260 



KNOMTLEDGE 



[September 1, 1887. 



" Caravanning." His first essay in his dainty house upon 

 wheels, made in his own county, Berkshire, proved so 

 eminently satisfactorj*, that he deliberately set himself the 

 task of travelling gipsy fashion up into the North of 

 Scotland, and the record of this tour forms the substance 

 of the book now before us. . . . Starting in the spring of 

 1886, Dr. Stables journeyed from Berkshire, through Ox- 

 fordshire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, 

 Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland (skirting the coast), 

 Berwickshii'e, Haddingtonshire, Edinburgh, Linlithgow, and 

 so to Glasgow. Back through Stirlingshire, and then north 

 through Perthshire, and across the Grampians to Inverness. 

 His " Land Yacht " was a two-ton copy of a gipsy's travel- 

 ling van, built of solid mahogany and titled with every 

 conceivable comfort and elegance, giving two powerful 

 horses nearly as much to do as they could accomplish at all 

 in the hilly country through which it p.assed. The crew, all 

 told, consisted of Dr. Stables himself, his valet cook and 

 fiictotum, his coachman, a gigantic Newfoundland dog, and 

 an Australian parrot. What he saw, whom he met, how 

 he lived, and what real perils (notably in the ascent of the 

 Grampians) he encountered, the reader must go to his chatty 

 and very readable book to discover. Certainly a freer, 

 happier, or more enjoyable life than he depicts it seems hard 

 to imagine. Of course he is a man of intellectual resource 

 and refined tastes, with a keen eye for the million beauties 

 of nature, a love of music, and a soul for poetry ; and it is 

 quite conceivable that a man with fewer endowments might 

 find such a pilgrimage a thought weary at times, especially 

 during a sequence of wet weather ; but our author paints his 

 own experience in such fascinating colours that the British 

 Waggon Company (who built "The Wanderer") ought 

 to be inundated with orders prior to the next touring 

 season. All who read this record, and they will be many, 

 will learn of Dr. Stables's sad experience in committing his 

 caravan to the tender mercies of the railway on his return 

 from the far North, and will heartily sympathise with its 

 owner in his grief and di.sappoiutment at finding how the 

 Company, or its servants, had " made hay " of all his furni- 

 ture and delicate fittings when it arrived at its destination. 

 His book concludes with practical hints and advice to all who 

 may think of adopting his somewhat novel form of loco- 

 motion, and to such it will be found as useful as it is 

 amusing. 



The Young Tea-Planter's Companion. By T. F. Deas. 

 (London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, & Co. 1886.) — It 

 is only within a comparatively few years that tea-planting 

 in Assam has come to be regarded among the businesses 

 or " professions " to which an educated English youth may 

 proBtably devote himself, and has supplied yet another 

 answer to the increasingly ditficult question, " What shall 

 we do with our sons 1 " Mr. Deas, in the entirely practical 

 book before us, goes into the minutest details of the work 

 of a garden and factory, and gives explicit instructions for 

 the cultivation of the plant, its picking, drying, and pack- 

 ing, and even the method of keeping accounts on a tea 

 plantation. Plans and sections of the buildings and bunga- 

 lows needed are given, with details of their construction ; in 

 fivct, the work is a complete i-aJe mecum for the young 

 planter newly entering upon his work. 



Lunar Scierice : Ancient and Modern. By the Rev. 

 Timothy Harley, F.R.A.S. (London : Swan Sonnenschein, 

 Lowrey & Co. 1880.) — Mr. Harley's book is one which it 

 would be difficult to classify, so inextricably are astro- 

 nomical constants and .sermonising intermixed in it. It 

 contains a considerable amount of fairly trustworthy 

 information on the size, weight, distance, and motions 

 of our satellite ; but, if it is to be accepted as a work 

 of reference in connection with these constants, it is a 



pity that its author did not go to some standard authority 

 like Neison for his quantities, and not depend upon a mere 

 compiler like Mr. Lockyer. In connection with this, should 

 the work before us ever run into a second edition, Mr. 

 Harley maj' with advantage make the following corrections 

 of statements to be found in pp. 9, 10, 11, and 17. Imprimis, 

 the moon's mean distance is 238,84:0'25 miles, her maximum 

 distance, 252,972 miles; and her minimum distance, 

 221, 61i miles. Moreover, her true diameter is 2,163-06 

 mUes. In the next place, the earth's equatorial diameter 

 is 41,852,404 feet— i.e., 7,926-59 miles— and not "just 

 under 7,926 miles," as stated in his text. These are com- 

 paratively trivial amendments, but anyone writing a treatise 

 on lunar physics in the year 1886 is at least bound to 

 furnish his readers with the latest results of investigation 

 in the subject of which he treats. With one portion of Mr. 

 Harley's book we are unfeignedly pleased. With a regard 

 for truth at once creditable to him as a man of science and 

 a clergyman, he discusses the alleged miracle described in 

 Joshua X. 12, 13, only to come to the conclusion that, as 

 he says, " We do not for a moment hesitate to pronounce 

 the story to be apocryphal in essence, and poetical in form." 

 For his cogent reasons for arriving at this conclusion we 

 must refer the reader to the book itself. How much of the 

 book of Joshua was inspired it is needless to di.=cuss here. 

 It is abundantly certain that the interpolation from the 

 book of Jasher was not. The reader unfamiliar with 

 current works in astronomy pure and simple may learn 

 a good deal from Mr. Harley's pages. 



Bust, Smut, Mildew, and Moidd. An Introduction to the 

 Study of Microscoinc Fumji. By M, C. Cooke, M.A., 

 LL.i). Fifth edition. (London: W. H. Allen k Co. 

 1886.) — Now that a really serviceable microscope is pur- 

 chaseable for about 5Z., and the instrument has become 

 widely popular and diffused to an extent which fifty years 

 ago would have seemed incredible, there is, and must be, 

 ex 7iecessilaie, a large amount of microscope- power running 

 absolutely to waste for want of some definite scheme of 

 investigation or choice of subject to be studied. To all, 

 then, who are tired of examining a limited series of slides 

 over and over again. Dr. Cooke's work addresses itself, and 

 introduces them to a world of wonders — only, in a majority 

 of cases, too close at hand — which will furnish an inex- 

 haustible storehouse of work for the student. Whether we 

 consider the colouring, the form (in certain cases quasi- 

 geometrical), the life-history and mode of reproduction of 

 these minute and humble forms of vegetable life, or the im- 

 portant part they play in the economy of nature, we cannot 

 fail to be struck with the vast field for res&arch which their 

 structure and formation present. That Dr. Cooke's capital 

 little book has supplied a distinct want we have evidence in 

 the fact that it is the fifth edition that lies before us. His 

 language is always plain and intelligible, and his descriptions 

 of the various lowly fungi of which he treats are admirably 

 illustrated by no less than 269 figures drawn and coloured 

 after nature by Mr. Sowerby. Every possessor of a micro- 

 scope should have this book on his shelves. 



A Si/nopsis of Elementary Eesitlts in Pure Mathematics. 

 By G. S. Carr, M.A. (London : Francis Hodgson. 

 Cambridge: Macmillan A- Bowes. 1886.) — The author, or 

 compiler, of this wonderful monument of patient industry 

 may well be congratulated on having produced a work of 

 perennial value to the student. Containing no less than 

 six thousand propositions, formulse, and methods of analysis, 

 with abridged demonstrations, it ranges over the entire 

 field of pure mathematics, and embodies every useful pro- 

 position in the various branches of which it treats. The 

 student reading for his examination, alike with the advanced 

 mathematician, will find Mr. Cari-'s volume simply invaluable 



