372 Notices of Books. [July? 



have been inserted at a late period, have some amount of 

 authority, and that the matres lectionis, which some have supposed 

 to be late additions to the Hebrew text, were then, as now, some- 

 times used and sometimes omitted. 



The Year Book of Facts in Science and Art, &°c. By John 

 Timbs. London : Lockwood and Co., 187 1. 



The Year Book of Facts is a compilation consisting almost ex- 

 clusively of cuttings from various newspapers, from periodicals — 

 more or less scientific — and from the proceedings of learned 

 societies. A portrait and life of Professor Huxley begin the book, 

 and these are accompanied by an abstract of the President's 

 address to the British Association at Liverpool, and some account 

 of his other works. The various " facts " are arranged under the 

 heads of the sciences to which they principally refer, but there is 

 no sequence in the arrangement, nor is there added the few words 

 of explanation, the date, or the circumstance, that in many cases 

 would make the events more interesting. An obituary at the 

 end of the book gives the names of some great men and the lives 

 of others, of whom we confess never to have heard before. We 

 have been unable to discover whether distinction in art, science, 

 or literature has opened the portals of this Walhalla, in which, 

 whilst others have a page or two, Maclise, Chas. Dickens, the 

 Earl of Clarendon, and Professor J. Redtenbacher obtain one 

 line each. 



Report to the Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory, 

 Edinburgh, at their Visitation, held on Wednesday, the 

 29th of jfune, 1870, at Three, p.m. By C. Piazzi Smyth. 



Papers on the Great Pyramid, including a Critical Examination 

 of Sir Henry James's " Notes on the Great Pyramid of 

 Egypt. 1 ' By St. John Vincent Day, C.E., F.R.S.E, &c. 

 Edinburgh : Edmonston and Douglas. 



Plates and Notes relating to some special features in structures 

 called Pyramids. By St. John Vincent Day, C.E.,F. R.S.S. A. 

 Edinburgh : Edmonston and Douglas. 



It needs no argument to prove to the scientific mind the necessity 

 of accurate standards of measurement, and that even popular 

 feeling is strongly enlisted in this matter is demonstrated by 

 frequent Royal Commissions issued by the Government in 

 answer to the call from without. Nor is this feeling of modern 

 growth. The allusions to justness of weight and measure are 

 frequent in the early books of the Jewish people, especially in 

 the Book of Proverbs. One of the main claims on which the 



