Dec. 2, 1875J 



NATURE 



83 



we question the wisdom of not allowing these Manchester 

 lectures to be self-supporting. Working men are now 

 absolutely better paid than the great majority of clerks and 

 employes in the Civil Service, and their expenditure is 

 less heavily taxed than those who esteem themselves in a 

 higher social scale. Mechanics and others can therefore 

 well afford to pay whatever is necessary for these lectures, 

 and we cannot but think it is an unwise thing to establish 

 the idea that fustian can have for a penny what is charged 

 sixpence or a shilling to cloth. If a penny entrance-fee 

 is too firmly rooted to be dislodged with impunity, boxes 

 might be put in the room for contributions by the 

 audience, who might be urged to make the lectures self- 

 supporting. Moreover, the profits on the sale of these 

 reports of the lectures must be large and ought to go 

 some way towards meeting the expense of the lectures 

 themselves. After all, the main secret of success in any 

 popular lecture scheme is to have some one responsible 

 person, like Prof. Roscoe, who, year after year, has 

 unsparingly used his influence and his time in this good 

 cause. 



We must add a few words about the books before us. 

 When upon opening our parcel we found the editor of 

 Natuie had sent us these lectures with a request for a 

 review of them, we felt he had set us to a hopeless task. 

 What sane solitary reviewer dare venture to criticise 

 the collective wisdom of Professors Huxley, Tyndall, Ros- 

 coe, Gladstone, Geikie, Balfour Stewart, Odling, CUffordj 

 W. C. Williamson, Wilkins, Ward, Jevons, Drs. Car- 

 penter and Huggins, Mr. Spottiswoode, Sir John Lubbock, 

 and other famous men who make up the brilliant array of 

 Manchester lecturers } 



It is hardly needful to say that all the* lectures in 

 these volumes are good, and some well repay care- 

 ful perusal. Many of the lectures are so fascinating 

 that it is difficult to put the volumes aside. What, for 

 instance, can be more charming than Prof. Geikie's 

 lecture on the Ice Age in Great Britain, or Sir John 

 Lubbock's lecture on Modern Savages, or Prof. Stewart's 

 on the Sun and Earth ? And we envy those who were 

 present at such experimental lectures as Prof. Tyndall's 

 on Crystalline Forces, Prof. Abel's on Gun Cotton, or at 

 Prof. Roscoe's or Dr. Huggins', and others we have not 

 space to name. The books before us are therefore well 

 worth preserving, for though the lectures are popular they 

 are in no instance claptrap ; and whilst within the com- 

 prehension of all classes, they will also be found not un- 

 worthy of perusal by men of culture. 



Mr. Pitman, who reported the lectures, has evidently 

 done his work faithfully and well, and Mr. Heywood who 

 publishes them has clothed the volumes^in a new and 

 attractive dress. 



We would venture, however, to suggest to Prof. 

 Roscoe — whose name at the foot of each preface is the 

 only editorial mark — that it would be desirable to have 

 a responsible editor when such permanence, as these 

 volumes indicate, is given to the lectures. Reading one 

 of Dr. Carpenter's lectures, for example, there is a con- 

 tinual reference to diagrams and maps which, though 

 present to the audience, are not so to the reader ; and 

 to some other lectures the same remark apphes. Moreover, 

 before binding up the lectures, the authors, we think, 

 pught to have been informed that a volume was to be 



issued, and so the opportunity afforded them of making 

 any corrections or additions to their lectiu-es they might 

 find necessary. Then a better table of contents of each 

 volume would be an advantage, and the names of the 

 lecturers should be attached to the titles of the lectures in 

 the contents. In the first series the names of those who 

 gave the short courses on Chemistry, Zoology, and Phy- 

 siology are entirely omitted both in the index and in the 

 lectures themselves. A reader opening on p. 119 of the 

 first volume finds the course on physiology beginning 

 "The subject, my friends, upon which I am going to 

 speak to you this evening, &c.," but who the speaker is 

 he will be perplexed to find. Incidentally the omitted 

 names happen to be mentioned by Prof. Roscoe in the 

 preface. Such little matters as these might readily be 

 amended by proper care on the part of the publishers. 



W. F. B. 



RECENT AUSTRALIAN EXPLORATIONS 

 Explorations in Australia; with an Appendix on the 

 Condition of Western Australia. By John Forrest, 

 F.R.G.S. (London : Sampson Low and Co., 1875.) 

 FAURING the last three years there has been an 

 ^-^ admirable activity among the Australian colonists 

 in the exploration of the great tract of unknown land in 

 the centre of the southern continent. It was long ago 

 surmised that this interior was either occupied by a great 

 lake or lakes, or was in the main a barren desert, but 

 only within the last two years has its real condition been 

 conclusively demonstrated. The most prominent names 

 in recent exploration are those of Giles, Gosse, Ross, Lewis, 

 Warburton, and Forrest. The first two were baffled in 

 their attempts to cross the country ; even though Gosse 

 was provided with camels, he only reached close on the 

 130th degree of E. long, when he had to return eastwards. 

 Ross, in 1874, explored a considerable previously un- 

 visited tract to the S.W. of the Keale River, while 

 Lewis explored, in 1874-5, the region to the W., N., and 

 N.E. of Lake Eyre. Col. Warburton has the honour of 

 having been the first to cross the country, starting from 

 Alice Springs on the telegraph line in April 1873, and 

 eight months after, reaching the west coast. His narra- 

 tive we noticed in vol. xii. p. 46. Mr. John Forrest 

 though yet a young man, has perhaps done more than 

 any recent explorer to make known the real nature of the 

 hitherto unknown or imperfectly known regions. He is, 

 we believe, a native of West Australia, a member of the 

 Colonial Survey, and well qualified in every respect for 

 the trying task of Australian exploration, and the Colonies 

 would do well to make Uberal use of his services in order 

 to obtain a satisfactory idea of the resources of their 

 country. 



The volimae before us contains an account of three 

 separate exploring journeys made by Mr. Forrest. The 

 first of these was a comparatively short trip to the north- 

 east from Perth, as far as the 123rd degree of E. lono-., 

 accomplished between April and August 1869. The 

 object of this journey was to endeavour to find some 

 traces of the unfortunate Leichardt, who twenty-seven 

 years ago quitted Moreton Bay to cross the continent, 

 but whose fate is still a mysterj'. We need hardly say 

 that Mr. Forrest's journey was in vain, so far as this 



