February 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



93 



a dull paragraph in it. Stones and soils, as well as birds 

 and flowers, are treated in a clear, chatty style, which almost 

 makes us forget how solid is the closely-packed knowledge 

 which it conveys. Each section is followed by a summai-y 

 and by subjects for composition, while the numerous illus- 

 trations, although small in scale, are drawn with accuracy 

 and high finish. Unlike most books, the book, like a bishop, 

 has not sutiered by translation, the excellence of which is 

 due to Madame Bert, herself a Briton. We note an error 

 on p. lii, where it is stated that " the earth gi-ew cooler by 

 turning and rolling through space," this being the opposite 

 of the fact. Heat is a form of energy, and the cooling of the 

 earth is due to the loss of that molecular energy which it 

 derived from the impact of its particles as they were drawn 

 from the gaseous to the soUd state. 



The Granite Crags of California. By C. F. Gordon 

 CuMMlNG. (William Blackwood & Sons.) — Miss Gumming 

 is the cheeriest of globe-trotters. Age cannot wither nor 

 custom stale the variety of her trips and the vivacity of her 

 descriptions. If her drawings fail — as all attempts of the 

 kind must fail — to make us realise the astounding heights 

 of the trees and waterfalls of the Yo- Semite valley, the 

 letters which compose this book give vivid impressions of a 

 country which Ls a veritable paradise for farmers and wine- 

 gi'owers. The striking geological features of the canons, or 

 great chasms of the American continent ; the marvellous 

 growth of San Francisco from a log settlement on swamp 

 and sand plain to a city of 300,000, for whom the 

 beneficent authorities provide a free railway, and whose 

 dead are made life-like by the art of the enameller and the 

 dentist, and laid out in caskets lined with the loveliest rose 

 satin ; stories of the gold fever and of the merciless wars 

 between Christian whites and Heithen reds ; these, and the 

 freshly-written descriptions of C'aliforniau scener}-, are the 

 chief features of a hook which it is a pleasure to read from 

 cover to cover. 



Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of 

 Irelaiul, with Sketches of the Irish Past. By Lady Wilde. 

 (Ward & Downey.) — Now that folk-lore has taken rank as 

 a serious study, and the stories of beldames are found to 

 pr&serve the beliefs of a barbaric past, we expect a collector 

 to be more than a .story-teller. The accomplished com- 

 piler of these volumes has done her work so well that we 

 regret she has not done it better. The myths and legends 

 are all of deep interest and value, and have seemingly not 

 been touched-up in transfer from oral to written form, but 

 the defect, so far as their value to the student of compara- 

 tive mythology is concerned, is that only the scantiest clues 

 are given to the districts whence they were gathered. The 

 fullest information should have been furnished with each 

 tale as to narrator, place, and circumstance ; and we hope 

 that the issue of a second edition may enable Lady Wilde to 

 supply this omission, as well as to add an index. Her 

 introductory chapter on the origin and isolation of Irish 

 legends is based upon antiquated theories, while tlie closing 

 chapters on the past history of the island are marred b}' 

 references to " pre-Adamic rudimental humanity," which 

 imply retention of beliefs long discredited by anthro- 

 pologists. 



Marcella Grace. By Rosa 3Iuliiolland. (Kegan Paul, 

 Trench, and Co.) — We do not leave Irish soil in passing to 

 notice this book, which lies in some danger of neglect 

 amongst the pile of novels of a season. This should not 

 be, for the .story is one of singular strength and pathos, 

 having special interest at the present time, when men's 

 minds are troubled with the " Condition of Ireland " question. 

 Not that Miss MulhoUand obtrudes part}- politics into her 

 vivid pictures of the peasantry and of the restless plotters 



who work wild, rough revenge on the land-grabber and the 

 ejector ; but the political side of social troubles cannot be 

 ignored as giving significance to the story. The heroine is 

 no puppet of the three-volume pattern, and the prison-scene 

 in which her lover, on the eve of trial for a crime in which 

 he had no part, dissuades her from perjuring herself to save 

 him, is written with remarkable power. The book evidences 

 throughout gi'eat pains on the authoress's part, and we com- 

 mend it heartily to oiu- readers. 



In connection with it, we welcome the re-publication of 

 The Late Miss HoUingford , an early tale of skilful construc- 

 tion by the same authoress, which was a great favourite 

 with Charles Dickens. Messra. Blackie and Son are the 

 publishers. 



In the Wrong Paradise and Other Stories. By Andrew 

 Laxo. (Kegan Paul, Trench cfe Co.) — The story which 

 gives its title to this sparkling book is very amusing. 

 Each religion has its own paradise, and the fun — to the 

 reader — consists in the departed getting into the wrong 

 place. A Presbyterian minister finds himself in the 

 paradise of the Ojibbeways, where he makes sport for 

 the spirits, who scalp him at intervals, the scalp growing 

 again immediately to permit repetition of the operation. 

 In like manner a serious and shy University man finds 

 himself amongst bright and large-eyed houris in the " trans- 

 cendental Cremorne " of the Mohammedan paradise. But 

 the " Romance of the First Radical " interests us most. It 

 has the germs of the anthropological novel of the future, 

 which is to displace Fenimore Cooper's with his jiarvenu 

 savages. In this brightly- writ ten but shadowed nan-ative 

 of Whv-^'hy's troubles through adoption of the new-fangled 

 here.sy of private judgment, Mr. Lang draws upon his rich 

 store of knowledge of barbaric rite and custom. The reprint 

 of his clever jeu d'esprit, " The Great Gladstone Myth," 

 adds value to the book. 



For the facts which supply material for the coming 

 novelist of the pre-historic period, for whom Mr. Lang thus 

 paves the way, we may call attention to two books from the 

 pens of distinguLshed foreign savants, namely, Tlie Pre- 

 Hi-story of the Xorth, by the late Dr. Worsaae, translated 

 by H. MoRLAND Simpson (Trilbner &, Co.), and M. de 

 Qijatrefage's Introduction sur V Ettide des Races Huinaines, 

 the first volume of a general history of the races of mankind, 

 entitled La Bibliotheqiie Pthnologique (Paris: Hennuyer; 

 London : Triibner &, Co.) — Dr. Worsaae was the distin- 

 guished director of the Royal Museum of Northern Anti- 

 quities at Copenhagen, the most complete of its kind in 

 Europe, and the book under review gives a general and 

 pleasantly written survey of the results arrived at by com- 

 parative examination of prehistoric materials. The Danish 

 antiquaries were the first to throw light on the earliest- 

 known periods of human culture, and one important result 

 was the proof of agreement between the mode of develop- 

 ment in various parts of the world. A succinct account of 

 the Stone Ages, the enormous break between which the 

 learned author does not sufliciently insist upon, is followed 

 by local illustrations of their features in Northern Europe ; 

 and in treating of later epochs Dr. Worsaae supplies inte- 

 resting matei'ial bearing on the religious rites, and notably 

 on the worship of Thor, among Northern races. If his 

 volume adds little of novelty to the subject, it gives us the 

 judgment of an expert upon questions of lasting interest, 

 and it is entitled to a place by the side of Tylor, Nilsson, 

 Lubbock, and other authorities. 



The work of M. de Quatrefages, as its title implies, is 

 more purely ethnological. In the opening chapters on the 

 place of man in the scale of organic life and on the theories 

 of his origin in one or more parts of the globe, the author 



