296 
TOPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
from time to time lately contributed to the Times, the Quarterlies, and 
other journals. These articles deal with some very novel industrial resources, 
and though many of them cannot be regarded by the political economist as 
seriously worthy of study, the ordinaril}' educated person, the railway 
traveller, the man who desires to relieve his brain by half an hour’s pleasant 
and yet instructive desultory reading, will be grateful to I)r. Wynter for 
his volumes. Among some of the more important and scientific contribu- 
tions to the u Curiosities of Toil,” may be mentioned the “Use of Defuse,” 
“Tricks of the Wine Dealers,” “Bodily Repairs,” “Special Diseases of 
Artizans,” “ Homes without Hands,” “ Earth Closets,” and Fish “ Farming.” 
By the way, in reference to Dr. Wynter’s two papers on Fisheries and 
Fish Farming, we would point to a couple of errors in proper names, which 
we trust the author will correct in the next edition, for the benefit of those- 
who may be desirous of pursuing the subject further. Dr. Kemmer should 
be Dr. Kemmerer, and M. Costa should be M. Coste. In conclusion, let us 
point out (what is perhaps unnecessary in the case of a litterateur so known 
to fame), that Dr. Wynter’s books are not only remarkable for the interest- 
ing facts they bring together, but for the brilliancy, terseness, and epigram- 
matic character of the author’s style. 
PRIMITIVE MAN.* 
H ERE is another of M. Figuier’s handsome compilations, and on the 
whole not a bad one. The writer has gone out of the beaten track 
in search of a subject, and though his work is not, as he imagines it, the only 
general treatise on the subject, and though in point of accuracy it is far 
behind the treatises of Keller and Nilsson and Sir John Lubbock, it is never- 
theless an interesting and useful volume. As its name indicates, it deala 
with the great questions which of late years have cropped up in connection 
with what is called prehistoric archaeology. It treats of all the evidence, 
geological and palaeontological, by which the antiquity of man is established; 
and if the compiler would have contented himself with stating the opinions 
those who have conducted researches on the subject, and have resisted the 
temptation to offer his own valueless ideas, the book would have been a more 
profitable one than it is. The cuts which are to be found on every page are 
well done, and form the finest collection of illustrations of prehistoric human 
relics that is to be found anywhere ; but the ideal and “ artistic ” plates are 
simply execrable productions. The editor of the English edition has, we 
observe, very properly dissented from some of M. Figuier’s rather startling 
perversions of fact, and has, so far as we can see, excised some of the French 
writer’s useless, impertinent, and shallow critiques of the labours of our best 
English geologists. The book is one which we can recommend, and our 
thanks are due to Messrs. Chapman & Hall for introducing it to tho British 
public. 
• “ Primitive Man. ” By Louis Figuier. Revised translation. London* 
Chapman & Hall, 1870. 
