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KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[February 1, 1888. 



boy, he maintained, has many sides ; and he attacked him 

 on all. No boy with an evident inaptitude for classics 

 passed his school life on that account '' under a cloud." 

 Thring believed in finding out what the boy could do, and 

 in seeing that he did that something well. In stimulating 

 and guiding his clever boys, he did not neglect the dullards. 

 " Stars imply a dark night around ; and so it is oftentimes 

 with the stars of a class." The Addresses abound with 

 sparkling and keen allusions, and illustrations to points 

 tliat should be in the minds of every teacher ; and to those 

 of this class who have their work at heart we cordially 

 recommend these little volumes. 



Serpent Worship and other Essays; with a Chapter on 

 Totemism. By C. Staniland Wake. (Cieorgo Eedway.) — ■ 

 A great deal of nonsense has been written about Ophiolatry, 

 and we regret to find that this book, which displays much 

 industry in the collection of varied materials, is not a 

 common-sense contribution to the subject. It is based upon 

 discredited "authorities," and its conclusions are stale and 

 fanciful. A really scholarly work upon what is an im- 

 portant department of animal worship is needed, and this 

 Mr. Wake has not supplied. 



Tlte Creator, and what iv.i may Know of the Mf.thod of 

 Creation. By the Rev. W. H. Dallinger, F.R.S. (T. 

 Woolmer.) — Dr. Dallinger's original investigations into the 

 minutest life-forms have placed him in the front rank of 

 microscopists, while his biological knowledge gives a value 

 to this essay which is usually lacking in expositions of evolu- 

 tion from reverend pens. We have read this eloquent and 

 able brochure with much interest, and with no small sym- 

 pathy, for we are not slow in feeling with its talented author 

 that all our ingenious explanations of processes do not touch 

 the mystery of origins. But we cannot understand the in- 

 voking of a deus ex machind to account for the now im- 

 passable chasm between man and brute. Such a gratuitous 

 assumption is probably made to render easier the passage to 

 certain theological dogmas concerning man which find no 

 support from the theory which Dr. Dallinger, as a Weslej'an 

 divine, hesitates to apply to the evolution of man's spiritual 

 nature. 



Our Earth and its Story. By Dr. Robert Brown. 

 (Cassell &, Co.) — Dr. Brown ranks amongst our ablest and 

 clearest expositors of the results of science, and he brings to 

 the preparation of this book, which is the first volume of 

 what is really an elaborate treatise on physical geography, 

 the requisite knowledge and the skill of presentment which 

 invest the record of the earth's changes with vivacity and 

 charm. The work is well and lavishly illustrated. 



The Saracens. By Arthur Oilman, M.A. (London : 

 T. Fisher Unwin. 1887.) In reviewing a former volume 

 of " The Story of the Nations " series, to which the present 

 work belongs — we mean Professor Vambery's "Hungary" 

 — we spoke of its history as capable of being epitomised 

 in the words " battle, murder, and sudden death." But the 

 horrors of Hungarian history pale before those of that of 

 the Saracens as told by Mr. Oilman, whose entire book is a 

 sequent account of the most ghastly and ruthless slaughter, 

 murder, treachery, violence, and deceit. As chapter after 

 chapter teems with accounts of hideous carnage and butchery, 

 our sympathy for the fiends in human form who perpetrated 

 it evaporates, and we can only wonder that so relatively 

 pure a religion as that of Islam should have bred, and been 

 propagated by, such a i-ace of ferocious and treacherous 

 ijrutes. We read on and on, in a kind of vague hops that 

 we may arrive at something like a peaceful settlement 

 among those who owed allegiance to the Cxliph, but in 

 vain ; and the exclamation of the villain in the melodriima of 

 the old Victoria Theatre, " Wot, more bel-ood ! " rises (in a 



more orthographical form) to our lips as we turn each sue- 

 cessive page. But, malgre the revolting nature of his 

 material, Mr. Oilman has given us one of the best popular 

 accounts of the life and acts of Mahomet that has yet 

 appeared, and has further shown how much more rapidly 

 and effectually a new form of faith may be propagated with 

 the sword than by any amount of missionary etfort. 



Electrical Distribution by Alternating Currents and 

 Transformers. By Rankin Kennedy. (London : H. 

 Alabaster, Gatehouse, <fe Co. 1887.)— Mr. Kennedy's small 

 work is valuable, as containing information not to be found 

 in any of our ordinary electrical text-books, and forms a 

 useful addition to the library of the student of applied 

 electricity. If the electric light is ever to compete with gas 

 upon anything like a large scale, the cost of its production 

 must be materially diminished, and the more the means of 

 supply are simplified, the nearer we shall be to attaining 

 that indispensable end. The most recent devices for ob- 

 taining alternating currents and the construction of trans- 

 formers are described and fully illustrated in Mr. Kennedy's 

 little book. There is a very good chapter, too, on measure- 

 ments. The extent to which the volume is illustrated may 

 be gathered from the intimation that no less than thirty- 

 eight engravings appear in its sixty pages. 



A Revised Currency System. By H. Bull. Th3 Insta- 

 bility of Gold as a Standard of Value. Same Author. 

 (London : Hamilton, Adams, & Co. 1887.) — All interested 

 in the depreciated value of silver coin may read Mr. Bull's 

 two essays with advantage. That a system should be 

 perpetuated by which, to take a single illustration, soldiers 

 aud civilians serving in India are paid in rupees, such 

 nominal rupee being only in reality worth some Is. 5d., 

 seems nothing short of a scandal. Unfortunately, quackery 

 is as rife in monetary theory as it is in medicine ; and the 

 present chances of the deposition of gold as the sole standard 

 of value in the British Empire seem but remote indeed. 



Lairs and Definitions connected with Chemistry and Heat. 

 By R. O. Durrant, M.A., F.C.S. (London : Rivingtons. 

 1887.) — This remarkably well-written little volume is not a 

 text-book in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but rather 

 a companion to the usual chemical text-books, heat being 

 chiefly treated of in relation to chemical work. It will be 

 found very handy by candidates preparing for examination. 

 The descriptions of various tests and methods of analysis 

 should be particularly useful to such candidates. 



We have upon our table Books II. and IV. of Moffatt's 

 History Readers (London : Moffatt & Paige), on " Early 

 Eogland " and " Modern England " respectively, in which 

 a large quantity of historical information is conscientiously 

 boiled down for the benefit of children attending elementai-y 

 schools ; also Moffatt's German Course, by G. H. Williams, 

 M.A. (same publishers), sensible and practical ; Results of 

 Rain and River Observations made in Neio South Wales, dx. ; 

 Notes itpon Floods in the River Darlin;/ ; and Jfotes upon 

 Floods in Lake George, in which Mr. H. C. Russell, the 

 Government Astronomer for New South Wales, continues 

 to add to the existing vast accumulated mass of .statistics of 

 the meteorological phenomena of that colony ; Bench Book 

 for Test-Tube Work in Chemistry, by H. T. Lilley, M.A. 

 (London : Hamilton, Adams, & Co.), very handy for 

 reference. 



71ie Freshwater Fishes of Europe. By H. G. Seeley, 

 F.R.S., F.O.S., &c. (London : Cassell &. Co. 1886.)— 

 Professor Seeley may fairly be congratulated on the value 

 of his late.st contribution to our knowledge of ichthyology, 

 inasmuch as in the volume before us he describes the whole 

 of the freshwater fishes of Europe for the first time, 



