Forth-coming Scientific Works. 415 



Seminary, states in her preface, that having been for some time de- 

 voted in part to the study of Botany, with the charge of a large class, 

 she experienced the want of a suitable book for beginners, and wag 

 led to prepare for the use of her pupils, a sketch, of which the present 

 treatise is but the filling up. Among the sources of information, from 

 which she has drawn, are mentioned the works of Mirbel, Rousseau, 

 St. Pierre, Smith, Woodville, Eaton, Nuttall, and Torrey, the En- 

 cyclopedias, and various other approved treatises upon the subject. 

 The book is neatly executed, and illustrated by a frontispiece, exhib- 

 iting the progress of vegetation at different heights, and several en- 

 gravings from original designs ; and cannot fail of answering the prin- 

 cipal intention of its amiable authoress, of engaging persons of her own 

 sex in a study, eminently calculated to interest and instruct them. 



4. Elements of Spherical Trigonometry ; designed as an Introduc- 

 tion to the Study of JVautical Astronomy ; by J. P. Rodriguez, U. 

 S. Navy Yard, Gosport. 8vo. pp. 24. — This little work is valuable 

 in itself J and still more so from the promise it holds out, of something 

 further from the same author. He is known to us as a young gen- 

 tleman of high mathematical attainments. His object is to prepare 

 for our Naval officers a work, in which the higher principles of Nav- 

 igation shall be developed, but which at the same time will be suited 

 to their contracted opportunities for study and improvement on this 

 subject. Such a work is needed, and we wish Mr. Rodriguez suc- 

 cess. 



5. Lyceums. — This is a name given to numerous town associa- 

 tions now forming in the State of Massachusetts. Their object is, to 

 establish Libraries, to raise the character of district schools, to compile 

 town histories, to prepare town Maps, to promote Agricultural and 

 Geological Surveys, and to form, collections of Minerals. Some 

 maps, of good execution, and surprising cheapness, have been sent 

 to us, as the results of these efforts : the system promises much 

 good, and, it is hoped, will extend to other States. 



6. Transactions of the Albany Institute for Dec. 1829. — The 

 present number contains Statistical Notices of some of the Lunatic 

 Asylums in the United States, by T. Romeyn Beck ; Observations 

 on the great Greywacke Region of the State of New York, by James 

 Morse j and a Topographical Sketch of the State of New York, de- 

 signed chiefly to show the general elevations and depressions of its 

 surface, illustrated by an engraving, by Joseph Henry. 



