Notices respecting New Books. 151 



tion, not possessing a sufficient amount of culture to enable him to 

 form an independent judgment, accepts the fallacy, and attributes 

 the absence of clearness to his own, rather than to his teacher's want 

 of understanding, whereas the latter is often the true cause of failure. 

 Now there is no task more responsible than that of the man who 

 undertakes to write a book for the instruction of the community in 

 science, and no man ought to embark in such an undertaking who 

 is not prompted by higher motives than the mere hope of commercial 

 success. He must love his subject. Years of alliance with it must 

 have made him master of it up to its boundaries, and enabled him to 

 detach the hypothetical from the true. He must know the true 

 value of those images by which natural truths are connected, and 

 rendered intelligible to the human mind ; a knowledge necessary to 

 preserve him from confounding the symbols of science with its veri- 

 ties. He must himself be an investigator, and his skill as such must 

 be ratified by his own discoveries and his manner of communicating 

 them, before his qualifications are complete. 



Few, we imagine, possess the requirements to which we have 

 alluded, in a greater degree than the writer of the book before us. 

 His lifetime has been spent in the investigation of the subject on 

 which he writes. On almost every page we find evidence that the 

 man is not writing from hearsay merely, but that the experiments 

 he records have been repeated by himself, and come to us with 

 the sanction of his own authority. There is no portion of frictional 

 electricity which has been left untouched : on all points the reader 

 will obtain ample information ; and while he reads, he may carry 

 with him the comforting assurance that he possesses a teacher worthy 

 of his confidence. There are many things introduced into this trea- 

 tise which we have observed in no other ; many, indeed, that Ave owe 

 to the author himself, and which constitute the most important con- 

 tributions to this portion of science which have been recently made. 



To the man who wishes to pursue electricity as an earnest study 

 this work will prove of great value, abounding, as it does, with prac- 

 tical suggestions which are founded on the experience of a lifetime. 

 To the mathematician who desires a safe basis for his calculations the 

 book will prove eminently useful. Many portions are beyond the 

 range of the mere popular reader ; they are addressed to the student ; 

 but even the popular reader, by omitting the portions thus referred 

 to, will find all he needs remaining. He must not, indeed, expect to 

 meet in the work an encyclopaedia of electrical amusements : the 

 writer has applied himself earnestly to his task, and has chosen those 

 experiments which illustrate the principles of his science, and which 

 prompt to further inquiry. His vocation is to teach, not to amuse ; 

 and to him who desires to obtain a comprehensive view of the laws 

 and phenomena of this portion of science, we are acquainted frith 

 no work which we can recommend with greater confidence than 

 the treatise before us. 



Tlie work consists of two volumes, large octavo ; it is amply 

 illustruted, and the plate- arc beautifully executed. The manner, 

 indeed, in which the work is presented to the public reflects great 

 credit upon its publisher. 



