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using the money instead to promote scientific research. Yet he lived all his life as a man of means, with large slave plantations in Jamaica, and from 1832 to his death in 1855 was largely involved with the government in one capacity or another, founding the Geological Survey of Great Britain, the Museum of Economic Geology, and various other projects such as schools of Mines. This study is partly about De La Beche's work dealing with early Victorian governments in laying the foundations of scientific research, partly about his enthusiasm for societies which acted as pressure-groups creating a public interest in science, but mainly it deals with his role as a brilliant fact-gatherer, a 'scientific observer', looking at nature wie es eigentlich gewesen. The Romantic period, for example in Germany, had been greatly interested in geology, but an excess of wild theorising made the succeeding period very mistrustful, and De La Beche believed that theorising was much less important than facts. Throughout this book, Henry De La Beche's numerous excellent sketches, many of them carica- catures-surely a gift to any biographer ?-are a delight to the eye, especially the eye of the non-specialist. But the final section of Dr. McCartney's study is devoted to a detailed analysis of five cartoons by De La Beche, all of which arise in some way from the scientific debates and controversies of his day. Often attacked by fellow-scientists, he gave as good as he got. Some of the drawings are light-hearted, as the one on Dean Buckland's theories about coprolites (the petrified droppings of prehistoric creatures), at other times satirical, as when he attacks the over-generalised theorising of Charles Lyell, or the as yet unsubstantiated glaciation theories of Louis Agassiz, and one drawing of 'The Light of Science dispelling darkness' (published as a lithograph in 1832) shows that for all his detailed facts, De La Beche had a philosophy of life and an almost religious regard for the power of science. Despite the criticisms and the controversies, he had a confidence in the 'white-hot technological revolution' of science more sanguine and single-minded than the Prime Minister of the late 1960s. The book is very beautifully produced, and is a distinguished way of celebrating the twenty-first anniversary of the founding of the Friends of the National Museum. PRYS MORGAN Swansea. BYWYD A Gwaith YNG NGHYMRU'R BEDWAREDD GANRIF AR BYMTHEG. Gan Peter A. Mercer. Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, Caerdydd: Cyfres Llygad y Ffynnon: gol. Hugh Thomas, Cyfrol XI. 1978. Td. 91. £ 1.40p. In his foreword to the book the editor expresses his earnest hope that this, the eleventh volume in the LLYGAD Y FFYNNON series, will help to nourish the reader's skills in interpreting the historical sources of Wales. The volume consists of a collection of sources on various aspects of life and work in nineteenth-century Wales. There are sections on working conditions, standards of living, help for the poor, and a final chapter on leisure-time and socialising activities. Each chapter contains a brief introduction to, and an interpretation of, the documents that follow.