520 Canadian Record of Science. 



The book is accompanied by a good geological map, and 

 is altogether a most valuable book of reference to the 

 working geologist, whether in England or abroad. 

 A Naturalist's Eambles about Home ; second edition, 



revised, pp. 485, New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1887. 

 Upland and Meadow, pp. 389, New York, Harper k 



Brothers, 1886. 

 Waste-land Wanderings, pp. 312, New York, Harper & 

 Brothers, 1887. 



All of the above works are from the pen of Dr. Chas. C. 

 Abbott, of Trenton, N. J., and are so related in style and 

 matter that they may be reviewed together. 



They recount Dr. Abbott's experiences in an ordinary 

 tract of country, no bettter provided by nature than 

 thousands of others ; and yet, it seems to have furnished to 

 him themes that at once absorbed his own interest, and in 

 the relation of which he charms the reader, who has any 

 love for nature, into a kind of spell. And what is the 

 real secret of the fascination of these works ? We think it 

 lies in the fact that the author has taken Nature's children to 

 his own bosom ; he has loved them, and they have, there- 

 fore, not refused to give up their secrets, and in such case 

 they never will. What Dr. Abbott has learned, others can 

 learn if they will pursue the same methods. It may be 

 that all may not be able to pour out, in such an artless yet 

 charming manner, what they wish to convey. 



No better books than these can be put into the hands of 

 young people. The person that cannot see anything to love 

 in natural objects in his own surroundings after perusing 

 such books, is hopeless. They give what ordinary works, 

 on natural history, fail to do : the methods, step by step, by 

 which the author's knowledge was reached, so that the 

 reader feels stimulated to pursue the same plan ; and thus 

 the indirect value of such works becomes far greater than 

 the direct. 



We would emphasize another matter. Dr. Abbott's experi- 

 ments, though apparently simple, and in reality simple, are 

 just the kind that in \v opinion, are most reliable. He 

 arranged to see anirm or "t under conditions perfectly 

 natural. Such constitutes u ue very essence of trustworthy 

 experiment. Inferences, under such circumstances, are abso- 

 lutely reliable, which is more than can often be said of 

 methods more complicated. 



The moral effect of such reading is of the best. It makes 

 one feel that there is more in the world to admire than man 

 and his works ; and that man is himself but a part of a 

 harmonious whole, though it is his fortune to be at the top. 



