388 Miscellanies. 



For the sake of forwarding the great object in view, Dr. Mantell 

 yielded to the wishes of his friends and the public, by giving occa- 

 sionlil lectures on topics relating to the sciences which he has so 

 successfully cultivated. Those who had read his various works, in 

 which science, genius, and taste were warmed by a noble but disci- 

 plined and sustained enthusiasm, waited only to learn whether his 

 powers as a public speaker (at that time, as we have been credibly in- 

 formed, little inured to actual practice) were commensurate with his 

 high attainments as an original investigator, and as a man of science 

 and of intellectual vigor ; nor were they disappointed. We are assured 

 by numerous public statements in the Brighton papers, as well as from 

 independent sources, that his success in this character was fully com- 

 mensurate with his previous reputation. In consequence, he was 

 called upon to give a regular course of lectures on geology and the 

 connected sciences, aided by his magnificent museum and by ample 

 illustrations from drawings. 



We have already mentioned this course of lectures, and we copied 

 an abstract of one lecture, as given in a Brighton paper. (See Vol. 33, 

 p. 328 of this Journal.) It was numbered 1, and we intended, as then 

 announced, to make other extracts from time to time ; although ex- 

 traordinary absences and engagements have suspended the selection, 

 we still cherished the design, when the arrival of the work announced 

 at the head of this notice, superseded our purpose, in a way which we 

 could not well explain, without this introductory statement. 



The Wonders of Geology of Dr. Mantell contain the substance 

 of the lectures given by him at Brighton, and thus the public are put 

 in possession, in a concise and perfected form, of the whole of the 

 stores of knowledge from which we intended to cull the most instruc- 

 tive and inviting parts. We shall not, however, feel precluded from 

 proceeding again with our original purpose, especially, should the 

 work not appear in the bookstores of this country. 



It contains, indeed, the principal wonders of geology ; but it would 

 be great injustice to consider it as a mere collection oi mirahilia. It 

 embraces a regular system of geology, exhibiting its leading facts, and 

 clearly elucidating its philosophy, the latter being the great object of 

 the work, to which the facts, as a basis, are only auxiliary. 



The arrangement is, from the alluvial and diluvial down through 

 the tertiary, secondary and transition to the primary rocks, and all 

 the igneous formations ; ending with the actual ignivomous mouths, 

 as they appear in the existing volcanos. The form of lectures (of 

 which there are eight) is preserved, with the appropriate style and 

 address, and with the references to the objects presented by way of 

 illustration. 



