64 Xotices respecting New Books. 



the manifold applications of the electrotype ; exhibits the safety-lamp 

 growing out of the thought of Davy, and chloroform distilling from 

 the brain of Dumas ; dwells upon that domestic wonder — a lucifer- 

 match, and shows its progressive development up to its present 

 stage. Schcenbein discovers that cotton, without changing its ap- 

 pearance, becomes more destructive than gunpowder ; another che- 

 mist finds that it is soluble in aether, and in this state becomes, in 

 the hands of the surgeon, an artificial skin to cover the wounds which 

 it made in its old form. Looms are not now required to make coarse 

 calico fine, for immersion in soda makes it take the form of fine 

 cambric. In the sixteenth century Paris lighted up her streets by 

 fires of pitch and rosin, but to the chemist was reserved the triumph 

 of superseding the clumsy invention by our brilliant coal-gas. These 

 were results unsought for ; they are the necessary ' off-shoots,' as 

 the lecturer aptly terms them, of abstract investigation. The neces- 

 sity of cultivating abstract science is enforced by the fact, that local 

 position no longer gives to nations that superiority which it formerly 

 did. The tendency of things is to make the competition of nations 

 a competition of intellect, and the unfitness aud insufficiency of 

 English training for this great race are strongly deprecated. One of 

 the lecturer's remarks in connexion with this portion of his subject 

 has given offence to the Times newspaper : " The philosophy of our 

 times does not expend itself in furious discussions on mere scholastic 

 trivialities or unmeaning questions of theology." It is not the irre- 

 pressible yearnings of the human heart of which the Times speaks 

 that are here aimed at, but it is the over-refining of the human intel- 

 lect — those ' mumps and measles of the soul ' which find material 

 for quarrelling and discussion in objects intrinsically worthless. 

 How many months have passed away since the entire theology of 

 England was in spasms over a crotchet of this character ? 



A few weeks ago, we happened to converse with a thoroughly 

 practical gentleman on scientific subjects. He spoke of a machine 

 recently applied to the electric telegraph, and in which the electricity 

 was generated by magnetism. The result delighted him, and he 

 praised the genius of its Birmingham discoverer. Before us hung a 

 picture of Faraday — one of those capital prints got up by George 

 Ransome of Ipswich ; we looked upon the pale features and massy 

 brow, stamped with a certain energy of conflict, as if nature some- 

 times required to be forced as well as wooed ; but no association 

 existed in the mind of our companion between the picture and the 

 machine. The genius which gave this wonderful expansion to the 

 simple experiment of Arago, and to which all practical applications 

 of magneto-electricity must be traced, as streamlets to their spring, 

 was never once thought of ! 



We now pass on to the Introductory Lecture of Professor Forbes, 

 on the Relations of Natural History to Geology and the Arts. We 

 felt a strong desire to shake the author by the hand as we read his 

 lecture. There is a force and fire within this man which cannot fail 

 to gather disciples round him. In these pages we have clearness of 

 conception, vigour of utterance, and an intellect which can pierce 



