1875.] Notices of Books. 107 
Odours, and Neglect of Ventilation (which appears to have been 
lost), and one on the ‘* Yan-Yean Water Supply” (which has 
shared the same fate), we meet with an interesting essay by 
S. W. Gibbons, F.C.S., on “ Air arid Water Poisoning in Mel- 
bourne.” The sanitary state of this rising city is not to be 
rejoiced over. In the gutters flows a liquid which is ‘“ simply 
sewage, differing only in age from that which flows in London 
sewers. Our sewer is on the roadway instead of under it, and 
the contents are carried off more rapidly. Moreover, the gases 
it evolves, instead of being confined in covered drains, and smelt 
only through occasional gratings, are here diffused in the at- 
mosphere, to be breathed by the residents and passers-by, and 
only observed when they are more than usually noisome, as in 
Bourke and Swanston Streets, at night. Then it is ready-made 
pestilence.”” Mr. Gibbons has made careful microscopical ex- 
aminations of the water from the street-gutters, and the results 
quite confirm the foregoing general description. The people of 
Melbourne, it appears, have the pleasant habit of flushing their 
cesspools iio the street! ‘These same cesspools appear to be 
constructed in a more offensive and dangerous manner even than 
we have them in England. ‘In a very illustrative case that 
lately came under my notice,” says Mr. Gibbons, ‘the floor of 
the closet which joined the house was two feet above that of the 
Jront parlour. It was only emptied when the contents neared 
the floor. The fermented urine had eaten its way through the 
cesspit walls, and had saturated the ground under the house.” 
To appreciate fully this state of things, we must remember that 
the average temperature is about 10° F. higher than that of 
England, and the supply of water decidedly less. 
Passing to other subjects we cannot help noticing with regret 
that chemistry finds apparently few votaries at the antipodes. 
Of the fifty-five papers given in the index, not one can rank 
under the head of chemical research, and even technological 
chemistry and metallurgy are very meagrely represented. Not 
less do we deplore the absence of geological, zoological, and 
botanical research. In a country so imperfectly explored as is 
Australia, we should think that men of an observant turn of 
mind would feel themselves irresistibly drawn to such studies, 
and that a rich harvest of recorded facts would be the result. 
The quantity of work which has to be done before the organic 
geography of Australia is even tolerably complete, and before 
even a superficial oversight of its paleontology is acquired, is 
perfectly immense. -How comes it that a body like the Royal 
Society of Victoria takes so little interest in what may be called 
its natural task ? 
‘“The Classificatory System of Kinship,” by the Rev. Lorimer 
Fison, is a most interesting investigation into the social arrange- 
ments of savage man in pre-historic times. It would be impos- 
sible within our limits to give any just idea of its contents, but 
