LITERARY NOTICES. 



563 



The illustrations of these sentiments, oc- 

 curring in Mr. Perinchief's letters, are note- 

 worthy. He was a careful reader of this 

 magazine, and thus wrote concerning it to 

 his friend Mr. John A. Graham, of New 

 York : " I am exceedingly obliged to you for 

 that copy of the ' Science Monthly ' ; I am 

 much delighted with it. This is an enterprise 

 I would very gladly see prosper in this coun- 

 try. It is very much needed, and I be- 

 lieve it will be sustained. It will help men 

 who are now thinking along their own soli- 

 tary lines ; it will stimulate thought in those 

 who have not thought before ; it will grad- 

 ually elevate the tone of our entire litera- 

 ture. If it can only get among our church 

 people, it will make many of them more 

 truly religious. Success to it." 



Again he wrote to the same gentleman 

 regarding two books bearing in opposite di- 

 rections upon current controversies. 



Draper's book is better than I expected to 

 find it. I knew it was a book with something in 

 it, but I find a great deal in it, and I am satis- 

 fled there is a great deal more in it than he has 

 put in so many words upon the face of it. This 

 book, like many others of recent origin, con- 

 vinces me that there is such a thing as the spir- 

 it of an age, a something which turns the gen- 

 eral mind in a given direction. It startles me a 

 little to find, in books, things which I have dug 

 out little by little. It startles me to find, in 

 black and white, conclusions at which I have 

 very reluctantly arrived, which I have tried to 

 resist, but at last found irresistible. And there 

 are yet other things which must come, for there 

 ia much that is "rotten in Denmark "!— other 

 things which have made me sick in discovering 

 them, and now make me sick in contemplating 

 them. What changes the last twenty five years 

 have wrought I How much greater changes the 

 next twenty-five years will work I All too late, 

 however, for me personally; I was born too 

 soon or too late. The churches, the ministry, 

 the theology of the past will not do for the fu- 

 ture. The new wine can not be put into the 

 old bottles. . . . 



The Duke of Somerset's book is hardly a 

 book. There is really very little in it. It is not 

 a spontaneous production of his, it is a me- 

 chanical collection of scraps, things somebody 

 else has evolved ; many Oi those things are true 

 enough, but they lack life. Some of them are 

 not true at all, only "my Lord Duke" don't 

 know it. In some cases he don't even see the 

 idea he wants to hit. He simply fires up the 

 tree, violating Davy Crockett's first law of shoot- 

 ing. The work of the true seer is not destmc- 

 tion, but construction. If the Duke had lived 

 fifty or a hundred years ago he would have been 

 in his proper time. Any landsman can see the 

 waves and the storm and the rocks, but the 



true pilot is the man who takes us safely past 

 them. Men like Draper and Arnold show us a 

 continent ahead. The Duke of Somerset only 

 tells us there is not one behind us. 



Some of Mr. Perinchief's sermons have 

 been published, but are out of print ; new 

 editions are announced. They are remark- 

 able for vigorous simplicity of style, warmth 

 of religious feeling, and independence of 

 thought. Mr. Perinchief's position in the 

 Church was similar to that of Frederick 

 Robertson. There is much likeness in their 

 intellectual work, and in the opinion of 

 many the excellences of Mr. Perinchief's 

 discourses are quite equal to those of the 

 eminent and liberal English clergyman. 



The Arctic Voyages of Adolf Erik Nor- 

 DENSKIOLD JTIOM 1858 TO 1879. With 

 Illustrations and Maps. London : Mac- 

 millan & Co. 1879. $4.50. 



NoRDENSKioLD occupics an eminent posi- 

 tion among the explorers of Arctic lands. 

 For upward of twenty-one years, or since 

 1858, he has devoted his great abilities to 

 I that laborious and often perilous work. Ac- 

 j counts of his researches and discoveries have 

 j appeared from time to time, and the Swedish 

 ' Arctic and Polar Expeditions planned by 

 him, or in which he took a conspicuous part, 

 have a wide fame, and are rich in results. 

 The latest expedition undertaken by the 

 great explorer was a successful effort to 

 reach Behring's Strait and the Pacific Ocean 

 from Norway by way of the Kara Sea and 

 the Arctic Ocean. In this and in two pre- 

 vious expeditions along the north shores of 

 Europe and Asia an extensive series of ob- 

 servations was made of the greatest impor- 

 tance to commerce and to science. The 

 coast-line was well determined and mapped, 

 soundings were made, and a record kept of 

 meteorological and magnetical observations. 

 Besides these, some of the great rivers which 

 empty into the Arctic Sea were explored ; 

 the important fact was shown that the 

 northern lands of Siberia are not only high- 

 ly fertile, but are susceptible of cultiva- 

 tion ; and that a vast pine forest of gigantic 

 growth extends northward of the Arctic Cir- 

 cle, stretching from the Ural cjuite to the Sea 

 of Okhotsk. Many more plants were foimd 

 at home in higher latitudes in Siberia than 

 in Sweden. The white and red currant 



