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Science 30 October 1998:
Vol. 282. no. 5390, p. 885
DOI: 10.1126/science.282.5390.885
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Books

EARTH HISTORY:
Pieces of the Geologic Frame, Assembled

A review by Gordon P. Eaton

Annals of the Former World
John McPhee
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 1998. 704 pp. $35, C$51. ISBN 0-374-10520-0.

McPhee assembles a geologic cross section of North America at about the 40th parallel by combining slightly revised and edited versions of four earlier books with a thematic overview and a new section that explores the midcontinent's buried Precambrian basement. Through a melange of journeys, set pieces, biographical sketches, and histories of humans and rocks, the resulting many-layered tale provides a primer on geology, plate tectonics, and geologic time.
The author, formerly director of the U. S. Geological Survey and now a principal in SeaMountain Country, resides at 709 Snowberry Lane, Coupeville, WA 28239, USA. E-mail: geaton{at}whidbey.net

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)