Reviews and Notices of BooTcs, 393 



Upper Helderberg, Hamilton and Chemung groups. The report 

 for 1860-61, (dated August and September, 1861,) continues the 

 latter subject, and is of much greater length, extending to 84 

 pages, and containing descriptions of a large number of new forms 

 of gasteropods, cephalopods, and crustaceans, with one annelid 

 and spirorbis. 



Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa ; with Ac- 

 counts of the Manners and Customs of the People^ and of 

 the chase of the Gorilla^ the Crocodile, Leopard, Elephant, 

 Hippopotamus, and other Animals. By Paul B. Du 

 Chaillu ; with numerous illustrations. New York : Har- 

 per & Bros. Montreal : B. Dawson & Son. 



Notwithstanding the suspicion that has been east upon the 

 integrity of Du Chaillu's statements, and the reality of his ex- 

 plorations, by certain critics in England, the reading public seem 

 to have received the book with confidence and enthusiasm. It 

 has passed through many editions both in England and America 

 and is read with avidity by all classes of the community. There 

 is an unquestionable truthfulness in the style and substance of the 

 book. It appears as if impossible, that the great part of it could 

 be written by one who had not actually seen what it describes. 

 That there are some confusion and mistake in the dates of the 

 several journeyings recorded is manifest to the careful reader; 

 and the author has himself acknowledo-ed that some of the illus- 

 trations were copied, without acknowledgment, from the works 

 of another. With these exceptions nothing has been alleged against 

 the book which cannot be satisfactorily accounted for. There is 

 the fact that Du Chaillu has with him, to verify all his strange 

 accounts of the zoology of the regions in which he travelled, 

 the skins and skeletons of the animals which he hunted and dis- 

 covered. When one so competent to judge as Owen has recognized 

 the importance of the author's discoveries, and when the British 

 Museum, at Owen's reccommendation, has purchased for their 

 collection some of the rarer and finer specimens, the ordinary 

 reader need have no hesitation in accepting the book as contain- 

 ing a genuine account of the countries professed to have been 

 visited. But even if the book is not true, we can assure our 

 readers that it is worth perusing, inasmuch as it is as curious and 

 interesting as the charming fiction of Robinson Crusoe. 



In four years Du Chaillu travelled, unaccompanied with other 



