A Land

These ``recollections'' of the geological formation of Britain comprise that rarity--a scientific account written with verve and personable elegance. Archaeologist Hawkes makes riveting as epic fiction the snail's-pace transformation of the island from seabed to tropic to glacial region, from towering mountains to farmland. Along the way, she muses: ``What could be more youthful than England in April? It has taken three thousand million years to create that youthfulness, those fierce young buds and frail eggs . . . .'' In discussing the critical development of life's awareness of itself, she underscores her view of the close links between prehistory and civilization: ``Nothing but some fifteen hundred million years separates the first pieces of life from Proust,'' whom she envisions as a ``naked nerve at the centre of a trembling web of remembered consciousness.'' In conclusion, she denounces the ravages wreaked by massive industrialization on both the land and the human spirit and mounts an eloquent plea for a return to a holistic philosophy. This welcome reissue of a work originally published in 1952 and long out of print includes a map of Britain, not seen by PW . (Apr.)