Notices respecting New Books, 453 
during winter, but not so much as to destroy the fern-trees and 
the parasite orchidew. In the adjoining seas Capt. Cook, in 
42° of austral latitude, did not see the thermometer fall below 
+6°, 6 in the midst of winter (July). To these very mild win- 
ters, summers succeed remarkable for an extraordinary coolness. 
At the southern extremity of New Holland (lat. 42° 41’) the 
temperature of the air rarely rises in the midst of summer at 
noon-day higher than 12> or 14°; and in Patagonia, as in the 
adjoining ocean (lat. 48°— 58>), the mean heat of the warmest 
month is enly 7°— 8°; whereas in the boreal hemisphere at Pe- 
tersburg and Umeo (lat. 59° 56’ and 63° 50’) this heat exceeds 
17—19. It is this mild temperature of the islands, which 
the southern countries enjoy between 30° and 40° of latitude, 
which permits the vegetable forms to pass beyond the tropic of 
Capricorn. They embellish a great part of the temperate zone ; 
and the genera which the inhabitant of the northern hemisphere 
regards as exclusively belonging to the tropical climates, present 
sumerous species between the parallels of 35° and 36° of south 
latitude. 
tina ee ee as 
XCIV. Notices respecting New Books. 
fections. By Joun Rrip, M.D. Member of the Royal Col- 
bury Dispensary. pp. 272. 8vo. Longman and Co. 
Our readers will find in the above work a rational and philoso- 
phical view of the most distressing of all the afflictions to which 
human nature is subject. The treatment recommended by Dr. 
Reid is that of gentleness and kindaess on all occasions, and co- 
incides in all its bearings with the views which have been taken 
of this distressing subject, by those enlightened legislators and 
other friends of humanity who have of late directed the public 
attention to the condition of those afflicted with mental derange- 
ment, 
Dr. Reid’s ideas of modern lunatic asylums are precisely those 
which now generally prevail, and by the adoption of which much 
human misery will in all probability be in future spared ; and to 
his credit be it remembered, that the hints which we are about 
to subjoin were thrown out in another form several years ago by 
the enlightened author, and so far he may claim the merit of 
originality. We now present our readers with the doctor’s de- 
scription of those charnel houses of the human intellect called 
Lunatic Asylums, as a speciinen not only of his philosophical 
Fr3 and 
