142 Literary Notices. 



Wayside Weeds; or, Botanical Lessons from the Lanes and 

 the Hedgerows, with a Chapter on Classification. By Spencek, 

 Thomson, M.D., L.R.C.S. Edm.., Fellow of the Botanical Society 

 of Edinburgh, Author of the " Structure and Functions of the 

 Eye," etc., etc. Illustrated with engravings on wood. (Groom- 

 bridge and Sons.) We could not recommend a pleasanter way of 

 learning a great deal of elementary botany, than by making Dr. 

 Spencer Thomson's Wayside Weeds the companion of country 

 walks. A large number of plants easily obtained in any part of the 

 country are described in a manner that will enable beginners to get 

 over the initial difficulties of botanical science in a very agreeable 

 manner. It is just the kind of book that families should take ad- 

 vantage of for recreative self-culture, and it might be advantage- 

 ously introduced in the better class of schools. You can scarcely 

 open a page without coming upon an elegant illustration, and the 

 explanations show that Dr. Thomson understands the kind of help 

 that young students require. % 



A Series of Metric Tables, in which the British Standard 

 Measures and Weights are compared with the Metric System at 

 present in use on the Continent. By Charles Hutton Darling, 

 Civil Engineer. (Lockwood and Co.)— There are few measures of 

 practical reform that would effect more for the comfort and general 

 interests of the people than the substitution of the so-called " Metric 

 System" for our present abominably troublesome and unintelligible 

 arrangements of weights and measures. Scientific men have long 

 used the metric system for many of their operations, and in addi- 

 tion to its decimal character, it has the great advantage of logical 

 coherence, so that if its principle is known, and the meaning of a 

 small number of terms acquired, all its weights and all its mea- 

 sures are easily remembered and understood. When we consider 

 how few Englishmen remember one quarter of the vexatious 

 "tables" that constitute one of the chief torments of schoolboy days, 

 and also bear in mind what an insufferable plague a bungling method 

 introduces into what ought to be elementary and easy calculations, 

 we cannot avoid hoping that the legislative permission to use the 

 metrical system will not be thrown away. For those who wish to 

 avail themselves of the metrical system in this country, Mr. Dar- 

 ling's book will afford admirable aid, and his well-arranged volume 

 of tables will be indispensable in commercial houses engaged in 

 Continental transactions. 



The Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain : Six 

 Lectures to Working Men, delivered in the Royal School of Mines 

 in 1863. By A. C. Ramsay, F.R.S., Local Director of the Geolo- 

 gical Survey of Great Britain. Second Edition. (Edward Stan- 

 ford.) — We cordially welcome a second and improved edition of 

 these admirable lectures. The new matter and improvements are 

 considerable, and Professor Ramsay has given by way of frontis- 

 piece an extremely good geological map of Great Britain, which, 

 though necessarily small in scale, is full of matter and very distinct. 

 The great merit of these lectures is that they familiarize the reader 



