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 NEW BOOKS, WITH SHOET NOTICES. 



The MicrograpMc Dictionary. A Guide to the Examination and 

 Investigation of the Structure and Nature of Microscopic Objects. By 

 J. W. Griffith, M.D., M.R.C.P., and Arthur Henfrey, F.R.S., F.L.S. 

 Third Edition. Edited by J. W. Griffith, M.D., M.R.O.P., and Pro- 

 fessor Martin Duncan, M.B. Lend., F.R.S., F.G.S. Assisted by the 

 Eev. M. J. Berkeley, M.A., F.L.S., and T. Eupert Jones, F.R.S., 

 F.G.S. Parts XI., XII., XIII., and XIV. London : Van Voorst, 1874. 

 — Of the four parts of this Dictionary now upon our table, those 

 numbered XI. and XII. have not been issued under the editorship of 

 Dr. Martin Duncan, who has not appeared among the editorial staflf 

 till No. XIII. made its appearance about three months since. He 

 must therefore not be held responsible for the earlier issue, though 

 we believe he will bear almost entirely the weight of editorship for 

 all the numbers which complete the work from and inclusive of the 

 thirteenth part. Of the four parts now under notice it may be ob- 

 served that but one of them possesses plates. This is the eleventh, 

 which contains four pages of illustrations, many of them coloured, 

 and most of them of the Infusoria. We have to observe, however, 

 that these are, if we mistake not, exactly the same as those issued many 

 years since, and they are therefore very far behind-hand. We not 

 only refer to the size of the figures, which is on vastly too small a 

 scale, but to the fact that our increased knowledge of the structure, 

 due to the observations of Claparede and Lachmann, and of several 

 English workers, especially Mr. E. Eay Lankester, is not portrayed as 

 it certainly ouglit to be. But if these objections be accepted, it must be 

 admitted that the numbers are in other respects very well -executed. 



It is, however, when we come to consider the matter in these four 

 numbers that we perceive the great difference in many respects 

 between Nos. XI. and XII., on the one band, and Nos. XIII. and 

 XIV. on the other. In the first place, we may remark that in the 

 first two numbers the articles alone which have to do with either 

 fungi or fossils are unquestionably good ; most of the others are 

 undeniably behind the time, having been left pretty nearly as they 

 were when the last edition of the Dictionary made its appearance. 

 Let us take two or three examples of the part of which we complain. 

 The paragraph on the eye is by no means sufficiently full, even in re- 

 gard to the microscopic subjects which the writer proposes to discuss. 

 The question of the ciliary muscle, for instance, is almost untouched 

 uj)on ; and as to the question of the nerve supply of the cornea, which 

 has been so fully dealt with even in these pages, the writer appears to 

 have no knowledge of it whatever. And many other points might be 

 alluded to. The article Fermentation, again, is vastly too brief; no 

 allusion whatever is made to Pasteur's researches, though his name 

 is mentioned in the bibliography appended to the paper ; yet of 

 course chemical readers are aware of the immense extent of Pasteur's 

 researches, and of their bearing on some of Pouchet's inquiries in the 

 same direction. Under the heading of Spontaneous Generation also 



