1858.] REVIEWS. 625 



Passage; A Personal Narrative of the Discovery, etc., by A. 

 Armstrong, M.D., Surgeon and Naturalist ; and third. An Arctic 

 Voyage in Search of Friends with Sir John Franklin, by R. A. 

 Goodsir. 



In these inhospitable regions, Banks's Land, there are hills 

 formed of accumulations of what the reviewer deems drift-wood, 

 but which the naturalist of the Expedition thinks may have 

 grown there. The climate was very much warmer, or rather 

 much less cold, when these trees were produced in that high 

 latitude. 



" On ascending (lie writes) one of these liills, about a quarter of a mile 

 from the beach, on its side, about three hundred feet high from the sea- 

 level, we discovered the wood of which we were in search. The ends of 

 trunks and branches of trees were seen protruding through the rich^ 

 loamy soil in which they were imbedded. On excavating to some extent, 

 we found the entire hills a ligneous formation, being composed of the 

 trunks and branches of trees, some of them dark and softened, in a state 

 of semi-carbonization ; others were quite fresh, the woody structure per- 

 fect, but hard and dense. In a few situations the wood, from its flatness 

 and the pressure to which it had for ages been exposed, presented a lami- 

 nated structure, with traces of coal. The trunk of one tree, the end of 

 which protruded, was twenty-six inches in diameter by sixteen inches ; 

 that of another, a portion of which was brought on board, was seven feet 

 in length and three feet in circumference, and dense in structure, although 

 pronounced then to be Pine." 



Among the reviews we notice a favourable one of ' First Les- 

 sons in Botany and Vegetable Physiology,' by Asa Gray (Fisher), 

 a work profusely illustrated by original cuts. The work is cheap, 

 but this is not its only good quality. The reviewer dissents from 

 a statement of Dr. Gray's, about the introduction of questions at 

 the beginning or the end of the lessons or chapters. We will 

 take the liberty of objecting to the omission of certain Orders, 

 Graminea and Cyperaceas for example, both of which Orders are 

 easily distinguished from, other families and from each other. 

 It is bad policy to tell idle students that certain Orders may be 

 skipped because they are difficult ; they too soon make tiiat dis- 

 covery. Indolence needs not to be backed by the dictum of a 

 learned professor. Better tell them how they may surmount the 

 difficult}^, and this will beget confidence in the author or teacher, 

 and self-reliance in themselves. 



N. S. VOL. TI. 4 L 



