NATURE 
421 
No doubt “the statistics so tabulated” give the results 
which the author has seen, for are not such statistics, after 
_ being inspected by the medical officers of the army, 
regularly forwarded to the Adjutant-General of the forces 
for his information? but what has this to do with boat- 
racing or running? These three exercises are as 
different in character and as different in their de- 
mands upon the physical energies of the human body 
in their practice, and in the results of their practice, 
as it is possible to conceive ; and who that had in- 
vestigated these three modes of muscular exertion would 
thus run them together for the purpose of showing their 
value or the results of their practice on the development 
of the chest? If the development of the chest is mainly 
due to the muscular exertions of the arms, how can run- 
ning develop it, unless a man run upon “all fours?” When 
organising this “course of gymnastic instruction for 
recruits,” we held ever before us a principle precisely the 
opposite to that : 
maps and illustrations. By Elisée Reclus. Translated 
by the late B. B. Woodward, M.A., and edited by 
Henry Woodward, British Museum (Chapman and Hall 
1871 and 1873.) 
| ie is at length beginning to be acknowledged on all 
hands that no system of education can be pro- 
nounced perfect without a recognised position being as- 
signed to the study of science. It cannot, of course, be 
supposed that in the ordinary curriculum, say of a uni- 
versity education, the various subjects of scientific study 
can obtain that exclusive attention which is required, in 
order to master them ; but it is of the highest importance 
that, by the introduction and use of suitable text-books, 
the mind of the youthful and ardent lover of Nature in 
her various phases should be directed and prepared for 
entering upon those more minute studies and exhaustive 
researches in reference to particular subjects in the wide 
field of scienti- 
I 
which regulates 
fic inquiry, by 
either good which alone he 
running or row- can hope to 
ing. In these, force Nature 
sameness of ac- 
tion, from the 
start till the 
close of the ex- 
ercise, prevails; 
in the gymnas- 
tic course it is 
variety, the 
course embrac- 
ing several 
to disclose her 
secrets. 
Such a text- 
book we have 
in the work 
now before us 
—for these four 
volumes really 
form one entire 
work—a most 
hundreds of ex- 
ercises, requir- 
ing different 
degrees of ef- 
ort, executed at 
different rates 
of speed, em- 
ploying every 
portion of the 
frame, and not- 
ably the upper limbs and trunk of the body—exercises 
all tested and proved to accomplish given results, on 
thousands of men, and over many years of careful ob- 
servation, long before they were embodied by us in our 
military system. These three exercises shou'd be esti- 
mated each by itself, and allowed to stand on its own 
feet. No real or permanent advantage can accrue to 
any of them by being thus lumped together, the more 
especially as they are in their nature so dissimilar. 
ARCHIBALD MACLAREN 
Fic, 
THE EARTH 
The Earth: a Descriptive History of the Phenomena of 
the Life of the Globe. 2 vols., with numerous maps and 
illustrations. 
Zhe Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life. Being the Second 
Series of a Descriptive History of the Phenomena 
of the Life of the Globe. 2 vols., with numerous 
t.- The Pyramid Mountain 
admirable trar- 
slation of a 
treatise on the 
earth and its 
phenomena by 
the eminent 
French savant, 
M. Elisée Re- 
clus, the result 
of more than 
fifteen years’ careful study, travel, and research. The 
translation is by the late Mr. Bb. B. Woodward, the 
Queen’s librarian at Windsor Castle, and edited since 
his death by his brother, Mr. Henry Woodward, of 
the British Museum. Notwithstanding the editor’s 
apology, the work suffers but little from its appear- 
ance in an English dress; in fact, the translation 
has been carried out with such remarkable success, 
that it possesses all the merits of an original English 
work. The constitution and phenomena of the planet 
in which we live are subjects of the deepest interest 
and importance to us all, and, to the earnest and 
thoughtful seeker after knowledge, present marvels ona 
scale of grandeur and magnitude far beyond the compre- 
hension of the mere superficial observer. As M. Reclus 
says :— 
“True enough that the earth is nothing but an almost 
impalpable grain of dust to the vision of the astronomer 
scanning the nebulz in the field of his telescope, but it is, 
