Scientific Reviews. M5 



that we were not wont to expect of the science and liberalism of Pa- 

 ris. It is not customary to begin the detail of our victories or our 

 successes by an account of the failures of others ; and yet though 

 an individual, no matter of what country, had visited this long- 

 sought and ill-described city three years previously, — declamatory 

 phrases were disseminated, which spoke of the millions that Great 

 Britain had spent in attempting what an unprotected and unassisted 

 Frenchman had just accomplished ; and then a work is got up that 

 bears every character but that of simplicity, and the stamp of in- 

 dustry, knowledge, and acquirement, without that of smcerity. 

 The narrative is laboured ; loaded with inapposite remarks that 

 could not have originated with a suffering traveller, in similies that 

 are shorn of the roughness they must have exhibited, had they re- 

 ferred to any thing African, — a burning sun or a rocky desert. 



The scientific remarks are got up in the present most popular 

 Parisian style — a sort of ridicule of physical geography, in which 

 the flexible stems of one family of plants are entwined with the 

 shady branches of another family. Species have received their scien- 

 tific names, and in many cases we feel inclined to ask on what 

 authority ; customs of Mahometans and pagan nations of the south 

 are exjianded upon, evidently from the most superficial notes, and the 

 whole is called the work of Mr. Caille. It has more the appearance 

 of having been " got up" by, or with the assistance of two or three 

 individuals. Not that such co-operation is blameable ; but that, from 

 facts of this nature, the whole work has appeared a mere fabrica- 

 tion to a nation remarkable for the possession of so many talented 

 and candid men, who Would feel outraged at the idea of an impo- 

 sition ; and, unfortunately, an investigation of the atlas accompany- 

 ing the work, did not at all tend to diminish this unpleasant con- 

 clusion. Has so pitiful a representation of a city been exposed to 

 the sight of the members of the Geographical Society > And did 

 they signify approbation of its accuracy ? We do not, however, 

 think that there has been the guilt implied in the representations 

 of a celebrated geographical reviewer. We see at once that such 

 a drawing originated in frivolity and vanity ; not having a better, 

 they would have a bad one sooner than none ; but if they have in 

 consequence exposed themselves to unjust suspicions, let it be a 

 lesson for the future, that important subjects are not to be treated 

 with so much levity, and in so unsatisfactory a manner. 



Mono^aph of the Genus Unto, hy Mr. Isaac Lea, in the Trans* 

 actions of the American Philosophical Society. (New Series.) 



In the third volume of the Transactions of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society, (New Series,) Mr. Isaac Lea has published a very 

 interesting paper on the genus Unio of Lamarck. He has minute- 

 ly described all the known species, and has cleared up several ob- 



VOL. II. 2 A 



