LITERARY NOTICES. 



749 



ism and its operation, points out the 

 delicate complexity of its effects in a 

 way that will interest all curious-mind- 

 ed readers. Mr. Edison, by this inven- 

 tion, has done for sound what Daguerre 

 did for light made it possible to fix 

 and permanently retain the most fleet- 

 ing impressions. We pointed out, last 

 month, the marvelous capacities of cold 

 iron, magnetism, and an electric wire ; 

 but the capacities of the phonograph 

 are still more marvelous, for, with only 

 a vibrating plate, a sheet of tin-foil, 

 and a crank, it is possible to arrest and 

 fix all kinds of sound, and, having 

 preserved them as long as metals will 

 hold their properties, to give them forth 

 again in all their original qualities. The 

 voice, indeed, is somewhat muffled and 

 minified when returned from the iron 

 tongue of the phonograph ; but its in- 

 tonations, inflections, pauses, and quali- 

 ty, are rendered with surprising fidelity. 

 By the simple turning of the crank, the 

 machine talks, sings, shouts, laughs, 

 whistles, and coughs, so naturally and 

 distinctly, that the listener can hardly 

 believe his senses, or escape from the 

 suspicion that there is some ventrilo- 

 quist hocus-pocus about it, or a little 

 fellow concealed somewhere about the 

 arrangement. But the fact is estab- 

 lished, and must be made the most of. 

 A machine, as simple as a coffee-mill, 

 hears a speech or a song, and gives it 

 back as perfectly as it was at first ut- 

 tered by the living organs of voice. 

 And so, again, we have the lesson re- 

 peated, with still greater emphasis, that 

 we must raise our estimate of the 

 powers and potencies of "mere dead 

 matter." 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Physiography : An Introduction to the 

 Study of Nature. By T. H. Huxley, 

 F. R. S. With Illustrations and Colored 

 Plates. Second edition. Pp. 377. New 

 York : D. Appleton & Co. Price, $2.50. 



This volume has been prepared as a 

 school text-book on the subject hitherto 



known as physical geography, but in its 

 method it is very different from the usual 

 works upon that subject. Of course, Prof. 

 Huxley could not enter upon this field with- 

 out taking his own view of its method of 

 treatment, and making an original book, 

 but beyond this he has unquestionably made 

 a very valuable contribution to educational 

 literature. In the following passage from 

 the preface he puts the subject upon its ra- 

 tional and proper basis. He says : 



" I do not think that a description of the 

 earth which commences by telling a child that 

 it is an oblate spheroid moving round the sun 

 in an elliptical orbit, and ends without giving 

 him the slightest hint toward understanding 

 the ordnance-map of his own county, or any 

 suggestion as to the meaning of the phenomena 

 offered by the brook which runs through his 

 village, or the gravel-pit whence the roads are 

 mended, is calculated either to interest or to 

 instruct. And the attempt to convey scientific 

 conceptions without the appeal to observation 

 which can alone give such conceptions firmness 

 and reality, appears to me to be in direct an- 

 tagonism to the fundamental principles of scien- 

 tific education." 



Prof. Huxley was led to the preparation 

 of this volume in consequence of having 

 been invited, several years ago, to give a 

 course of lectures before the London Insti- 

 tution, which were intended to initiate young 

 people into the elements of physical science. 

 Prof. Huxley took the opportunity thus 

 afforded to put into practical shape ideas 

 long entertained respecting the proper 

 method of approaching the study of Nature. 

 Twelve lectures were given, not on any par. 

 ticular branch of knowledge, but on natural 

 phenomena in general, and the title " Physi- 

 ography " was taken to distinguish both as 

 to matter and method between the subject 

 and what is commonly understood as physi- 

 cal geography. The ideas which Prof. 

 Huxley aimed to embody in these lectures, 

 and which characterize the present work, 

 are thus happily presented by himself: 



" It appeared to me to be plainly dictated by 

 common-sense, that the teacher, who wishes to 

 lead his pupil to form a clear mental picture of 

 the order which pervades the multiform and 

 endlessly-shifting phenomena of Nature, should 

 commence with the familiar facts of the scholar's 

 daily experience ; and that, from the firm ground 

 of such experience he should lead the beginner, 

 step by step, to remoter objects and to the less 

 readily comprehensible relations of things. In 

 short, that the knowledge of the child should, of 

 set purpose, be made to grow, in the same man- 



