REVIEWS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 391 



the stones were decomposed, and transformed into flour." The text is here 

 accompanied by wood-cuts, representing the spring escaping in cascades, and the 

 stones separating into filaments, but the latter are too incorrectly drawn to 

 enable us to form any mineralogical idea of their nature. Another missionary 

 writes, that " in the province of Kiang Si, in consequence of the destruction of 

 the crops by the overflowing of the rivers, a great many people subsisted on the 

 bark of a tree, and others on a light earth, of a white colour, which they dis- 

 covered in a mountain, but which was not abundant, and people even sold their 

 wives, children, household goods, and houses, in order to procure it." It appears 

 that several of the enormous provinces of China consist of open plains, traversed 

 by large rivers, the beds of which are constantly raised by the soil deposited by 

 the water, so that it is necessary to border them with high dykes. If the rivers, 

 as it occasionally happens, rise above these dykes, or break through them, the 

 whole country is inundated, and the usual calamitous circumstances follow. If 

 we add to these disasters the frequent and widely-extended earthquakes which 

 take place in China, those sudden and remarkable changes in the amount of 

 population, which have often excited astonishment, may be easily accounted for. — 

 Atkenceum, Aug. 19. 



REVIEWS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



A History of British Birds. By William Yarrell/F.L.S., Sec. Z.S. Il- 

 lustrated by a wood-cut of each species, and numerous vignettes. London : John 

 Van Voorst, 1, Paternoster Row. Part ii. Sept. 1837. 



This second number justifies the favourable anticipations we were induced to 

 make in a former review (p. 281), relative to this undertaking. In most illus- 

 trated works on Natural History the great difference in the execution of the 

 figures tends not a little to detract from their value; and where ordinary 

 individuals might applaud, the ornithologist may detect errors little creditable to 

 a scientific publication. In the work before us no such defects are to be noticed, 

 even on the most careful inspection. We do not mean to assert that some of the 

 wood-cuts are not less excellent than others ; but this we may safely say, that 

 the admirable character of even the least well-executed, prevents the necessity of f 

 our here examining each representation separately. That these are the most 

 admirable wood-cuts hitherto presented to the public, can, we think, hardly 

 admit of a doubt, except, perhaps, among those whose prejudices or associations 

 lead them to consider the wonderful workmanship of Bewick as still reigning 



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