300 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
amply and prettily illustrated. Beyond tliis we cannot say much in its 
favour, and really this time we think we must lay the blame on the trans- 
lator rather than on M. Figuier. If the French populariser falls occasionally 
into error, it is the duty of the translator to correct him, especially when 
the author is merely a dilettante, and the editor offers the work as an 
accurate exposition of science. The chapter on the coral, for example, is 
taken wholesale, illustrations and all, from Lacaze-Duthier’s splendid 
memoir, but assuredly the French Naturalist has not spoken of the creations 
described by him as Corallines. But this is not all ; to make confusion worse 
confounded, the editor, after very imperfectly rendering Lacaze-Duthier’s 
account of the formation of the polypidom (polypier he calls it), proceeds to 
write of the Brj^ozoa as though they were coral-polyps, and makes the follow- 
ing remarks, which speak for themselves : Our information fails to convey 
any precise notion of the time necessary for the coral to acquire the various 
proportions in which it presents itself. Darwin, who examined some of 
these corallines very minutely, tells us that ‘ several genera (Fhistra, Hschara, 
Cellai’ia, Cresia^ and others) agree in having singular movable organs 
attached to their cells ; the organs in the greater number of cases very closely 
resemble the head of a vulture, but the lower mandible can be opened much , 
wider than a real bird’s beak,’ ” &c. Then folloAvs an account of ‘^coral-fishing.” 
Now, anything more blundering than this we have never seen in any class 
of popular science works. It is laughable from its very absurdity. Why, 
it would be as ridiculous to group monkeys with frogs, as to place side by 
side the coral polyp and the Bryozoa. And then to make Mr. Darwdn 
appear responsible for the affinities, by quoting him in the wrong place. 
Beally M. Figuier is quite inaccurate enough on his own account, but his 
English translator out-Figuier’s Figuier with a vengeance. We have not 
patience to go at further length into a notice of this work. 
STAR-FINDING.* 
■pERHAPS the greatest difficulty which first presents itself to the amateur 
star-gazer is the task of finding out what to look for, what objects 
toward which to direct his assisted vision. The second difficulty is nearly 
as great; it relates to the method of looking at those heavenly bodies 
which he can first study to the greatest advantage. These stumbling-blocks 
are readily removed when the young astronomer has the assistance of “an 
old hand ” to guide him ; but we fear that to those who have not the benefit 
of what is known in universities as the “ Tutorial method,” the obstacles 
more frequently vanquish the student than the student the obstacles. We 
believe that this is one of the gravest reasons for the fact that so exceedingly 
fertile a field as that of astronomy is left comparatively unworked. But 
with the help of books like that which is now before us, and Mr. Proctor’s 
“ Half-hours with the Telescope,” these barriers to the general study of as- 
* “ Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes.” By the Rev. T. Webb, 
M.A., F.R.A.S. 2nd edition. London : Longmans. 1868. 
