Literary Notices. 59 



"being the case after the mud part of the passage was accomplished. 

 That merely brought them within sight of a ladder twenty-one 

 feet deep, and having only seven steps. The cave had other 

 entrances which were worse, and so the ladder descent was made, 

 and conducted the explorers to a low entrance, from which a strong 

 cold blast was blowing. The greater part of the cave was too low 

 to admit of standing upright, and was, of course, quite dark ; but 

 there were three domes, beneath which the erect posture could be 

 changed for the reptilian mode of progression over the cold, sloppy 

 floor. We can understand that the adventurers " hailed with 

 delight" one of these domes, and " this delight was immensely 

 increased when our candles showed us that the walls of this 

 vertical opening were profusely decorated with the most lovely 

 forms of ice. The first that we came under passed up out of sight, 

 and in this two solid cascades of ice hung down, high overhead, 

 apparently broken off short, or at any rate ending very abruptly ; 

 the others did not pass so far into the roof, and formed domes of 

 very irregular shape. In all three the details of the ice decoration 

 were most lovely. . . . The candles in our hands brought out 

 the crystal ornaments of the sides, flareing fitfully all round us and 

 overhead, as if we had been surrounded by diamonds of every 

 possible size and setting." In another dome " on every side were 

 branching clusters of ice, in the form of club mosses, with here and 

 there varicose veins of clear ice, and pinnacles of prismatic structure, 

 with limpid crockets and finials." Many other ice-caves explored 

 by Mr. Browne were equally curious with that of Monthezy, and 

 what we said concerning his book will, no doubt, determine our 

 readers to consult its pages for themselves. 



On Radiation : The Rede Lecture, delivered in the Senate 

 House, before the University of Cambridge, on Tuesday, May 6, 

 1865. By John Tyndall, F.R.S., Professor of Natural Philosophy 

 in the Royal Institution, and in the Royal School of Mines. 

 (Longmans). — This is an excellent summary of the leading facts 

 concerning the radiation of light and heat, absorption, etc. It is 

 written in Professor Tyndall's well-known interesting style, and is 

 characterized by his usual power of making a difficult subject 

 intelligible, by approaching it gradually and in the right way. 



A Dictionary .of Science, Literature, and Art : comprising the 

 Definitions and Derivations of the Scientific Terms in general use ; 

 together with the History and Descriptions of the Scientific Princi- 

 ples of nearly every branch of Human Knowledge. Edited by 

 W. F. Brande, D.C.L., F.R.S., L. and E. of Her Majesty's Mint • 

 and the Rev. George W. Cox, M.A., Late Scholar of Trinity 

 College, Oxford. (Longmans ) Parts III. and IV. — The first 

 volume of the new edition of this work is completed by Part IV., 

 and on the whole it appears to us very well calculated to answer 

 the purpose described in the preface, namely, that of providing a 

 cheap cyclopasdia, containing a well-selected series of articles. Of 

 course, in order to keep down bulk and price, many things must be 

 omitted that ought to be found in larger and more costly works ; 



