398 NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



Gentlemen. Illustrated with Meyen's Botanical Map of the World. 

 London : Cassell, Petter, and Galpin. 1870. Bvo, pp. xvi. 436. 



The perusal of this book has given us pleasure. It supplies a want 

 long felt, and, though it is not all we desire, yet it deserves recom- 

 mendation. Dr. Yeats was induced to undertake it through finding, 

 on comparing the educatioual literature of the Continent with that of 

 England, that we possessed no books adapted for technical instruc- 

 tion. The object of the book is thus expressed in the introduction : — 

 " In the following pages, which comprise the geography and the natu- 

 ral history of raw materials, an attempt is made to supply young En- 

 glishmen engaged in mercantile pursuits with such knowledge of the 

 earth and its productions as is regularly aff'orded in the Handels- 

 Schulen of Leipsic, Berlin, Antwerp, and Eotterdam. In them the 

 future Dutch or German merchant is taught to look beyond the limits 

 of the Zollverein, and to regard the world as a vast storehouse, with 

 the contents of which he must make himself familiar. At school he 

 studies the sources of supply for the goods he must hereafter deal in. 

 A counting-house, he is told, is a place in which he will be expected 

 to me his knowledge, not to seek it.'' 



The book is divided into four parts, viz. : — Part I, " Geography of 

 the Home Country, the adjacent Continent, our Colonies and Depen- 

 dencies, and Foreign Trade Connections" (pp. 1-121). Part II. 

 " The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom" (pp. 128-255). 

 Part III. " The Commercial Products of the Animal Kingdom " (pp. 

 257-348). Part IV. " Eaw Mineral Products " (pp. 349-385). We 

 must restrict ourselves to a short examination of Part II., in the pre- 

 paration of which the author had the assistance of Mr. Harland Coultas. 



The commercial products of the vegetable kingdom are considered 

 under two classes, Eood Plants and Industrial and Medicinal Plants. 

 Under " Farinaceous Plants " the chief food plants of the world are 

 mentioned. All the East Indian Eice is not sent over in the "paddy" 

 state, but with the glume or " husk" removed to a greater or less degree. 

 Tous-les-mois is stated (with a query) to be the produce of Canna coc- 

 cinea. It cannot be from this plant, the roots of which are fibrous and 

 not tuberous ; from the researches of Lambert, C. edulis seems to be the 

 source. Chillies, or Cayenne Pepper, is dei'ived from Capsicum fasii- 

 giatum, not from C. annuum. Star-Anise, and Mustard (though their 



