May 15, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



409 



Some similar phrase would be the best formula 

 for Charles Kingsley's book, now reprinted as 

 one of Macmillan's ' Globe readings from 

 standard authors.' The style it represents 

 is not, to be sure, the old plain-dealing man- 

 ner of Mrs. Marcet and her ' Conversations 

 about common things,' where John and Wil- 

 liam demurely put hard questions, and Mr. 

 A. or Mr. B. sedately answers ; but it is the 

 modern, rollicking, galvanized form of the 

 same thing, where the preceptor calls himself 

 'Daddy,' where the pupil is addressed as 



• My dear child ' on almost every page, and 



• My pretty boy ' occasionally, where the 

 plain facts about rocks or fishes must be gar- 

 nished with all manner of metaphor and rhetoric, 

 and where every chapter must wind up with a 

 high-flown rhythmical passage composed of 

 Ruskin-made-easy. To those who like that 

 sort of book, it ma}' be said, borrowing the 

 words of President Lincoln, that ' this is just 

 the sort of book they will like.' But we con- 

 fess ourselves not to be of that opinion. 



Unless we greatly mistake, the taste, even 

 of children, has now changed for the better. 

 It is not now thought necessary to write down 

 to them ; to pet them, so to speak, in printer's 

 ink ; to remind them in ever}' other sentence 

 of the fact they know best, namely, that they 

 are not grown up. It has been discovered that 

 what the}' need is merely the straightforward 

 simplicity of language which even grown peo- 

 ple like best. It is not necessary to take 

 every common fact and turn it vivaciously into 

 a metaphor ; to personify two new intermediate 

 agencies in the universe under the names of 

 "Madam How' and 'Lady Why,' and then 

 to provide them with two grandsons, ' Analy- 

 sis ' and 'Synthesis' (p. 158) ; all these per- 

 sonifications being, after all, so ineffectual 

 that the author has to bring in at last a higher 

 creative power (p. 10), called the 'Master,' 

 whom they all obey, and the reference to whom 

 makes this labored mythology very superfluous. 

 This is the head and front of our objection to 

 the book, — that it is not truly scientific, be- 

 cause it is not simple. It tends to impair, not 

 to foster, the spontaneous love that children 

 have for the fascinating truths of out-door 

 nature : it is an attempt to make sandwiches 

 with sugar-plums, and to flavor bread and 

 cheese with vanilla. 



This fundamental defect pointed out, it must 

 undoubtedly be admitted that this little book 

 contains a great deal of valuable and interest- 

 ing knowledge conveyed often in an exceeding- 

 ly graphic way. Even here, however, there are 

 two drawbacks. One lies in the character of 



Canon Kingsley's mind, which was dashing, 

 impetuous, and always ready for too sweeping 

 conclusions. To say, for instance, almost at 

 the beginning, " I never saw a valley however 

 deep, or a cliff however high, which had not 

 been scooped out by water" (p. 25) ; and to 

 reiterate again and again that ' water, and 

 nothing else,' has done all these things, with- 

 out a word of reference to volcanic action, or 

 upheaval, or subsidence, or lateral pressure, — 

 is certainly a very loose and unguarded way of 

 writing. Again : there is the minor objection 

 that the book, being prepared specifically for 

 English children, is very properly full of local 

 references and illustrations that will mislead 

 and perplex young Americans, just as the 

 older men among us used to be perplexed in 

 childhood by trying to identify the birds and 

 plants around us with the very different species 

 described in the English manuals. Many of 

 the author's most important illustrations of the 

 formation of mountains and valleys, for in- 

 stance, are drawn from the features of those 

 miniature canons on the English coast — in 

 the Isle of Wight, for instance — known as 

 'chines' (pp. 18-22). But what American 

 child knows, or how many American teachers, 

 indeed, know,' what a ' chine' is? The word 

 does not even appear in Worcester's ' Diction- 

 ary,' except as meaning a piece of an animal, 

 or part of a vessel. 



A MONOGRAPH OF BRITISH FOSSIL 

 BRACHIOPODA. 



With the present appendix (vol. v. part 

 iii.) a monumental work has been brought to 

 a close. The labors of Thomas Davidson, 

 F.R.S., need no introduction to paleontologists 

 of any part of the world. The quiet distribu- 

 tion of the concluding fasciculi of the ' British 

 fossil Brachiopoda ' should not be allowed to 

 pass without notice. 



Thirty years have passed since the publication 

 of the general introduction to the first volume 

 of this monograph. Coincident!}' with, and 

 largely induced by, its progress, a vast amount 

 of precise knowledge has been acquired and 

 made public, in regard to all that relates to 

 the history and distribution of thebrachiopods. 

 Indeed, our knowledge of them, in any suf- 

 ficient sense, may be almost said to date from 

 about the time when the learned author began 

 his labors ; and the earliest known reference 

 to them in any printed work dates only from 

 1606. The present appendix closes a series 

 of researches, begun just half a century ago, 



