This volume collects Ruskin's writings on Geology and Mineralogy. Deucalion—the principal work here included—was itself intended by Ruskin to collect “the notices of phenomena relating to geology which were scattered through my former works”; but the scheme of that book was altered as it advanced, and it came to consist almost entirely of additional studies. Many of “the notices” to which he refers are contained in other volumes; more especially the fourth volume of Modern Painters, in the case of geology, and The Ethics of the Dust, in that of mineralogy. These are, of course, not here repeated, though references to them are often supplied in editorial notes. With these exceptions, the present volume brings together all the author's papers, letters, lectures, books, and catalogues on the subjects in question.

The arrangement is, as usually in this edition, chronological, and the contents are: I. A paper of 1863, to which the author attached considerable importance, On the Forms of the Stratified Alps of Savoy. II. Two papers of 1865, On the Shape and Structure of some parts of the Alps, with reference to Denudation. III. Seven papers (1867–1870), On Banded and Brecciated Concretions. IV. Deucalion, published at intervals between 1875 and 1883. V. A paper of 1884, On the Distinctions of Form in Silica. These are in large print.

They are followed, in smaller print, by VI., a series of Catalogues of Minerals (1883–1886), and VII., a Grammar of Silica (hitherto unpublished). The Catalogues and the Grammar are parts of a general scheme, as explained below (p. lx.).