126 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is the Quarterly Keview, and this is 

 what we find in the very last number 

 of that periodical on the subject of 

 Sedgwick's non-acceptance of the mod- 

 ern standpoint in geology: "In co- 

 ordinating the vast array of (geological) 

 facts so as to form out of them a basis 

 for the great cosmical theories which 

 are the inheritance of his successors, he 

 lagged behind his more philosophical 

 contemporaries. He never broke loose 

 from the entanglement of attempted 

 reconciliations with the biblical cos- 

 mogony, never ceased to invoke ' suc- 

 cessive creations of the organic king- 

 doms' to account for the order of life 

 revealed in the rocks and clays. Lyell's 

 great generalization of uniformity was 

 always a stumbling-block to him, and 

 evolution in every shape was to the end 

 hated by him with a perfect hatred. 

 It was years before he could discard the 

 puerile idea that the 'vast masses of 

 diluvial gravel scattered almost over the 

 surface of the earth ' were all due to the 

 single catastrophe of the Noachian Del- 

 uge; and not till after half a century 

 of geological study could he bring him- 

 self to ascribe any validity to the evi- 

 dences for the vast antiquity of the 

 human race, as contrasted with the 

 historical period." The Quarterly Re- 

 view, in spite of its general conserva- 

 tism, is evidently in line with modern 

 thought on these subjects. All the more 

 amazing is it that some men should be 

 found to talk as if the old conceptions 

 were still valid, and the work of the evo- 

 lutionist school had been in vain. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



A Handbook of Descriptive and Practi- 

 cal Astronomy. By George F. Cham- 

 bers, F. R. A. S. Fourth edition. New 

 York : Macmillan & Co. (Three vol- 

 umes.) Pp. 676, 558, 384. Price, $14. 



For a quarter of a century Chambers's 

 Handbook of Descriptive and Practical As- 

 tronomy has been in the hands of all English- 

 speaking astronomers, and has maintained 

 its ground as a valuable book of reference 



and an interesting summary of astronomical 

 knowledge. In the fourth edition, now issued, 

 the author has divided the work into three 

 separate volumes, treating respectively of The 

 Sun, Planets, and Comets ; Instruments and 

 Practical Astronomy ; and The Starry Heav- 

 ens. Each volume has its own independent 

 index and paging. The author's reason for 

 splitting up this well-known book is that so 

 much expansion was required in order to bring 

 it up to date that a single volume of conven- 

 ient size could no longer contain the matter. 



Three or four features of the work may 

 be at once pointed out as especially useful 

 and interesting to amateur astronomers. 

 These are the catalogues of comets and the 

 historical account of eclipses of the sun in 

 the first volume ; the elaborate description 

 of telescopes and other instruments used by 

 the astronomer, and the account of chrono- 

 logical astronomy in the second volume ; and 

 the photometric catalogue of naked-eye stars 

 in the concluding volume. The compact 

 chronological sketch of astronomy in tabular 

 form, given in the second volume, may also 

 be mentioned as very convenient for refer- 

 ence. This could have been made far more 

 satisfactory, however, if the author had 

 taken the trouble to insert, in all cases, the 

 Christian as well as the surnames of the 

 many astronomers included in his lists. 



The whole work is, of course, a compila- 

 tion, drawn from every available source, and, 

 on account of the somewhat heterogeneous 

 nature of much of the material of which it is 

 composed, lacking in that perfect unity of 

 composition which, when present, gives an 

 irresistible charm to a book. But the au- 

 thor probably had no thought of writing a 

 work that should attain great popularity 

 among mere readers. His intention was to 

 furnish, as his title implies, a handbook or 

 guide-book of astronomy, rich in information 

 and as complete as possible in the matter of 

 reference. The bottoms of his pages are, in- 

 deed, filled with a great variety of references 

 to authorities, which can not fail to prove 

 very useful to the student. He has also 

 drawn his illustrations from many sources 

 German, French, Italian, and American, as 

 well as English and has only left it to be 

 wished that he had included some of the 

 photographs that have within the past few 

 years thrown such a flood of light upon 



