1872.] Notices of Books. 367 
The Law of the Winds Prevailing in Western Europe. By W. 
CLEMENT Ley. With Charts, Diagrams, &c. Part I. 
London: Edward Stanford. 1872. 
Tuis work is the first instalment of what promises to be a very 
useful record of the main lines pursued by storms in their 
courses about our own islands, and some of the neighbouring 
countries. Whilst recording with care observations actually 
made, both of barometric change and of direction of wind, Mr. 
Ley attempts to classify the results, and we think with great 
success; still he himself points out that much more observation 
is requisite, and the combined efforts of many interested 
observers are required before much accurate scientific knowledge 
can be said to have been collected. We wish him and his fellow 
labourers all success, and we are quite sure that the carefully- 
prepared diagrams and the systematic character of the records 
in this work will greatly facilitate the labours of future observers. 
The description of the origin of circular motion in winds is 
most clear and luminous, and is capable of being understood by 
a mere child. 
Observations of Comets, from B.c. 611 to A.D. 1640, extracted from 
the Chinese Annals. ‘Translated with introductory remarks 
and an Appendix comprising the Tables necessary for re- 
ducing Chinese time to Euoropean reckoning; and a 
Celestial Atlas. By JoHNn Wittiams, F.S.A., Assistant- 
Secretary of the Roya: Astronomical Society, &c., &c. 
London: printed for the Author. 1871. 
Mr. Wittiams has done useful work which required a rather 
peculiar combination of acquirements. It is not many persons 
who unite a competent knowledge of the Chinese language with 
an acquaintance with the latest discoveries in astronomy. The 
work before us is the result, however, of such a combination, 
and we must thank the author for having undertaken a work 
requiring so much labour, and necessarily leading neither to 
profit nor renown. To the few persons who will make use of 
the lists here given, and they will naturally be few, this work is 
invaluable, and they will no doubt feel doubly grateful and 
assured of the accuracy of what is thus prepared for them, as 
the author furnishes them with the means of testing his accuracy 
and of going over the ground after him. The Chinese mode of 
reckoning time from the earliest epoch of the present day is 
described, and the divisions of the heavens among the same 
people are fully explained. The labour of explaining all this in 
a manner intelligible to those previously unacquainted with 
sinology, of copying, translating, and explaining a great quantity 
of Chinese records, must have been immense, and the reward is 
