386 Literary Notices. 



" animals can convert into their own substance only matter which 

 has been already organized." Surely they convert water into their 

 own substances, and every medical man who administers a preparation 

 of iron expects to find some of it assimilated by his patient. In 

 the endeavour to establish more differences than exist between 

 animals and vegetables, a want of care is exhibited, and we can 

 make nothing of such statements as that " muscular fibre reacts 

 when stimulated by an angular puckering called contraction," while 

 in a sensitive plant there is " only an angular plication of a con- 

 tiguous part." The writer of the article " Aberration" ought not 

 to have contented himself with saying that the " mirrors of optical 

 instruments are generally worked into a spherical form on account 

 of the difficulty of obtaining the parabolic curvature." Mirrors 

 not intended for accurate performance are undoubtedly so made, 

 but those for reflecting telescopes are made parabolic, and an 

 amount of accuracy is attained by the best makers that deserves 

 more acknowledgment than the statement, "that attempts have 

 been made to adapt them to the purposes of accurate observation." 

 We have no doubt the editors will take care that errors of the sort 

 we have indicated are avoided in future numbers, and our remarks 

 must not be understood to convey the impression that anything like 

 general carelessness has been shown. 



A Year on the Sea Shore. By Philip Henry Gosse, F.R.S. 

 With Thirty-six Illustrations by the Author. Printed in colours by 

 Leighton Brothers. (Alexander Strahan.) — This is a very elegant 

 and interesting volume that will prove a delightful companion for 

 sea-side visits. There may not be in its pages so much for the 

 advanced student as in some former works by the same author, but 

 it is an admirable popular work, and contains vivid descriptions of 

 a great variety of marine objects, many of which can be easily 

 found by any sojourner on our coasts, who will take the pains to 

 follow the instructions which are given. The plates are very good, 

 though not quite up to the mark of those in Tenby, or the Devon- 

 shire Coast, and will render it easy to recognize many species of 

 beautiful fishes, worms, mollusks, etc., to be obtained by searching 

 amongst rock-pools, and other modes of pleasantly spending 

 hours by the sea. When we consider Mr. Gosse's remarkable talent 

 as a naturalist, his admirable facilities for observation, his brilliant 

 powers of description, his skill as a microscopist, and his capa- 

 cities as a draughtsman, we are extremely sorry to find his book 

 closing with an announcement that " it will probably be the last 

 occasion of his coming in literary guise before the public." 



A Treatise on the Construction, Proper Use, and Capa- 

 bilities of Smith, Beck, and Beck's Achromatic Microscope. By 

 Richard Beck. Printed, for Smith, Beck, and Beck, 31, Cornhill. 

 Published by John Van Voorst, Paternoster Row. 1865. — This 

 handsome large octavo volume contains a description, illustrated 

 by numerous woodcuts and plates, of the various kinds of micro- 

 scopes manufactured by Messrs. Smith, Beck, and Beck, and of all the 

 principal pieces of apparatus employed in microscopic research. It 



