Notices respecting New Books. — Royal Sociely. 293 



Your reply, sir, to JMr. Stephenson is most conclusive, and 

 will be by all generous and candid minds accepted, as fatal to 

 the prioiitv claimed most unv.arraiitably by this per'^on. Mr. 

 Stepheu'.oii, however, has one merit, namely, that of an exact 

 copyist , — \vitner»s even tlie trimmer for the lamp. The miner 

 will remember his " Davy" with gratitude, when the " Idea" of 

 Stephenson will be consigned to n-itive " nothingness." The 

 beinjfs or' former ages could never have anticipated the happy 

 period when the miner should encounter a maijazine of fire-damp, 

 in full consciousness of security, and, as Lord Erskine well ex- 

 presses it, " with Davy's magic lantern by his side." 

 - I am with full respect, sir, 



Your obliged servant, 

 Glasoow, Apiil 23, iai7. J. MtlRRAY. 



LXXV. Notices respecting New Books. 



JVl. Conrad Loddiges, of Hackney, so long celebrated as a 

 cultivator of plants, is preparing for the press a work called The 

 Botanical Cabinet, which is to come out in numbers, containing 

 coloured plates of exotic and British flowers which have blown 

 in his garden. This will comprehend a great number of the 

 most curious species known in Great Britain. 



Mr. William Phillips, author of the Outlines of Mineralogy 

 and Geologv, will publi-sh next month a small duodecimo volume, 

 comprising Eight familiar Lectures on Astronomy, delivered at 

 Tottenham last winter to a numerous audience consisting chiefly 

 of voung persons. It will contain the requisite diagrams and 

 illustrations ; and being intended for the initiation of the young, 

 and for those who are unacquainted with the science, its numerous 

 terms are as much as possible avoided, and such as cannot be 

 avoided are fully explained, in these Lectures. 



Mr. Thomas Forster has just published the fifth edition, with 

 additions, of his Treatise on the Brumal Retreat of the Swallow; 

 together with a copious Table of Reference to authors who have 

 treated of this subject. 



LXXVI. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



ROTAL SOCIETY. 



April 17. JL HB Society having assembled after the holidays, 

 the conclusion of Mr. Marshal's Natural History of the Cinna- 



T 3 men 



