Literary Notices. 389 



classes, to whom a little money is a precious thing. This small, 

 but very compendious volume on Practical Chemistry will, we have 

 no doubt, assist students of medicine and arts, and advanced pupils 

 in educational institutions, for whom it is especially intended ; but 

 it is also well adapted to the much larger class who must either go 

 without knowledge, or be their own instructors. The title " Prac- 

 tical Chemistry" is scarcely explicit enough. What Dr. M'Adam 

 has done is to compile a clear step by step exposition of qualitative 

 analysis applied to the detection of substances most likely to occur 

 in medicine and the arts. The arrangements appear to us very 

 good for the double purpose of compression and easy reference. It 

 would be a useful work for persons engaged in teaching ordinary 

 school-classes, and we believe that before long no parent capable of 

 paying a respectable price will tolerate any school in which physics, 

 chemistry, and other practical sciences are entirely neglected. In 

 all cases that admit of experiment or direct observation, the theo- 

 retical parts of science which constitute its value as a mental dis- 

 cipline, become much more intelligible after a requisite body of 

 facts have been practically acquired, and it is absurd to consider 

 that boys and girls are properly educated when they are left in 

 total ignorance of the properties of substances and agencies upon 

 which their existence and comfort depends. 



How to Use the Barometer: a Companion to the Weather- 

 Glass. (Bemrose and Sons.) — This little book consists of an 

 almanack, with spaces for recording the state of the weather from 

 day to day, prepared by explanations of barometers, thermometers, 

 meteorological terms, etc. 



London Meteorological Diagrams, showing the Daily Elements 

 throughout the Tear 1864. By G O. F. Cator, M.A. (Sanford.)— 

 By clever arrangement a very large amount of information is unde- 

 niably and strikingly arranged in this sheet. The daily fluctuations 

 of the barometer for 1864, daily maximum and minimum tempe- 

 ratures, the Greenwich mean for each day, taken on the average 

 of 43 years, direction of wind, weekly deaths from the Registrar- 

 General's returns, age of moon, meridian altitude of sun, and other 

 particulars, are made obvious on simple inspection. We hope Mr. 

 Cator will receive adequate support in continuing this interesting 

 work. 



Homes without Hands. By the Rev. J. G. Wood. (Longmans.) 

 Both the text and the illustrations of this interesting work keep 

 up their character. Birds now occupy a considerable share of Mr. 

 Wood's attention, and the portraits of the feathered builders and 

 their abodes evince taste and skill. 



