LITERARY NOTICES. 



249 



rusal. Men unfamiliar with the symptoms 

 of an approaching breakdown of their 

 mental powers, frequently work on blindly 

 until comes the fall from which no power 

 can lift them. Sleeplessness is one of the 

 most significant warnings, and should never 

 pass unheeded. In this connection, the 

 author's remarks on the use of chloral hy- 

 drate, as an agent for promoting sleep, 

 serve as a timely warning against that 

 deadly remedy. Its action on the nerve- 

 centres is destructive, and it produces a 

 permanent condition of brain-bloodlessness 

 fatal to mental vigor. Hygiene is the sub- 

 ject of an able discussion. The book will, 

 unquestionably, prove of great value to 

 those who read it carefully. It is not, 

 however, intended as a family prescrip- 

 tion-book, but as a safeguard against dis- 

 ease. In every case of actual sickness, it 

 advises that the family physician be sent for. 



Cave-Hunting : Researches on the Evi- 

 dence of Caves respecting the Early 

 Inhabitants of Europe. By W. Boyd 

 Dawkins, M. A., F. R. S., etc. London : 

 Maemillan & Co. 455 pp. 8vo. Price, 

 $7.00. 



The prefatorial remarks of the author 

 announce that this book is a faint outline 

 of a new and vast field of research, intended 

 to give prominence to the more important 

 points, rather than a finished and detailed 

 history of cave-exploration. 



Caves have in all ages, and in all coun- 

 tries, been regarded with feelings of super- 

 stitious veneration ; here, as the dwelling- 

 places of the sibyls and nymphs, there, as 

 the shrines of Pan, Bacchus, Pluto, the seat 

 of the oracles of Delphi and Mount Cytbae- 

 ron, and in the far East they were connected 

 with the mysterious worship of Mithras. 

 These feelings long secured them from in- 

 trusion and exploration. At length, in the 

 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they 

 were thrown open for examination by the 

 desire which then arose in Germany to 

 possess the " ebur fossil?" or "unicorn's 

 horn," a supposed infallible specific for the 

 cure of many diseases. The " unicorn's 

 horn" was to be found in the caves, and 

 the search for it revealed the remains of 

 lions, hyenas, elephants, and many other 

 tropical or strange animals. At first these 

 remains were supposed to have been washed 



thither from the tropics by the Deluge. 

 Then the truth began to dawn that the 

 animals lived in the surrounding country, 

 and that the bones of such as were not 

 cave-haunting were dragged into the caves 

 by such as were. This truth was first enun- 

 ciated by Rosenmiiller in 1804. Between 

 1825 and 1841, an Englishman, the Rev. J. 

 McEnery, discovered in Kent's Hole, near 

 Torquay, the first " flint implements " ever 

 observed, in a cave along with the bones 

 of extinct animals, and he suggested that 

 they proved the existence of man at the 

 same time with those animals. But he 

 died in 1841, leaving his suggestion scorn- 

 fully repudiated by the scientific world ; 

 although, in 1840, Mr. Godwin Austin, by 

 independent researches, verified its truth. 

 It was not until after 1859 that the signifi- 

 cance of this discovery came to be generally 

 perceived and admitted. It, of course, im- 

 mediately revolutionized the prevailing no- 

 tions of the antiquity of man, while the pre- 

 viously-accepted theory of Rosenmiiller un- 

 mistakably indicated the occurrence of re- 

 markable geographical and climatal changes 

 over the continent of Europe. The work 

 before us traces the rise and progress of 

 cave -exploration ; considers the physical 

 history of caves, that is, their formation, 

 whether by sea or volcanic action ; enu- 

 merates the most remarkable caves, with 

 the objects they have yielded ; treats of the 

 character of the early inhabitants of Europe, 

 and of the fauna of the same period, as in- 

 dicated by the remains discovered ; and, 

 finally, of the climatal and geographical 

 changes that have occurred since those de- 

 posits were made. The style is clear and 

 vigorous, and the text is interspersed with 

 numerous illustrations. The work will com- 

 mend itself to all who have a desire to know 

 something of what humanity was in that 

 hazy period which stretches backward of 

 the earliest records. 



Lecture Notes on Qualitative Analysis. 

 By Henry B. Hill, A. M. (Assistant Pro- 

 fessor of Chemistry in Harvard College). 

 New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. 54 

 pp., 12mo. Price, 75 cts. 



This little book is designed for the use 

 of the chemical student. Explanatory of 

 its object, the author says, in his preface, 

 that, during lectures, the student being 



