the most prominently, and then works upwards and onwards to recent glaciation.