102 REVIEWS

A colleague has remarked that while previously sediments were served up in basins, they are now
presented on plates! It is doubtful whether this book can be said to adequately reflect this re-fashioning
of geocrockery or to furnish the appropriate cutlery to facilitate ingestion and digestion. It has to
be reported that although the volume provides for the aspiring basin analyst a broad and reasonably
organized introduction to a complex subject, it is unlikely to commend itself as an essential envestment
to those who already possess a working knowledge of recent developments in this field of geology.
G. K.

JEANS, C. V. & RAWSON, P. F. (eds) 1980. Andros Island, Chalk and oceanic oozes. Unpublished work
of Maurice Black. vi+100 pp. Yorkshire Geological Society Occasional Publication no. 5. Price
£4.35. ISSN 0143-6635.
This occasional publication is refreshingly different. It consists of unpublished work by Maurice Black,
and commentaries on both the author and his work by C. V. Jeans, L. V. Illing and J. M. Hancock.
Apart from being responsible for the seminal revision of Hatch and Rastall 's ' Petrology of the
Sedimentary Rocks' published in 1938, Maurice Black had undertaken innovative research into the
shallow-water carbonates of Andros Island in the Bahamas in the 1920s and 1930s, and into chalk
and oceanic oozes in the 1950s and 1960s. Much of this work remained unpublished and known only
to his many students via the medium of tutorial and practical classes.
In this publication a selection of his hitherto unpublished work is set down preserving Black's own
elegant logical style. For the first time, therefore, it becomes more generally available. L. V. Illing
and J. M. Hancock evaluate the scientific significance of Black's work in these twofields(the validity
of his results remain undiminished, but the subject has moved inexorably onwards), and C. V. Jeans
paints a picture of the circumstances that lie behind the achievements, and some of the reasons that
probably lie behind the non-appearance of this significant work at an earlier stage.
There is no doubt that generations of Cambridge University graduates on the sedimentary side of
the earth sciences, benefited enormously from Maurice Black's immensely painstaking approach
to his science. In spite of his personal shyness he inspired many to a profound understanding of
sediments and the organisms that inhabited and contributed to them, and through his disciples has
transmitted that enthusiasm and insight onwards to a newer and wider audience.
This publication is a fitting memorial. It is short, elegant and very evocative of the man and his
works. Those who knew him should certainly read it, those who did not should do likewise; neither
could do worse than contemplate first his frontispiece portrait. It will remind them thafat the centre
of all scientific work is the personality of a man or woman. We are lucky that C. V. Jeans and P. F.
Rawson have taken pains to rescue and preserve for us the notable observations and conclusions of
Maurice Black on two widely different but complementary aspects of carbonate sedimentation.
B. M. F.

BARD, J.-P. 1980. Microtextures des Roches Magmatiques et Metamorphiques. 192 pp., numerous
illustrations. Paris, New York, Barcelona, Milan: Masson. ISBN 2 225 65340 2. Price not stated.
This slim volume attracts immediately by its wealth of beautifully executed microdrawings of igneous
and metamorphic textures, many of them, occupying a complete 'octavo' (16 x 24 cm) page, being
quite stunning in their effect. The drawings are complemented by a neatly produced text giving a brief
theoretical background to the principles of crystal growth and reaction, of a standard appropriate
to second-or third-year Geology undergraduates.
In an attempt to render the book more useful to monolingual English readers, the table of contents
has been translated into laugh-a-line pidgin. The interested student with a secondary school linguistic
background would, however, probably have little trouble with the text, for the writing is clear and
unpretentious; but he should have a good technical dictionary.
G. A. C.