C LARKSON E. & U PTON B. 2006. Edinburgh Rock. The Geology of Lothian . xvi + 239 pp. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press. Price £17.95 (hard covers). ISBN 1 903765 39 0

The late 18th century ‘Edinburgh Enlightenment’ was a remarkable period of intellectual development in many fields of science, but it was the progress in geological understanding, initiated by James Hutton and colleagues, that justifies the city’s claim to be the birthplace of the modern discipline. It is tempting to think that the particular interest in geology was fostered by the setting in which enlightenment occurred, the stone-built, older parts of Edinburgh nestling beneath a spectacular, rugged backdrop. In Edinburgh Rock due homage is paid to the city’s geological heritage, but the authors extend their brief across its Lothian hinterland to present a broader picture. Thus the archetypal Edinburgh rocks – the volcanic masses of Castle Rock and Arthur’s Seat, the latter spectacularly cross-cut by the Salisbury Crags sill – are integrated with other well-known localities such as Hutton’s Unconformity on the East Lothian coast and the renowned fossil localities of West Lothian. In the process the reader is taken through 450 million years of Earth history, from the Ordovician strata of the Southern Uplands to the glacial deposits of the Quaternary ice age. Euan Clarkson and Brian Upton are well placed to tell the story. Both are eminent Edinburgh academics but with a long history of support for local amateur societies …