204 EARL DE GREY'S ADDRESS. [May 28, 18G0. 



the geology, the vegetable productions, the mineralogy, the zoo- 

 logy, and the natural history of the island, and to almost all these 

 branches of science something new is added. The narrative, more- 

 over, exhibits the state of Ceylon from the earliest antiquity. The 

 work is illustrated by numerous maps, plans, charts, and drawings, 

 and contains ample details of the form of government in the island, 

 its revenues and expenditure, together with the principal sources 

 of trade, especially the cultivation and export of dnnarmn, and the 

 more recent and eminently successful experiment of planting coffee 

 on a grand scale. 



JVew Zealand.* — Dr. Thompson is already known to us by his 

 memoir on the " stature, bodily weight, &c., of the New Zealand 

 race of men," read before this Society in 1852, and his present 

 work is the result of an extended acquaintance with the regions in 

 question. It is divided into three parts : the first gives a r^sum^ of 

 the physical features of the country and of the native inhabitants, — 

 their laws, religion, warlike and other customs, their food and 

 husbandry, their literature and domestic life ; the second traces the 

 t various stages of European interference down to the present time ; 

 the tJm^d discusses the questions of their decrease and of the 

 prospect of their future continuance. 



Sources of the Nile. — Our Medallist Dr. Beke has resumed his 

 pen and given us a volume, entitled " The Sources of the Nile, 

 being a General Survey of the Basin of that Eiver and of its 

 Head-Streams, with the Histoiy of Nilotic Discovery," illustrated 

 by a series of maps. Thirteen years have elapsed since we published 

 two papers by Dr. Beke " On the Nile and its Tributaries." The 

 whole has, however, been remodelled, and many important par- 

 ticulars are now published for the first time, by Mr. Madden. 



China and Japan. — The " Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission 

 to China and Japan in the years 1857-58-59," by our associate, 

 Laurence Oliphant, has been published since the last Anniversary, 

 by Messrs. Blackwood. Mr. Oliphant furnishes us also with a con- 

 cise ^account of his excursion to the Malay Peninsula, to which he 

 was transferred in Malay sampans and hospitably received, and of 

 his visit to the Philippine Islands. The first volume contains a 

 lively and clear description of the various parts of China visited 

 by the mission, with an account of the trade, manufactures. &c., 

 of the people, and particularly of the ascent of the Yang-tse-Kiang 



* "The Story of New Zealand, Past and Present, Savage and Civilized." V>y 

 A. S. Thompson, M.D. 2 vols. Published by Mr. J. Murray. 



