498 
rOPULAE SCIENCE REVIEW. 
tures,” we find discussed the subjects of clays, cements, artificial stones, 
building materials, minerals, coal, and mining. There is only one objection 
which we have to urge against this volume, and that is, it embraces too wide 
a range of subjects to admit of everyone of them being satisfactorily treated. 
For example, the space devoted to agricultural geology is quite inadequate. 
This is much to be regretted, for there is no branch of geology which requires 
to be brought especially under the notice of the people so much as that which 
relates to agriculture. We do not find, either, that justice has been done to 
continental labours ; for the author appears to yield an implicit submission to 
the theories of Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert. When Professor Ansted comes 
to his own subject, the improvement is apparent. The chapters devoted to 
“ cements,” and to “ minerals derived from stratified deposits,” are full of 
instructive details. In concluding his useful treatise, the writer observes : — 
“ There are other applications of geology that I have not brought under 
your notice in these lectures. Among them T would especially point out 
that one which has reference to the fine arts. I mention it now to remind 
you that the subject of applied geology is far from being exhausted ; that, in 
fact, I have only considered it in one aspect, and that the many-sided science 
that deals with the earth — its history, its structure, and its grand physical 
features, and the causes that have produced and are daily modifying these 
features — is no less calculated to interest the artist and the poet than the 
farmer and the manufacturer.” 
HIS is a new edition of an old and well-known encyclopaedia. The pub- 
lishers propose to complete it in twelve montlily numbers, three of 
which have already reached us. The contributors to the several scien- 
tific departments have been in some cases unwisely selected, and we are 
soiTy to perceive "that the subject of microscopy and microscopic science is 
entirely unrepresented. The articles too, if so the short paragraphs may be 
termed, are of a" ery unequal value, some of them being exact and up to the 
time, and others being as unquestionably full of error and misstatement. The 
chemical portion appears to be fairly edited, and the same may be said of the 
botanical and mathematical sections ; but the biological division, which 
includes aU the natural sciences except physical geology, is disgracefully 
imperfect. We do not use so strong an expression without just reason, as 
some of the quotations which we propose to offer will sufficiently prove. The 
article “Animal” is especially bad. The vHter, in summing up the characters 
which serve to distinguish animals from plants, makes egregious blunders : — 
“ Animals . . . are always provided with a mouth and an internal digestive 
cavity, or canal,” and “ at all times in respiration exhale carbonic and absorb 
BEAND’S DICTIONARY.* 
* “A Dictionary of Science, Literature, and Art,” &c. Edited by 
W. T. Brand, D.C.L., F.R.S., and the Rev. George W. Cox, M.A. 
London : Longman & Co. 1865. 
