Zoological Society. S77 



vegetable kingdom, thus influencing the distribution of Man upon 

 earth, his commerce, arts, and habits. These are the chief points 

 of Ur. Maury's little work, in which Hydrography and Meteorology 

 have a prominent place, rather than what is usually called " Phvsi«J 

 Geography." 



The author herein brings the many good facts and theories col- 

 lected and worked out by long and careful labour in his * Sailing 

 Directions ' and ' Physical Geography of the Sea ' to bear on the 

 evidence of creative design in the arrangement of the " physical 

 machinery of our planet," taking for his text, we may say, the words 

 he quotes from Ecclesiastes, i. 7: "All the rivers run into the sea, 

 yet the sea is not full ; unto the place from whence the rivers come, 

 thither they return again." 



After some definitions of geographical terms, the reader learns 

 something of water in rivers and the sea — what it is, and what it con- 

 tains — and of ice and clouds. The air comes next, its weight and 

 pressure, its constitution, its movements, and its power of carrj'ing 

 moisture ; and the stddy of heat, in relation with the earth, air, water, 

 and vapour, leads to meteorology and climate and the varied aspects 

 of nature. Mr. Tyndall's eloquent expositions of the nature of heat 

 are warmly welcomed in Captain Maury's pages. Currents of air at 

 sea and on land, dry and moist winds, the distribution of rain, the 

 general fitness of "terrestrial arrangements" and of "terrestrial 

 adaptations," the " beauty and benignity " of natural phenomena, so 

 well known to the " Christian philosopher " who looks to teleologi- 

 cal conveniences as the great end and aim of nature, — all these are 

 rather wearisomely illustrated and insisted upon by our hydrogra- 

 phist, whose well-connected facts would not be less clearly stated, 

 nor less easily remembered, if given with less frequant allusions to 

 the ' Sailing Directions,' on the one hand, and to the perfection of 

 the " grand physical machine," on the other. 



Given the sun as operator, water and air as machine, and earth as 

 basis, the " physical machine " performs its office ; and Books VII., 

 VIII., and iX. treat of the power of heat, of the clouds, the rivers, 

 and the sea (especially comparing the southern with the northern 

 hemisphere), and of " the earth as we behold it." Man in relation 

 to rivers running north and south, through different climatal zones 

 (as the Mississippi, for instance), compared with east and west lines 

 of traffic (as the Amazon or the Mediterranean), — Man in relation to 

 maize as a food adapted for migration, and in relation to regions 

 more or less cultivable, is here considered. 



Of volcanic phenomena, of mountain-ranges, of the formation of 

 table-lands, valleys, and other features Dr. Maury says nothing ; but 

 his little book is complete in itself, hydrographically considered. 

 We would, however, that he knew something more of natural his- 

 tory — that he would not term the Coral "an insect of the sea" — 

 " the Coralline, " nor speak of Rhizopods as " microscopic insects," 

 and, indeed, that he would not class as insects all little animals, both 

 of land and water, " that are too small to be recognized as beasts, or 

 birds, or fishes" (p. 122). 



