JrxE 1, 1886.] 



♦ KNO^A^LEDGE ♦ 



257 



i^th) Books to bt lUntJ (or aboitirti)— 

 aiilr WB\)v, 



Donovan : A Modera Englisliman. By Edna Lyall. 

 (London : Hurst cfc Blackett.) — From the first page, with j 

 its impossible school scene, to the last chapter, with its ( 

 preposterous change of a freetliinking but semi-idiotic card- ; 

 sharper into a believer in all the details of a specific religion, j 

 this book is a collection of absurd incongruitie,s. Except for 

 the scene of the death of Donovan's little sister, there is 

 nothing in the story in which a fuU-gi-own mind can take 

 interest. A schoolgirl's ideas of what a freethinker might 

 be, of the ways and manners of card-sharpers, of the possible 

 iniquities of designing relatives, of the method of training 

 for the medical profession, and so forth, may be curious, and 

 are certainly amusing ; but they can hardly be interesting. 

 This book will be attractive to those who imagine free- 

 thought to be a sort of wild reliellion of mind against all 

 that is sweet and lovely and goody-goodv ; just as the same 

 clas.s of mind delights in recognising such methods of recon- 

 ciliation — save the mark ! — as Mr. Drumniond has tried to 

 arrange between the tenets of a prevalent form of dogmatic 

 religion and the doctrines of science. Vv'e are drawing no | 

 parallel, we need hardly say, between the mystical imagin- ' 

 ings of Mr. Drummond and the incoherent absurdities of the 

 young lady who writes under the assumed name of Edna ; 

 Lyall. But such books are atti-active to the same class of 

 readers, and for the same reason. They supply the same ^ 

 (to them) satisfactory answer to their touchingly pathetic 

 question, " Oh, wh)/ won't thinking men still accept with 

 childlike blaudness the sweet teachings of the pastors of 

 their boyhood ? " For grow-n folk such books are about as 

 suitable as a diet of pap would be for the pioneers of a 

 continent. 



Dictionari/ of National BiograpJti/. Edited by Leslie 

 Stephen. Vol. VI. — Bottomley-Browell. (London : Smith, 

 Elder, &, Co. 1886.) — Mr. Leslie Stephen's noble under- 

 taking, which cannot fail hereafter to rank among our 

 British classics, shows no falling ofl" either in its matter or 

 manner. The present volume exhibits the same catholicity 

 of selection and the same judgment in the treatment of the 

 biographies of which it is composed that have distinguished 

 its predecessors. Concise where the limited interest of its 

 subject demands conciseness, and fuller and more rich in 

 details where fulness is called for, these lives are the very 

 models of what they should be. The man of science will 

 here find all that he needs to know concerning Boulton 

 (Watt's partner) ; Bourne, the mathematician ; Boyle, the 

 chemist ; Bradley, the third Astronomer Royal, whose 

 biography by Miss A. M. Gierke is reallj' admirably 

 written ; Brande, the chemist ; Briggs. the first computer 

 of logarithms to the base 10; Brindley, the engineer; 

 Sir T. M. Brisbane, the astronomer ; T. A. Brown, 

 the meteorologist, etc. etc. ; while the lives of Alderman 

 Boydell, the printseller of our great-grandfathei-s' days; 

 Bras.scy, the contractor; and that of Lord Brougham, 

 of whom it was .sarcasticallj' said that '• if he only knew a 

 little law he would know a little of everything," illustrate 

 that catholicity of selection of which we have spoken above. 

 No library of reference can in future be held to be complete 

 which does not possess this nuujnum opus of Mr. Stephen. 



Accounts of the Gypsies of India. Collected and Edited 

 by David McRitchie. (London : Kegan Paul, Trench, it 

 Co. 1886.) — To every one who has either served or been 

 permanently resident in India the words "gypsies of 



India " will call up the reminiscence of the race of 

 Bunj;iras, who are partly carriers, partly poachers, and 

 wholly thieves, and who, with thch' long strings of pack- 

 bullocks, their complexion — dark even for India — and their 

 bizarre costume, form so picturesque a race of vagabonds. 

 The author of the first part of the most curiously miscel- 

 laneous work before us. Professor de Goeje, however, 

 api)lies the term Zotts, oi' Jauts, to the tribes which he 

 seems to legard as the Indian gypsies, and in which he 

 includes certain jugglere, bearleaders, and the like. He 

 apparently considers these Jauts as descended lineally from 

 the Medes. It would seem as though M. de Goeje's 

 acquaintance with India were limited to the North- West 

 Provinces. His text is illustrated — or contradicted, as the 

 ca.se may be — by numerous notes in an appendix furnished by 

 Mr. McRitchie. Then the siege of Bhurtpoor is lugged in, 

 for no other reason that we can discover than that the 

 defenders of that famous fortress were Jauts. Two chapters 

 on " Remarks on certain Gypsy Chai-acteristics " and " Mis- 

 cellaneous Remarks " complete the volume. That matter of 

 interest is enshrined in it we are not concerned to deny ; 

 but on rising from its perusal we feel that its prevailing 

 characteristic will be best expressed in the words of the 

 Scottish idiot, who, having read a dictionary through from 

 beginning to end, closed it with the remark that " it was a 

 vair' disconnectit bulk." 



British Petographij. By J. J. Harris Teall, M. A., F.G.S. 

 Parts II. and III. (Birmingham: Watson Brothere & 

 Douglas.) — Petogi'aphy, or the study of the intimate structure 

 of rocks, almost owes its being in its existing form to Mr. 

 Sorby, whose masterly microscopical researches liave placed 

 this indispensable adjunct to the knowledge of the field geo- 

 logist upon a truly .scientific basis. Mr. Teall, in the carefully 

 executed work before us, accurately describes the minute 

 structure of the difl'erent rocks of which he treats, and 

 amply illustrates such description by capitally exec\ited 

 chromo-lithographs from slides of the rocks themselves as 

 seen under the microscope, both by ordinary and polarised 

 light. Woodcuts, too, illustrating peculiarities of structure, 

 are scattered through the text. The nature of the minerals 

 and the mode of their inclusion in rock ma.sses, often 

 throws a welcome light upon the method of their original 

 formation ; and, viewsd in this relation, !Mr. Teall's book 

 will be found valuable to all engaged in the work of 

 ])ersonal examination of the materials forming the eaith's 

 crust. 



Thi Rotifera or Wheel Animalcuhs. By C. T. 

 Hudson, LL.D. Cantab , assisted by P. H. Gosse, 

 F.R.S. Parts II. and III. (London : Longmans, Green, 

 & Co. 1886.") — If, on being introduced to a stranger, 

 we were suddenlj' to see his face begin to rotate about 

 an axis passing horizontally through liis nose, we could 

 scarcely behold so surprising a spectacle with more 

 blank amazement than did old Leeuwenhoek feel when, 

 towards the end of the seventeenth centuiy, he obtained his 

 first sight of the wheel animalcule under his microscope. 

 For, with the optical means at his disposal (and, in fact, 

 with more refined apparatus still), the effect of a creature 

 the lobes of whose head were seemingly rapidly turning 

 round like toothed wheels, might fairly cause any observer 

 to doubt the evidence of his own senses. And in this par- 

 ticular case the doubt would have been wholly justifiable, 

 inasmuch as we now know this eflect of seeming rotation to 

 be an optical illusion, having its origin in the motion of 

 innumerable " cilia " fringing the discs which form the 

 head of the creature, and producing a deception akin to that 

 caused by the revolving cups of an anemometer, the 

 Zoetrope, itc. kc. As we have not seen the first part of 



