REVIEWS. 



Recherches Sur les Poissons Fossiles. Par Louis Agassiz. Neuchatel 

 (Suisse). Quarto. 



Professor Agassiz, in this elegant and most instructive Monograph on 

 Ichthyolites, proposes, after an introduction on the study of fishes, to " exhibit a 

 view of the Comparative Anatomy of the organic systems, which may facilitate 

 the determination of the fossil species ; a new classification of Fishes, shewing the 

 relations which they have with the series of (geological) formations ; the exposi- 

 tion of the laws of their succession and development during all the revolutions of 

 the terrestrial globe, accompanied by general geological considerations ; and, 

 finally, the description of five hundred species no longer existing (except in a 

 fossil state), and of which the characters have been determined from the relics 

 contained in the earth's strata." 



This is a truly comprehensive plan, — the emanation of an active, enterprizing, 

 and profoundly philosophic spirit. As far as we can judge from an examination 

 of the First Number (Premiere Livraison) now before us, it has verily been 

 worked out with a master's hand. A production more honourable to the talents 

 and industry of its author, or more useful and interesting to the Ichthyologist, the 

 Comparative Anatomist, and, especially, to the student of Geology, we cannot 

 well conceive. 



Of the divers modes in which a book may be reviewed, the Analytical is pecu- 

 liarly, and almost exclusively, applicable to those scientific productions which have 

 facts, rather than hypotheses, for their foundation. Whenever such productions 

 are, either from the expensive form, or from the language, in which they have 

 been published, inaccessible or unavailable to the great mass of readers whom 

 they are calculated to interest and inform, the motives for the analytical method 

 are greatly and obviously strengthened. Such are precisely the conditions of the 

 valuable Researches of Professor Agassiz. The work is, moreover, written in a style 

 which we, who have long been familiar with the scientific language of the French, 

 have at times found it no easy matter to comprehend, or at least render intelligible 

 to the English reader. Consequently, it will afford an admirable subject for a 

 purely analytical sketch, and for the exhibition of our skill and patience, — if 

 such we possess, — in the difficult but useful process of literary evisceration. 



The various new branches or departments of human acquirement demand, as 

 they successively arise, new terms for their apt and precise designation. The in- 

 fluence of a philosophical language on the character and progress of the Sciences 

 is far greater than a superficial view of the subject would lead us to believe. The 



