i8g 3 . SOME NEW BOOKS. 395 



furniture, food, and clothing, he has but little advice to give upon 

 methods for their wholesale destruction. 



On Hail. By the Hon. Rollo Russell. 8vo. Pp. xvi., 224, with 2 photographs of 

 Hailstones. London : Edward Stanford, 1893. Price Gs. nett. 



This book deals with " Descriptions of Hailstorms and Hailstones," 

 " Observations of Temperature, Clouds, and Winds at great Alti- 

 tudes," and " Electricity and Hail." The author then gives a digest 

 of the various " Theories of Hail," and of " certain properties of 

 Vapour, Water, and Ice, and conditions of the Air which may be 

 connected with the formation of Hail," with a " Summary of charac- 

 teristics of Hailstorms and Hailstones," and notes on " the Develop- 

 ment of a Hailstorm." Appendixes on " General Weather Conditions," 

 " Cold produced by Radiation," " Dust Particles and the form of Ice- 

 crystals," " Types of Hailstones," etc., are also given, and the author 

 states the conclusions arrived at from his researches. 



The work can be recommended to the student, as presenting all 

 that is known on the subject up to the present, and especially for the 

 convenient digest of the theories of previous writers. It should also 

 form a useful addition to the library of the general reader. It is well 

 got up, printed in large type, and the two photographs of hailstones 

 (actual size, one of which is 2 in. in diameter) which fell at Richmond, 

 Yorkshire, in the storm of 8th July this year, are excellent, and show 

 both internal and external structure. 



Messrs. Cassell & Co. have issued part i. of a new Gazetteer of 

 Great Britain and Ireland ; it is clearly printed, it is accompanied by 

 a neat map of the British Isles coloured to show the counties dis- 

 tinctly, and there is also the first section of a map of England on a 

 scale of an inch to rather more than ten miles. The work is intended 

 to be " A Complete Topographical Dictionary of the United 

 Kingdom," and it professes to meet " a want hitherto unsupplied." 

 Among the many matters on which information is promised in the 

 preface, are notes on the Prehistoric Remains, Earthworks, &c, on 

 the Physical Features, and (in the cases of parishes) some account is 

 to be given of the nature of the soil. 



Judging from the part now before us, we find that the articles, as 

 a rule, are much shorter than those of Fullarton's Gazetteer of 

 England and Wales, of which the first edition was published in 1843. 

 It was no doubt difficult to get good accounts of the soils in each 

 parish, consequently we find the subject treated very unequally, and 

 not always clearly, nor accurately. The following are instances :— 

 At Abbeystrowry, " Soil clay and artificial loam, overlying slate " ; 

 Abbotsbury, " Soil chiefly red clay " (no mention of iron ore and 

 limestone) ; Aberavon, " Soil sand and gravel, overlying coal and 

 minerals"; Abernethy, "Soil chiefly granite rock"; Aldborough, 

 "Soil loamy, overlying clay" (no mention of shelly "crag"); 

 Aldington, " Soil various, overlying rock"; Aldsworth, "Soil stone- 

 brash, overlying lime and freestone." A concise and reliable account 

 of the principal soils and economic products of the rocks in each 

 parish would have been useful. 



The Cambridge University Press are about [to publish a series 

 of Natural Science Manuals, which will cover a wide field, some of 



