358 REVIEWS DR. LANKESTERS LECTURES. 



take a ' summer sleep,' like the reptiles, molluscs, and tank fishes ? or may they, 

 like the Itotifera, be dried up and preserved for an indefinate period, resuming 

 their vital activity on the mere recurrence of moisture ? " 



W H. 



The uses of Animals in relation to the Industry of Man : being a 

 course of lectures delivered at the South Kensington Museum by 

 E. Lankester, M.D., F.R.S., Superintendent of the Animal Pro- 

 duct and Food Collections. 1 vol. London : Robert Hardwicke. 

 On Food: being lectures delivered at the South Kensington Museum 

 by E. Lankester, M.D., F.R.S., Superintendent of the Animal 

 Product and Food Collections. 1 vol. London : Robert Hard- 

 wicke. 1861. 

 Dr. Lankester is a naturalist of high reputation, and he has been 

 most usefully employed both in delivering the courses of lectures con- 

 tained in these volumes so as to bring out the real value and import- 

 ance of the collections which have been placed under his care, and 

 make them contribute most efPectually to public instruction, and also 

 in extending the benefit of his labours far more widely by the publica- 

 tion of these pleasing volumes, characterized by sound knowledge, 

 without any display of science, intelligible and attractive in their style, 

 and eminently fitted for a wide popularity ; a mere enumeration of the 

 subjects of the twelve lectures making up the first of these volumes 

 will give a good idea of its interest : silk, wool, leather, bone, soap, 

 waste, sponges and corals, shell-fish, insects, furs, feathers, horns and 

 hair, animal perfumes. Under each of these heads a great variety of 

 entertaining and practically useful information has been collected. 



No body can look through the volume without being impressed 

 with the educational importance of natural history and chemistry, 

 and the degree in which the diffusion of real knowledge must contri- 

 bute to improve the practical arts of life, as well us to render their 

 exercise a more intelligent act, and more interesting to those engaged 

 in it, than it can possibly be as a mere mechanical routine. In this 

 connection we quote the concluding passage of Dr. Lankester's 

 volume : — 



" It is only," he says, " by a systematic training in the principles 

 of the natural sciences involved in their occupations that we can 

 expect our working men or their masters to execute their work with 

 all that skill and economy of which their industry is susceptible. By 



