REVIEWS

Migmatites and the Origin of Granitic Rocks. deal of useful descriptive information on mig-
By K. R. MEHNERT.Amsterdam: Elsevier matitic rocks, especially those in the Black
Publishing Co., 1968. 393 pages. $26.00. Forest of Germany and Fennoscandia. They
also contain numerous genetic interpretations
Migmatites and the Origin of Granitic Rocks of petrographic features, many of which are
represents, perhaps, the culmination of efforts unwarranted by the evidence presented or
to elucidate the origin of migmatites and gra-
inferred.
nitic rocks through detailed investigation of This book is well designed to provide re-
their petrographic features. In his synthesis of liable information on the nature of migmatites
vast amounts of accumulated petrographic to those petrologists who have had limited
data, the author appears to lean toward an
firsthand experience with this genetically im-
anatectic (partial melting) origin for the bulk portant group of rocks. Owing largely to its
of granitoid rocks; but he is also mindful of the
highly specific nature, however, it probably
possibility that the consensus of petrologic will
not find wide use as a student text.
opinion might someday shift in favor of the
transformist's views. He therefore chooses to C. WAYNE BURNHAM
define granitization in terms sufficiently broad
Pennsylvania State University
to include a certain, but unspecified, amount of
silicate melt.
The book is very logically organized, but it
is considerably longer than necessary. The first Principles of Geology. By JAMES GILLULY,
three chapters are devoted to the nomenclature, AARON C. WATERS, and A. O. WOODFORD.
megascopic structures, and microfabrics of 3d ed. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co.
migmatites, in that order; and the book pro- 1968. 687 pages. $9.75.
ceeds to a sketchy discussion of some pertinent This is the third edition of a text first
experimental results. Unfortunately, only thir- published in 1951, which at that time was a re-
teen pages (about 3 percent of the book) are freshing change from the traditional texts on the
devoted to these results, and they might well market. This new edition is a distinct enlarge-
have been omitted entirely insofar as they are ment and improvement on the second edition
considered in the numerous conclusions-some in that the chapter on mountains has been ex-
of them apparently contradictory-that are tended to include much informative material
drawn throughout the book. Similarly, the suc- on paleomagnetism and the origin of continents
ceeding chapter (chap. 5), which deals mainly and continental drift, and a chapter has been
with the feldspar geothermometers, might also added concerning the origin of the earth and its
have been omitted in order not to expose fur- life. The general organization is somewhat
ther our present state of ignorance. miscellaneous and reflects the difficulty, ob-
The next two chapters, "Migration of Mobile viously felt by all writers of elementary geology
Components within the Earth's Crust" and the texts, of arranging the diverse subject matter of
"Geochemistry of Granitic Rocks," are well the geological sciences into a single unifying
done, by and large. It is unfortunate, however, theme.
that the English translation apparently has Editorial and factual errors are rare, al-
created a serious ambiguity regarding usage of though a few exist. My favorite error, "inas-
the term "mobile component," as it is used much as all paleontologists agree that new
both in the thermodynamic sense and, mainly, species arise suddenly by mutation" (p. 118),
in reference to the mechanically more fluid has persisted through all three editions.
parts of plutonic bodies. It seems to me that science is an activity
Chapters 8 through 10, the heart of the which discovers relationships and that the de-
book, deal with the formation of granitic rocks gree to which an elementary text expresses
by magmatic, anatectic, and metasomatic pro- that activity is an appropriate measure of the
cesses. These three chapters contain a great quality of the text. The most powerful chapter
506

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