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REVIEWS. 
POPULAR SCIENCE.* 
I T is wonderful, but still it is not the less true, that scientific readers, or 
readers of scientific books, are in a vastly larger proportion in the United 
States of America than they are here. It is perfectly amazing to be installed 
into the secrets of some New York publisher, and find that books, of which 
you hardly heard at home, treating on questions of special scientific im- 
portance, have had a sale in New York which is reckoned by thousands. 
Still, England is the producer, if she be not the reader, of scientific books; 
and in no instance is this fact more fully or admirably illustrated than in 
the case of the work under notice. Mr. Proctor is one of our best scientific 
writers, as perhaps many of the readers of this journal are aware already, 
but he is not only so in a truly scientific sense : he is not only thoroughly 
and remarkably accurate, but he possesses in a wery marked degree that 
excellence and purity of stylo which are at once so attractive to the general 
reader, and so rarely met with in the scientific world. In the book now 
under notice, the reader, accustomed to Mr. Proctor’s contributions to these 
pages, will be surprised to find that the writer has not confined his attention 
to purely astronomical subjects, but that physical geography, zoology, 
geology, physics, and physiology have each and all formed subjects of careful 
and advanced reading by the author. And we say this, not out of an 
empty desire to compliment an author who has been a contributor to our 
pages, but from the fact that many of the contributions, though, written for 
some daily or other journal originally, bear on them the stamp of original 
thought and pure reflection. They are not essays such as we too frequently 
find in our journals, sparkling with bright writing, but devoid of anything 
like careful thought and reflection — productions which will not bear a 
moment’s thought or reflection from the reader who is versed in his 
subject. Ear from it, indeed. In some instances we have wondered to 
find them so very learned ; and we have been surprised that so prolific a 
writer on astronomical subjects should have either the time or the inclina- 
tion to go so fully into questions which have no real bearing upon the 
series of matters which he is engaged in studying. Of the truth of this 
* “ Light Science for Leisure Hours. A Series of Familiar Essays on 
Scientific Subjects, Natural Phenomena, etc. etc.” By Richard A. Proctor, 
B.A., F.R.A.S. London : Longmans, 1871. 
