BOOK NOTICES. 659 



investigators in that special field, and names many others who accept his conclu- 

 sions "with very slight, if any, qualification." The disappointment of the stu- 

 dent is bitter when, on further reading he finds that two independent critics 

 almost annihilate an authority upon which the first author had most largely de- 

 pended for support in his position. This authority had inserted and omitted 

 words in a direct quotation from a still earlier author which gave the latter's 

 words an opposite meaning; and had given great weight to the views of another, 

 himself "known to be very unreliable as an authority." In another publication, 

 the student finds the original defendant further discomfited, and his own confu- 

 sion increased, by reading that the paper of the defendant's main authority, while 

 dubbed "very able" and "forcible" by one reviewer, is said by another to be 

 "remarkable for its erroneous statements and its misapprehension of facts," and 

 "still more remarkable when we consider its assumptions for what it does not 

 contain." Still another authority, quoted by both the defendant and his right- 

 hand man as of great weight, was shown by yet another critic to have retracted 

 the very statement quoted and confessed he was misinformed. In view of the 

 inherent difficulties in the way of a satisfactory solution of the many deep ques- 

 tions which vex the thinking world, it is immensely important that these diffi- 

 culties be not wantonly multiplied by parties who warp truth and insinuate error 

 in dishonest attempts to establish their own positions. 



Glasgow, Mo., February, 1885. 



BOOK NOTICES. 



Original Researches in Mineralogy and Chemistry : By J. Lawrence 

 Smith, M. D. Octavo, pp. 630. Edited by J. B. Marvin, B. S., M. D.^ 

 Louisville, Ky. , 1884. 



This handsome volume, as stated in the February number of the Review^ 

 was prepared at the request of Mrs. Smith as a testimonial of her esteem and as a 

 memorial book for presentation to Professor Smith's scientific friends and rela- 

 tives. Dr. Marvin has devoted much well spent time to its preparation, and the 

 publishers have put it forth in elegant and substantial form. 



Professor Smith was essentially an original investigator, and, from his student 

 days to the end of his life, labored earnestly and diligently as a skilled explorer 

 in the several fields of chemistry, mineralogy and physiology. He had hosts of 

 friends among the learned scientists of this country and Europe, and received 

 honors from nearly all of the scientific associations on both sides of the Atlantic. 

 Besides the biographical sketch of his life by Dr. Marvin, prepared by request for 

 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences of Boston, another was written for 

 Year Book of the City of Charleston, S. C, by Middleton Michel, M. D., and 



