54 Notices respecting New Books. 



the results of which it comprehends, in the endeavour to produce a 

 British Physical Atlas the execution of which shall be worthy of 

 the grand generalizations on which it is based. 



The advantages which attend this mode of conveying information it 

 is scarcely necessary to enlarge upon ; it has all the simplicity of a ta- 

 bular arrangement, without that bare abstract quality which leaves to 

 the mind no connecting links, no means of association, and demands 

 a distinct elFort of memory for every fact ; while with the majority of 

 persons the pictorial form of a map makes a peculiar kind of impres- 

 sion, which can be reproduced at pleasure in the consciousness, and 

 becomes a gi-ound on which the several facts may be retraced. The 

 good effect that must result from the more accurate knowledge thus 

 attainable by the "uninitiated " of the vast extent of the complex 

 details which are necessary to the evolution of the simplest genera- 

 lizations, will be at once admitted on looking abroad upon the crude 

 speculations which are so hastily grasped in the daily increasing 

 desire for knowledge of the deeper mysteries of nature. A man who 

 has carefully and patiently studied these maps and pondered over 

 the multitude of "experimental truths "on which the simplest of 

 them depends, will probably pause ere he accepts cosmical theories 

 which find their materials in popular " abstracts." Not that we 

 undervalue the speculative faculty ; but it is evident that the depart- 

 ment of observation and experiment is that to which those inquirers 

 should restrict themselves, whose opportunities or inclinations pre- 

 vent their acquiring a comprehensive knowledge of the subjects by 

 ■which they are attracted. 



To such persons this Atlas will be exceedingly valuable, as indi- 

 cating the precise state of our information in regard to the facts, and 

 thus pointing out to them where their labours may be most usefully 

 directed. To the general student it will convey clearly and agree- 

 ably a mass of that knowledge which is daily becoming more neces- 

 sary to him. To the rising generation, in whose education these 

 subjects cannot well be neglected, where any pretension is made to 

 keep pace with the intellectual progress of the times, these maps will 

 throw new and powerful interest into the study of geography, lead- 

 ing not merely to the knowledge of relative position and political or 

 other artificial divisions, but to an appreciation of the natural rela- 

 tions, regarded either in a scientific or ceconomic point of view, of the 

 various regions to each other, and a comprehension of the grand 

 unity of this our terrestrial world, where each part is, as it were, 

 complementary to all the rest. 



In the execution of this design the various subjects are arranged 

 under the two general heads of the phacnomena of Inorganic and 

 Organic nature ; the former comprehending three subdivisions, — 1. 

 Meteorology and Magnetism; 2. Hydrology, and 3. Geology; the 

 latter nominally two, viz. Pliytology and Zoology ; but apparently 

 under the latter head we must include Ethnology, since among 

 the maps already published we find an Ethnographic map of the 

 British Islands. 



Five parts of the work are now before us, which, according to the 



