82 Review of R. Allan s Manual of Mineralogy. 



ties of triangles of and parallels. After all, it must be remembered that 

 something introductory is needed, (if not Mr. Thompson's thirty-nine 

 pages,) before we can get our passport to land on Plane Geometry at all. 

 And after the most necessary of these changes, how much of Euclid's 

 twelve books will be left ? We are therefore sorry to see men of original 

 mind, like Mr. T. undertake the ungracious task of mending up an old and 

 incommodious structure. It reminds us of the knife which had had three 

 new blades, and two new handles : indeed his Intercalary Book is so 

 startling a contrast to Euclid, that the old Grecian would justly complain 

 of modern innovations, to say nothing of Prop. XXVIII. A, B, C, D, whose 

 weight strains the threadbare substance around them, threatening to make 

 the rent worse. F. W, Newman. 



Nautical and HijdrauUc jE<rperiments, ^c. By Col. Mark Beaufoy, F.R.S. 

 Ato. 1834. pp. 68S. Vol.1. 



This volume is a record of a great number of experiments made by the 

 late Col. Beaufoy, upon " the comparative resistances which different solids, 

 constructed upon the same base and perpendicular, meet with in moving 

 through a fluid." The results of the experiments are given in a convenient 

 tabular form, the tables being arranged according to the face of the solid 

 presented to the resistance. The fifth table is one of comparison with the 

 former, the solids experimented with remaining of the same breadth, but of 

 greater length. 



The work is magnificently got up, and contains a large number of plates 

 and diagrams. We have thought it right to mention its appearance now j 

 but on account of the great practical importance of the experiments, we 

 shall defer a regular analysis of its contents, until the appearance of the 

 two remaining volumes shall enable us to include the whole in one view. 



Manual of Mineralogy . By Robert Allan, Esq., F.R.S. E.,^c. Svo.pp. 351. 



Mr. Allan is known to the scientific world as the possessor of a mine- 

 ralogical collection, second only in importance to that of the British Museum, 

 and collected during a long period by his late father, under whose superin- 

 tendence the materials for the present volume were compiled. 



The Introduction, which occupies about seventy pages of the work, 

 commences with very brief observations on the crystalline forms of 

 Minerals in general, considered according to the system of Mohs. The 

 various physical properties of Minerals are then treated of in the following 

 order J Specific Gravity, Hardness, Colour, Transparency, Lustre, Streak, 

 Cleavage and Fracture, Double Refraction and Effect on Polarized Light, 

 and the Parasitic (Pseudomorphous) formation of Minerals. The Intro- 

 duction closes with the method of employing chemical tests and the blow- 

 pipe, in the analysis of mineral substances. 



