412 Notices of Recent and 



5. Gwifs Pocket Cyclopcedia or Epitome of Universal Knoivl- 

 edge, designed for Senior Scholars in Schools, and for young persons 

 in general ; by Joseph Guy. Ninth edition, enlarged and extensive- 

 ly improved: London, pp. 633, 12mo. 



The Quebec Literary and Historical Society has just published 

 the first volume of its transactions. This Society has grovv^n up un- 

 der the munificent patronage of the Earl of Dalhousie, and has ably 

 commenced its career : it has a wide range for objects of inquiry and 

 research, and we shall expect from it much useful information. 

 The following is from the Quebec Official Gazette. 



" The first volume of the ' Transactions of the Literary and His- 

 torical Society' is now published and for sale. They form a good 

 sized octavo volume of 260 pages, exclusive of the Catalogue of the 

 Mineralogical Collection belonging to the Society, which contains 72 

 pages, and of several maps and lithographic prints. 



" The first article is the Inaugural Address, being an essay on the 

 Juridical History of France, antecedent to the year 1663, when the 

 Sovereign Council of Quebec was established, the Law, as it was then 

 administered being the common Law of Lower Canada, This arti- 

 cle was written by the Chief Justice, and is a luminous and classical 

 digest of the legal system of the Province, ending with a strong re- 

 commendation of the necessity of some establishment of a public de- 

 scription, where Law might be taught as a science. The recent de- 

 cision on the subject of M'Gill College affords ground for hoping that 

 this desideratum may hereafter be supplied. 



" The second article is from the pen of Captain Bayfield, R. N. 

 and contains outlines of the Geology of Lake Superior. This paper 

 would, from its intrinsic merit, have attracted observation in the moth- 

 er country, rich as she is in every kind of literature. An article, by 

 Mr. Green, follows, respecting coloring materials produced in Cana- 

 da. This paper was communicated to the Society of Arts, London, 

 with some specimens of the raw and the prepared materials, and that 

 Society was pleased to award to the writer the gold Isis medal. 



" The next is an account of some meteorological phenomena ob- 

 served in Canada by Captain Bonnycastle, R. E. who has also sup- 

 plied a second article on a few of the Rocks and Minerals of Upper 

 Canada. Mr. A. Stewart has furnished two very interesting papers, 

 the one containing notes on the Saguenay country, and the other a pa- 

 per on the ancient Beruscans or Tyrrhenians. 



