Notes and Memoranda. 479 



cited, in which mixed figures have been advantageously employed. 

 In Ben Jonson'a famous poem beginning " Truth is the trial of 

 itself," we have the following verse : — 



" It is the warrant of the -word 

 That yields a scent so sweet, 

 As gives to faith its power to tread 

 All falsehood under feet." 



Here the figures are ably and elegantly mixed. The real objection 

 to what Mr. Currie calls "mixture" is, the juxtaposition of figures 

 that will not w, by reason of their incongruity, as in the instance 

 he gives — "There is not a single view of human nature which is 

 not sufficient to extinguish the seeds of pride" — a sentence which 

 looks like a bit of a leader from the Telegraph. On the whole, we 

 like the book, though we should object to making " paraphrasing," 

 a prominent part in any system of teaching. If good authors are 

 selected for this process, the pupil is simply taught to say a good 

 thing in a worse manner than it has been said before. 



First Steps in Geography; Geography of the British Empire. 

 Both by the Rev. Alexander Mack.vt, LL.D., F.R.G.S., author of " A 

 Manual of Modern Geography," etc. (Blackwood.) — We do not be- 

 lieve in threepenny and fourpenny geographies — not that we have nny 

 objection to articles of low price, if it is possible to make them good 

 for the money ; but " First Steps in Geography" in fifty-six very 

 small pages must necessarily be very dry and very incomplete. The 

 simpler elements of physical geography should be taught first, and 

 political geography at a later period, if the pupils are to he inte- 

 rested in the study, and to gain ideas instead of mere words. At 

 the second page of " First Steps" we find a wrong step taken, and 

 a false idea given. The writer says, speaking of the oceans, " They 

 are not entirely separated from each other, like the continents" — 

 thus giving an erroneous notion of the continents of which Europe, 

 Asia, and Africa are three portions of one great continent, and not 

 as distinct as the passage cited would convey. 



NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 



Bromide of Potassium in Epilepsy. — M. Namia3 states in Comptcs Rmdus 

 that bromide of potassium, beginning with one gramme taken during i lie day in 

 three doses, and increasing it to several grammes in twenty-four hours, diminishes 

 the violence and the number of epilepric attack". 



Weakness of Wheat Stems. — M. Velter examines, in Comptes Rendus, the 

 cause of that weakness of wheat stems which allows the plant s to be laid hy *ind 

 and rain. He remarks that M. Pierre had shown that laid win at often contained 

 more silica than that which remained standing, and his own experiments led him 

 to consider a manure of tilicate of potash mischievous, he sa\s that wheat 

 becomes laid n< t tor wait of silica, but because the ligneous matter of the straw 

 is not well developed, lie also states that a microscopic examination shows the 

 deposit of silica to he discontinuous, and not to form a compact framework. 



Ophthalmic use of ."Sulphate of Soda. — M. D. de Luce* states (Comptes 

 Rendus) that the powder of crystallized sulphate of s da dropped in small quan- 

 tities on the cornet, and allowed to dissolve in the fluids of that organ will, iu the 

 course of time remove opaque spots. 



