BOOKS REVIEWED 



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short as it is, and easily as it reads, betrays on every page the evidences 

 of really laborious investigation and experiment ; and it is far too little to 

 say of it that it is by many degrees the best popular and yet scientific 

 treatise on the Iris family that has ever been produced, and it will be 

 many a long day ere it will be worth anyone's while to attempt to write 

 another. Part I. treats of the history and structure of Iris ; of the general 

 rules for the cultivation of the different sections ; of hybrids and hybridis- 

 ing ; of diseases and injurious insects. And Part II. describes every 

 known species, with notes on the particular requirements of each. There 

 are 36 full-page illustrations, which are excellent. 



"Some Wild Flowers of Kashmir." By Emilia E. Noel. 8vo., 364 

 plates and 55 pp. (Bell, Nottingham.) 



An enumeration of more than 300 flowering plants met with during 

 travels in Kashmir and on the slopes of the Himalayas, together with 

 most beautifully drawn and hand-coloured figures of a very large pro- 

 portion. The book, in fact, is a book of plant portraits with a few notes 

 attached, and is enough to make the lover of wild flowers long that fate 

 might one day send him also to Kashmir. 



"The Scenery of England and the Causes to which it Js due." 

 By the Rt. Hon. the Lord Avebury. 8vo., 508 pp. (Macmillan. 

 London.) 6s. 



This is not a description of the scenery in the more usual acceptation 

 of the words, but rather a description of why the scenery is as it is, and 

 how it became so. Lord Avebury always writes in a most fascinating and 

 lucid manner, and in this volume he carries his readers with him through 

 an examination of and inquiry into the different geological ages and their 

 individual effect upon the contour of the earth's surface, as far as England 

 and Wales are concerned. He shows the causes which led to the forma- 

 tion of the mountains and hills ; he traces the origin and course of the 

 rivers and lakes and the reason for them ; he examines the principal forces 

 which have conduced to the existing scenery and notes their influence not 

 only on the fauna and flora but also on the laws of the country and on the 

 customs of each district, and their determining influence on the position 

 of towns and villages. The book is interesting to all, but will appeal most 

 strongly to those who have some little knowledge of geology and physical 

 geography. 



"The Alps from End to End." By Sir W. Martin Conway. 8vo., 

 300 pp. (Constable, London.) 3s. (yd. net. 



A most delightsome book of Alpine travel, illustrated with 52 full-page 

 photographic reproductions. As the sun thaws the ice and sets the water 

 circulating in the pipes, so does the reading of this book thaw the con- 

 gealing blood in the veins of the old Alpine climber, and set him on fire 

 again with mountain fever and with youth renewed ; in fancy, if not in 

 reality, he lives again in all the glorious scrambles in the Alps and hair- 

 breadth escapes Sir Martin Conway tells of. The object of the book is to 

 describe a route, or rather a combination of climbs, the descent from each 

 ending at the starting-point of the next, so that a climber may begin at 



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