Tue Microscope. ql 
of the handsomest. books we have ever seen. The engravings 
are profuse and finely executed. It is printed on heavy paper. 
The cover is beautifully embossed in gold and thus made attrac- 
tive when on the shelf or library table. The illustration on the 
cover, showing the relation of the face to the axis of the body 
is both unique and telling. 
WoRLD-LIFE AND COMPARATIVE GEOLOGY. By Alexander Winchell, 
LL. D., Professor of Geology and Paleontology in the University 
of Michigan. Second edition. Illustrated, pp. 642. 12 mo. cloth. 
Price, $2.50. S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago. 
It is always with delight that we peruse the fascinating 
works of this author. He may simply present a great store- 
house of facts and opinions, yet it will be done in sucha manner 
that the keenest interest will be excited. To one unfamiliar 
with the awful grandeur of our universe, the startling state- 
ments of the writer, stupefy with amazement. ‘Seven and 
one-half millions of meteors bright enough to be seen by the 
naked eye, pass through our atmosphere, on an average, every 
twenty-four hours, and this number must be increased to four 
hundred million if those be included which a telescope would 
reveal.” We read of ‘“ Nebular life,” “ A cooling planet, ‘* The 
Earth,” “ The condition of the fixed stars,” and we have our 
curiosity still more excited as we peruse the pages that specu- 
late upon the “ habitability of other worlds.’ Impressed on 
every page is the profound learning of the author, yet so grand 
and simple is the style that whole chapters read like a romance. 
We are accustomed to study the growth and decay of a micro- 
scopic germ, but the author tells us here of the growth and 
decay of worlds. He takes us from the nebulous mass diffused 
through space to suns and worlds, and then shows us their final 
dissolution. It is a book to be read rapidly with satisfaction ; 
it is a text-book to be carefully studied. Such a portrayal of 
the grand system of the universe must leave the reader ‘“ with 
a profound impression of the ominpresence and supremacy of 
one intelligence.” 
