REVIEWS. 
419 
DESCHANEL’S NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.* 
P ROFESSOR EVERETT has done well to reproduce this volume from 
the French. Whatever the reader may think of his former attempt in 
the same direction, that is, however unsatisfactory he may deem it, he must 
he satisfied with the translation of the volume by Professor Deschanel* on 
Heat. In the present work, however, we find that besides the author’s 
labours being particularly good, the editor has laboured equally well, and 
has added a great deal so as to make the book a really good one on the sub- 
ject of heat, and to leave in the student’s hands a volume which he may 
read with satisfaction and profit. It must not be supposed from these re- 
marks that the work is of a very advanced character, for it is not. But it 
bears evidence of being an exact treatise ; and it contains abundance of 
matter, quite sufficient for the “ medical ” student or the first-year’s-man in 
u Arts.” The subject of the volume is Heat ; and this is dealt with very fully, 
the chapter on Thermodynamics and large portions of the chapters on Con- 
duction and on Terrestrial Temperatures being the work of the editor. The 
nomenclature of units of heat is borrowed from Professor G. C. Foster’s 
article on Heat in Watts’s “ Dictionary of Chemistry,” and several other 
shorter portions of the English edition have been added by the editor. 
For instance, the chapter on the motion of glaciers, where he adopts Forbes’s 
views in preference to Tyndall’s. This adoption of Forbes’s theories is not 
usual, but we think it right j we fancy from Forbes’s work upon the subject 
that he most conclusively proves the force of his ideas. On the whole, the 
book is a very good one, and we have much pleasure in recommending it. 
BRITISH FUNGI, f 
O F all the departments of Botany we fancy that that of the Fungi has 
been the least studied by the amateur, and, doubtless, the reason has 
been the absence of a suitable manual wherein the student could find every 
species which he was likely to meet. However, this need no longer exist, 
for Mr. M. C. Cooke, M.A., has supplied a work which will long outlive 
him, and which must for many years be regarded as the standard instructor 
on the subject. He has given us, in two volumes of more than 900 pages 
and with more than 400 well-devised woodcuts, an admirable account of all 
the British Fungi. It is true, as he himself admits, that in many cases 
the American distribution is imperfectly given, but this is a very small 
defect, if it be one at all, in such an admirable work. W e think, too, that 
considerable praise is due to Mr. Macmillan for the admirable manner 
* “ Elementary Treatise on Natural Philosophy.” By A. P. Deschanel. 
Translated and Edited by J. D. Everett, M.A., D.C.L., Professor of Natural 
Philosophy in Queen’s College, Belfast. London : Blackie, 1871. 
t “Handbook of British Fungi.” With full descriptions of all the 
species and illustrations of the genera. By M. C. Cooke, M.A. London : 
Macmillan & Co., 1871. 
