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 NEW BOOKS, WITH SHOET NOTICES. 



Microscopic Objects Figured and Described. By John H. Martin, 

 Honorary Secretary to tlie Maidstone and Mid-Kent Natural History 

 Society. London : Van Voorst. 1870. — Apart altogether from our 

 desire that Mr. Martin had not written this work, we must express 

 our regret that the publisher has sent it to us for review. We say 

 this because we suppose he insists on a notice, and it is not in our 

 power to say a single syllable in praise of the volume. It is without 

 any aim ; it can serve no purpose ; and it is altogether the worst 

 thing of the kind that we have ever seen. There is not, in the whole 

 collection of plates any one which is even fairly passable, and there 

 are many which are as truly execrable as it is possible to conceive. 

 There are 194 drawings of various objects without one that we can 

 say is fairly executed, and indeed some of them are so abominably 

 handled that it is a matter of surprise to us that the author — ^be he 

 possessed of the smallest possible experience — should have allowed 

 them to appear. But, apart from this, the book is altogether aimless. 

 Every one, or nearly so, of the objects (with the exception of some of 

 Mr. Forbes's specimens at the end) have been done, and exceedingly 

 well done, before, in various treatises on Natural History and Histology. 

 And even the rock specimens have been in part done, and very admi- 

 rably so, in an article some years ago by Mr. Forbes, in the ' Popular 

 Science Review.' We have never beheld such abominable misrepre- 

 sentations as the plates, for indeed there is not the faintest depth in 

 them ; there is a horrible flatness about them which gives one the idea 

 of an ordinary di-awing crushed out flat, so as to effectually remove 

 any traces of perspective. We should gladly have avoided saying 

 anything about the work at all, but it would be unfair to our readers 

 to pass any but a most unfavourable critique upon work which has 

 been so execrably handled. 



The Natural History of the British Diatomacece. By Arthur Scott 

 Donkin, M.D., Lecturer in Medical Jurisprudence to the University 

 of Diu'ham. London : Van Voorst. 1870. Part I. — This is the first 

 part of what, when it is completed, will be an extremely useful book. 

 But we fear it will not be finished within the time that the author first 

 proposed. The plates are by Tuffen West, and of course are good ; 

 but somehow or other they do not ajDpear to be the best work of that 

 skilful artist. It may be that, as we judge from the cheaper edition, 

 which alone the publisher has sent us, we may do the artist an injus- 

 tice, but certainly the specimens which we have seen do not convey 

 the idea that they are worthy of Mr. West's hands ; still, they are very 

 fair plates, and as they contain no less than forty-one figures, they are 

 good, considering the price at which each part is sold. The author's 

 work is, so far as we can see, well done, though he has not modified 

 his statements in correspondence with the modern idea of a diatom. 

 For example, he still describes the naviculcB as being striated, instead 

 of being composed of a series of hemispherical nodules. He considers 



