1885.] BE VIEWS OF BOOKS. 385 



current may work its destructive way, and soon these new features 

 in the landscape will appear. Indeed, the rapidity with which a 

 waterfall may be worn Lack is shown in the case of the lower falls 

 of the Genessee at Portage, New York. Within five years, the period 

 of Mr. Hall's own observation, the depth has increased in some 

 places by 5 or G feet, and the southern termination of the channel 

 has extended several rods. 



It was proposed to avoid the rapids of the Madeira river in ]5razil 

 by constructing a railway 175 miles long. As the project was 

 abandoned, the chief obstacle to extensive commercial relations 

 betwixt Bolivia and Brazil continues. Along the course of the 

 Paraguay, which has no such natural impediments as we are discuss- 

 ing, many villages adorn the banks. The Parana has none above 

 Encarnacion and Candeleria, where waterfalls abound. The Colum- 

 bia and Fraser rivers in North America have their navigation thus 

 seriously impeded. Steamers are stopped by rapids when only 

 165 miles from the mouth of the former. A railway, 6 miles in 

 length, surrounds these, and then navigation can be resumed 40 

 miles farther to the Dalles. Here the river bends to the south in 

 the shape of a horse-shoe, and sweeps with a rapid current through 

 a basaltic trough with vertical walls 200 yards apart. Still higher 

 other falls and rapids occur, with navigable stretches between. The 

 Eraser river is similarly stopped at Yale, 90 miles above its mouth, 

 a considerable stretch of navigable river succeeding this interruption. 

 Mr. Chisholm's paper, which we have only touched, will form an 

 instructive study for winter evenings along with the other contents 

 of the magazine ; the map of the Scottish colony on the Shire 

 Highlands should interest that increasing number having corre- 

 spondents in that part of Eastern Africa. 



THE FORESTRY EXHIBITION PRIZE ESSAYS. 



Foo'cstry and Fmxst Products. Prize Essays of the Edinhurgh Inter- 

 national Forestry Exhibition, 1884. Edited by John Eattkay, 

 M.A., and Hugh Egbert Mill, B.Sc., etc. Edinburgh : David 

 Douglas. 



This volume is an example of the merits and evils of the prize 

 «ssay system. Here are a series of essays, chiefly on side topics, 

 containing much interesting matter, but a part of which rai^ht 

 safely have been excised. As a memorial of the late Exhibition, 

 the accompanying plate might have been accommodated to the actual 

 facts of the case. The electric railway did not run right round the 

 building. Of what use, too, are the numerous names of firms on 



