REVIEWS. 191 



gives them alphabetically. The names of 5,500 plants are given, including 

 every flowering plant and fern indigenous to the British Islands, all the 

 favourite and useful ones ordinarily cultivated here, and all plants yielding 

 substances of importance, either for human food, or for the purposes of art 

 and medicine, whether produced in Greit Britain or in foreign countries. 

 The numberless uses of this little manual it is scarcely possible to specify, 

 and its correctness, a careful examination enables us to testify to. In 

 the words of the preface, " There is no other small and compendious work 

 in which the scientific names, the families, and the native countries of plants 

 yielding such substances as gutta-percha, arrowroot, divi-divi, castor-oil, 

 &c, can be learned in an instant." 



Dictionary op Mineralogy, Geology, and Metallurgy. By M. 

 Landrin, C.E. — Dictionary of Chemistry and Physics. By Dr 

 Ferdinand Hoeper. Paris : Didot Brothers. 



These useful works of reference, belonging to the valuable series of 

 cheap, scientific hand-books issued by Messrs Didot, are too well known to 

 need special reference at our hands. In them is condensed all the practical 

 knowledge and most recent discoveries, and their applications announced in 

 the scientific works of the day, in Great Britain and the Continent. 

 Supplements are added from time to time to keep pace with the progress ot 

 science. 



Tahiti par G. Cuzant. Paris : Victor Masson. 



This is an interesting work on an interesting field of observation — the 

 Society Islands, one of the French Colonial Possessions in the Pacific. Within 

 the compass of under 300 pages, we are furnished with much authentic and 

 recent information, acquired during a residence of more than three years in 

 the islands, illustrated, too, by several maps. The natural history, geology, 

 and principal commercial products of the islands are fully described, and a 

 large amount of analytical detail is furnished by M. Cuzant, who is a 

 Practical Chemist, on the oils, gums and resins, dye-stuffs, and starches, to 

 which we shall endeavour to direct special attention more fully hereafter. 

 Fibres, woods, sugar, coffee, oranges, and other staple products are treated 

 of very fully, and there is a conspectus of the flora of Tahiti catalogueing, 

 532 plants, of which 248 appear to have been introduced and naturalised ; 

 the materials to this store have been furnished by the French government 

 botanist, M. Pancher. 



The West India Quarterly Magazine, No. 2. Kingston, Jamaica : 

 De Cordova and Nephew. 



This is an excellent number of this periodical, which comes to us much 

 improved and enlarged. It contains some well-written articles. The Hon. 

 R. Hill discourses pleasantly on his favourite topic in ''Notes on Natural 

 History." Taking as his text the chapter devoted to the subject in our work 

 on " The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom," Mr Hoffman, 

 Island chemist, treats " On the Manufacture of Muscovado Sugar, and its 

 Relation to Science." He shows that while a good deal has already been 

 effected, much remains to be done yet, before the colonial sugar planters can 

 enjoy equal scientific advantages to the beet-sugar manufacturers of the 

 Continent. A model plantation, directed by competent, scientific, and 

 practical men, will he says, never fail to return an intelligent answer to every 

 intelligible question, and to furnish advice, based upon true science and true 

 unimpeachable practice. ' Coal and Its Products,' by Mr Toase, is a 

 condensed account of the most recent chemical discoveries and useful 

 applications of carboniferous products. In a paper u On Determination 

 of Purpose," the valuable indigenous resources of Jamaica, and the 

 profitable field of enterprise for industrious small settlers, is well pointed 



