EEVIEWS. 
169 
packed ” condensation of recent work in ckemistry and physics. It contains 
such an amount of matter that it becomes quite a labour to read it, for we 
might as well take up a dictionary, so cut and dry ” are the facts, so crude, 
so imdigested, so slightly connected are the statements. There is little in 
the shape of generalisation, and almost less in the form of general reflection. 
All through it is Mr. So-and-So did this ; Professor did that ; so many 
millions of miles, or pounds, or suchlike. This part of the book is a very 
tangled forest of the discoveries of physicists, through which one has to cut 
one’s way with force, and of which, when travelled through, one knows very 
little that is either useful or improving. By far the most interesting section 
is that devoted to the results of spectrum analysis, which may be looked 
upon as a very full and fair exposition of our knowledge up to the beginning 
of last year. 
The minute structure of the substance of plants occupies the second part 
of the first volume, and offers nothing new either in fact or mode of treat- 
ment. Everything that it contains is to be found more correctly stated 
and similarly illustrated in the works of the Rev. J. M. Berkeley, Dr. 
Carpenter, and indeed in most good treatises on Physiological Botany. We 
should perhaps make an exception in favour of the brief account which is 
offered of Mr. Darwin’s discovery of the floral peculiarities of orchids. 
The second volume is confined to descriptions of the animal world, but 
even here we fail to see that the author has given any justification for the 
types she has selected. Assuredly, she has not limited her remarks to 
microscopic creatures, nor has she, when writing of other and larger animals, 
dealt exclusively with their histology. Indeed, altogether, this is the 
worst part of the book, and has only one redeeming feature — the illustra- 
tions. The latter have been selected from sources not familiar to the 
general public, and the artist has drawn the figures in white on a dark 
indigo background, which gives them great beauty, attractiveness, and effect. 
We refer especially to the page-plates, which represent some beautiful ex- 
amples of the oceanic Hydrozoa, the Polycystina, and the other forms of 
Rhizopoda. The descriptions of structure are accurate, but they are most 
unequal in merit, and sometimes whole groups— like the Lifusoria and the 
Rotifera, perhaps the most interesting microscopic forms in the whole 
animal kingdom — are disposed of with a degree of conciseness more decided 
than desirable. 
There are two well-marked defects in this work of Mrs. Somerville’s to 
which we must call attention ere we close this brief notice ; these are the 
multitude of typographical errata, and the tendency which exhibits itself in 
every page to father on a writer a doctrine or theory which he merely in com- 
mon with others has employed. This last is a vulgar offence, and one which 
those who make books for the public should avoid. Thus we are told in one 
place that Dr. Carpenter has shown that it is by a series of forces acting 
on matter that man conveys his ideas to man,” — just as if Dr. Carpenter ever 
did anything more than hand this doctrine down from those from whom he 
himself received it. As we have said, we fear too often, we are most dis- 
satisfied with this work, and the following paragraph, which we quote from 
the first section in the second volume, would be in itself alone enough 
to condemn the whole |work, as one devoid of the philosophic feeling 
