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XIV. Reviews, and Notices respecting New Books. 



Abstracts of the Papers printed in the Philosophical Transactions of 

 the Royal Society of London,from 1800 to 1830 inclusive. Printed, 

 by older of the President and Council, from the Journal Book of the 

 Society. London 1832, 2 vols. 4to and 8vo : vol. i. pp. 516; 

 vol. ii. pp. 448. 



THE Philosophical Transactions contain the details of a series of 

 discoveries and other developments of scientific truth, which, if 

 not superior to those made public in any similar collection produced 

 in foreign countries, especially in the results of pure induction, is 

 unquestionably equal to any, and of much greater value than roost. 

 They comprise the records of nearly all the more important mathe- 

 matical and physical investigations which have been made by the 

 philosophers of Britain, from the aera of Boyle and Wren, through 

 that of Newton, Flamsteed and Halley, down to the aera just passed 

 of the first Herschel, Wollaston, and Davy. 



In the Report of the Council of the Royal Society for 1832, given 

 in our Magazine for May last, (Lond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag. vol. ii. 

 p. 37-0 we are informed that the Council had directed the printing 

 of an edition of the Abstracts made by the Secretaries, and entered 

 on the Journal Book of the Society, of such papers as had been read 

 to the Society and ordered for publication in the Philosophical 

 Transactions, from the year 1800 to the present time. The motive 

 for the intended publication is stated to be the opinion of the Coun- 

 cil that a collection of these Abstracts, which, it is observed, possess 

 in themselves much intrinsic value, would form a useful sequel to 

 the Abridgment of the Philosophical Transactions, (by Dr. Hutton, 

 Dr. Shaw and Dr. Mason Good,) of which the public are already 

 in possession, but which, it is added, does not extend to a later pe- 

 riod than the end of the last century. 



Agreeing entirely with the Council of the Royal Society in our 

 opinion of the value of the Abstracts, and of the propriety of their 

 publication, we conceive that they have performed an important and 

 acceptable service to the Society, and to all who are engaged in the 

 cultivation or promotion of science, by the production of the vo- 

 lumes now before us. The period through which the Abstracts 

 extend is one of the proudest in the annals of science; for during 

 it were effected, or first made public, as appears from these records, 

 — the hitherto unrivalled analytical researches in chemistry of Da- 

 vy; — many of the most stupendous and sublime investigations in 

 sidereal astronomy of Dr. Herschel ; — the exquisite applications of 

 combined knowledge and skill, whether to the discovery of new 

 elements or to the improvement of the means of observation and re- 

 search, of Wollaston ; — the laborious, exact, and refined investiga- 

 tions of the all-but-universal Young; — the bulk of the papers on 

 comparative anatomy and physiology by Home, comprising also the 

 results of the accurate dissections of Clift, and the almost unrivalled 

 microscopical observations, dissections, and drawings of Francis 



