New Publications. 217 



chess-players, admit the superiority of the Turkomans in that 

 respect. What renders the game more puzzling, and the 

 calculations much more difficult, is, that their chess-board is 

 not, like ours, divided into thirty-two light and thirty-two 

 dark compartments for the movers, but consists all of one 

 colour. It is nothing more than a four-cornered linen rag, 

 with lines drawn over it in a vertical and horizontal direction 

 to mark the sixty-four compartments. This simple chess- 

 board, which can be wrapped up as a pocket-handkerchief and 

 carried about in the pocket, is evidently manufactured by 

 their women, for the transversal lines are stitched on the 

 linen with dark worsted threads. It is recorded that, during 

 the reign of the late Shah, a Turkoman came to Teheran, 

 and having been admitted into the presence of the Feth-Ali- 

 Shah, he beat all the best chess-players at the Court of hi^ 

 Majesty, and gained a large sum of money. 



NEW PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 



1. Elements of Natural History, for the use of Schools and Young 

 Persons. By Mrs R. Lee (formerly Mrs T. Edward Bowdich). 1 vol. 

 pp. 485, with engravings in wood. Longman and Co., London. 1844. 

 We recollect no work, on Elementary Zoology more deserving of introduction 

 into our schools than this pleasing volume, by a lady already favourably knotvn 

 to the scientific world. 



2. Researches on Light. By Robert Hunt, Esq., Secretary to the 

 Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. 8vo, pp. 303. 1844. Longman 

 and Co., London. Mr Hunt's reputation is so well established, that we need 

 only mention this volume to secure it a favourable reception from the philoso- 

 phical public. 



3. Fifth Annual Report of the Registrar- General in England. 2d edi- 

 tion, revised and corrected, 8vo, pp. 603. London, printed by W. 

 Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street. For Her Majesty's Stationery 

 Office. 1843. 



4. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, held at Phila- 

 delphia for promoting Useful Knowledge. Vol. ix. New Series, Part 1st, 

 4to. Philadelphia. 1844. This part contains three articles : — Article 1st, 

 Continuation of Mr Lea's Paper on Fresh- water and Land Shells. 2. Tri- 

 gonometrical Survey of Massachusetts. 3. Observations on Egyptian 

 Ethnography, derived from Anatomy, History, and the Monuments. By 

 Samuel George Morton, M.D. Illustrated by an extensive series of En- 

 gravings. This important memoir we shall notice in our next number. 



