REVIEWS. 
505 
as to show that the writer is not merely a compiler, but honestly states the 
results of his experience. The paragraphs devoted to the mammalian 
tissues are rather imperfect ; but this is a defect which, though disappointing 
to the human anatomist, will he readily forgiven by most of our readers. 
In the chapter on injections nothing has been left undone to aid the student 
in canying out his operations successfully, and the claims of all our pro- 
fessional microscopists have been candidly acknowledged. We wish we 
had space enough at our command to give a series of extracts from Mr. 
Davies’s book, which certainly cannot be adequately reviewed within our 
limits. It is one of those works which can be read unsystematically, for 
every page abounds in profitable information complete in itself. It is a 
treatise which should be on the table of every microscopist, and we can 
conscientiously say it is the best vade-mecum we have ever seen. 
THE STREAM OF LIFE." 
A LARGE book and withal a well- written one. Such is Mr. Milton’s 
production. To say that the title hardly expresses the nature of the 
matter found within the covers, would be only to repeat what we have to 
express in regard to hundreds of similar effusions. The author opens the 
flood-gate at about the middle of the Cambrian period, allows the vital 
current to flow gently on through pre-Mosaic and historic times, and then 
by a singular application of the laws of hydro-dynamics supposes it to wend 
its way to worlds beyond our ken, where he modestly leaves it. The book 
may be said to be really a series of popular essays on different branches of 
science. Thus we find that geology, archaeology, philology, natural history, 
physiology, and astronomy, have successively engaged Mr. Milton’s atten- 
tion. To criticise a work like the present would hardly be fair ; u Crichtons ” 
are rare in this century, and we do not think that our author is one of them. 
He has written a volume of popularized science, which will be read with 
interest by most people, not only because of the curious information it 
contains, but for the simple reason that the style is characterized by a 
graceful, easy diction, and by an absence of those inelegances which too often 
deface the pages of scientific treatises. The attack on Mr. Darwin’s 
doctrines has been very clumsily made, and on that account, and from the 
fact that Mr. Milton evidently neither understands the subject nor has given 
it consideration, we will not be severe upon him. His physiology, likewise, 
is occasionally at fault. On the wdiole, the book is as free from errors as any 
other compilation of a similar class, and though some believe that works 
which convey a little inaccurate with a great deal of accurate information 
are nevertheless pernicious, we do not subscribe to the dogma. Hoping 
to meet Mr. Milton again, we commend him to Professor Huxley’s care for 
the present, and we beg to assure our friends that they will travel over the 
pages of his volume both profitably and agreeably. 
* “ The Stream of Life on our Globe : its Archives, Traditions, and 
Laws, as revealed by Modern Discoveries in Geology and Palaeontology,’* 
&c. By J. L. Mtlton, M.R.C.S. London : Hardwicke. 18G4. 
