354 Notices of Books. [July, 
remark, under which many people worship their own ignorance 
—and their own personal observation, without reference to any 
book whatever, except it may be the Scriptures !” 
The reader looking over such a list of discoveries and refuta- 
tions will naturally expect that the book contains a detail of 
carefully conducted experiments and observations, from which 
the novel and startling views of the authors have been concluded. 
But there is nothing of the kind. We find assertion, but very 
little, if anything, worthy of the name of demonstration. ‘The 
Authors do not argue; they preach. Whilst ignoring all other 
authority, they expect their own to be implicitly accepted. 
Let us take, as a specimen of the work, the following passage: 
—‘‘ The mineral elements have naturally, as inherent elements, 
the cold colours, blue, black, and white; while the vegetable 
atoms are naturally possessed of the warm colours, red, yellow, 
and orange. Of course there appear to be exceptions. Gold is 
yellow, but it is very scarce, and is prized accordingly. Sulphur 
is yellow also, but it sheds a blue light when burned. Sometimes 
we see blue flowers also, but they are very rare indeed.” 
The last assertion is truly astounding. What English wood 
is not, in spring, blue over with the wild hyacinth? What cliff 
or moorland in the north is not gay in August with the blue 
harebell ? What river in Derbyshire is not bordered with the 
blue forget-me-not? How many hill-sides in the Tyrol and 
Illyria—as Mr. Ruskin has eloquently described—are clad with 
the blue gentianella! A flax-field in flower is no very rare sight. 
If we turn from the fields and the woods to the garden we find 
the lupin, the campanula, the monk’s-hood, the lobelia, the con- 
volvulus (major and minor), the salvia, the crocus, and many 
others, all bearing blue flowers. Turning over the catalogue 
issued by an eminent London firm of nurserymen, we find the 
blue-flowering plants form one-ninth of the species therein in- 
cluded. As the flowers were classified into white, blue, purple, 
pink, crimson, scarlet, yellow, orange, and brown, the blue — 
species hold numerically a fair average position. 
Further, on the author’s showing, white flowers ought also to 
be ‘‘ very rare indeed.” Yet they are, if possible, still more 
abundant than the blue: they accompany us all the year round, 
from the snowdrop of January to the Christmas rose of De- 
cember. 
Sulphur, the authors admit, “is yellow,” although indisputably 
a mineral body. They seek, however, to dispose of this un- 
pleasant fact by adding that ‘it sheds a blue light when burned.” 
Now this is what, on their theory, it ought not todo. Sulphur, 
when burning, combines with oxygen one of their ‘‘ vegetable 
elements,” the characteristic colours of which we are told are 
‘“‘ yellow, orange, and red.” So that we might expect, on this 
view, that its flame would be red instead of blue. Iron and 
copper pyrites, which are decidedly not scarce, are yellow, and 
