1 873.] Notices of Books. 247 



a body (for as a body they are just men) to remove the evil from 

 their midst. And this we may safely say, that no shipowner 

 with a grain of sense, and whose conscience is clear of offence, 

 can oppose Mr. Plimsoll's plea for a full inquiry into these horrors. 

 Mr. Plimsoll considers that a law against over insuring, and 

 another requiring that ships unfit for the sea should not be 

 allowed to sail, are the main requirements to meet the occasion. 

 The cases he cites in support of this view should be read and 

 studied by all who wish to understand how the matter really 

 stands. His book is full of interest apart from the great object 

 which he has in view ; and as we are all more or less interested in 

 the welfare of our commercial marine, the present treatise should 

 be, and we trust will be, widely read. No one who reads it will 

 refuse Mr. Plimsoll the heartiest wishes for his success ; and we 

 believe that most of his readers will give him real assistance in 

 his efforts to remove a great scandal from our midst. 



The Eruption of Vesuvius in 1872. By Prof. Luigi Palmieri, 

 of the University of Naples, Director of the Vesuvian 

 Observatory. With Notes and an Introductory Sketch of the 

 Present State of Knowledge of Terrestrial Vulcanicity, by 

 Robert Mallet, Mem. Inst. C.E., F.R.S, &c. London : 

 Asher and Co. 

 The publishers of this work have done well in securing the 

 services of Mr. Mallet to introduce Prof. Palmieri's " Incendio 

 Vesuviano " to the English public. Mr. Mallet's mastery of the 

 subject of seismology and vulcanology is unsurpassed ; and we 

 owe to him the definite enunciation of what will be before long 

 accepted — we entertain little question — as the true theory of 

 terrestrial vulcanicity. . It was obviously desirable that the 

 description of so important a seismological event as the recent 

 eruption of Vesuvius should be submitted to the investigation 

 of one who would not regard it in its sensational aspect, or 

 merely in its historical relation to former events of the kind, but 

 would recognise its true scientific aspect. It is, however, to be 

 noted that Prof. Palmieri himself is a true student of science. 

 Mallet justly remarks, Palmieri's " Narrative of the events of 

 the eruption is characterised by exactness of observation, and a 

 sobriety of language, so widely different from the exaggerated 

 style of sensational writing that is found in almost all such 

 accounts, that I do the author no more than justice in thus ex- 

 pressing my view of its merits." 



The volume before us is about equally divided between Mr. 

 Mallet's introduction and Prof. Palmieri's account of the late 

 eruption. We shall consider the two portions separately, since, as 

 a matter of fact, they are distinct in subject matter. 



In the introduction, Mr. Mallet sketches what appears to him 

 to be the present position of terrestrial vulcanicity, tracing the 



