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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 776 



ancea and to make many new ones and his 

 letters give interesting glimpses of the men. 

 Here is one on Lyell: 



I must tell one of Sir H. Holland's jokes on 

 Lyell. He saw him running across the street to 

 him one day saying, " Have you heard the news ? " 

 " No is Lucknow relieved ? " " Oh, I don't know 

 anything about Lucknow — ^but haven't you heard 

 that we have just got another new marsupial from 

 the dirt-bed at Lyme ? " I find Lyell just as 

 nervous as ever — more so in fact — and far more 

 interesting. 



In 1866, after a year of tremendous work as 

 expert, his health gave way and he was com- 

 pelled to go abroad, where with Mrs. Lesley 

 he spent twenty months, wandering as far as 

 Palestine and the Nile. They returned to 

 Philadelphia in 1868 and soon afterwards oc- 

 cupied the home on Clinton St., where they re- 

 mained until 1893, when his final break came 

 and necessitated removal to their house at 

 Milton. With this return to Philadelphia, 

 there began another period of incessant ac- 

 tivity. The danger of poverty, prophesied by 

 their friends, had passed away many years be- 

 fore, but Lesley's appetite for work was in- 

 satiable. Mrs. Lesley was scarcely less active 

 in her sphere of organized philanthropy, to 

 which her letters make only incidental refer- 

 ences. Mrs. Ames has done well in supple- 

 menting them. 



The life in Clinton Street is common prop- 

 erty, for that house was a Mecca to which all 

 scientific men turned when in Philadelphia, 

 assured of a welcome which would make them 

 think better of their kind. The story has 

 been told so often that it need not be repeated 

 here. 



Any notice of this work, brought within 

 reasonable compass, must be only a patchwork 

 of fragments, giving no proper conception of 

 its importance. The long unreserved letters, 

 covering the period from 1838 to 1893, con- 

 cern not the writers alone; they tell of men 

 and women who have graven their names 

 deeply in science, literature and even in poli- 

 tics; they throw interesting sidelights upon 

 many obscure matters in our country's his- 

 tory, for the Lesleys were associated intimately 

 with many who were leaders in great move- 



ments. Mrs. Ames has woven the material 

 so skilfully that Peter and Susan Lesley tell 

 their own story and that of their time. The 

 volumes contain numerous portraits, the last 

 of which is copied from a painting made by 

 their daughter, Mrs. Bush-Brown, not long be- 

 fore they passed away. Professor Lesley, old, 

 feeble, yet cheerfully content, sits with one 

 hand resting on the shoulder of Mrs. Lesley, 

 who still retains the beauty of feature and ex- 

 pression which had endeared her to all ac- 

 quaintances. The scene is the fulfilment of a 

 prophecy made by Lesley almost fifty years 

 before : 



I half believe that when I am an old decrepit 

 man, sitting all day in a well-worn armchair, my 

 volatile and restless nature fixed like carbonic acid 

 into a solid, snow-like equanimity, she will be 

 briskly moving about me like a bright planet 

 around a gone-out sun, and returning to me the 

 little borrowed light and heat that I have ever 

 been so happy as to give her. 



Professor Lesley passed away in June, 1903 ; 

 Mrs. Lesley survived him, but she faded away 

 gradually, until the following January death 

 came to her also. " They were lovely and 

 pleasant in their lives and in their death they 

 were not divided." 



John J. STEVENsoif 



The Camhridge Natural History. Edited by 

 Harmee and Shipley. Vol. IV. Crustacea 

 and Arachnida. 8vo ; pp. xviii + 566 ; 287 

 figures. London, Macmillan & Co. 1909. 

 $4.25. 



This volume completes the set of ten of the 

 Cambridge Natural History, and the editors 

 are to be congratulated upon bringing to com- 

 pletion such a comprehensive work, one that 

 exhibits so many excellencies and has been of 

 such great service as a reference work to zo- 



The delay in the publication of this last 

 volume is due to the death of Professor 

 Weldon, " who had undertaken to write the 

 Section on the Crustacea " ; he, however, com- 

 pleted only the chapter on Branchiopoda, 

 while the remainder of the group has been 

 written by Mr. Geoffrey Smith. The Crus- 

 tacea occupy 217 pages. Chapter I. treats of 



