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291 
at. To the student who is placed under a skilled teacher, this book of 
Professor Bloxam’s will not offer many advantages. But to the amateur 
who has just fitted up his own laboratory, or to the student who has not the 
benefit of a teacher of experience, it will prove an invaluable companion. 
The author’s twenty-three years’ practice as a demonstrator of Practical 
Chemistry, has taught him many devices which are of great service to those 
who have not all sorts of apparatus at their hands. One of the first things 
a student in the laboratory should learn, is how to be able to make 
shifts, and this Mr. Bloxam’s work teaches him to do thoroughly and 
effectually. 
BRITISH CONCHOLOGY.* 
W E have had occasion from time to time to offer our favourable opinion 
of the different volumes of this work as they issued from the press, 
and it is now our pleasurable task to notice the last and concluding part in 
the book now before us. In this, the fifth volume, Mr. Jeffreys carries on 
his systematic account of British Molluscs, from the naked Mollusca to the 
end of the Gasteropoda, the Pteropoda and Cephalopoda. There is little to 
be said of the work that we have not expressed before. The descriptions 
are very full, and the synonymy, habitat, and distribution are very fairly 
stated. The illustrations are numerous — in this volume extending to 
more than a hundred plates ; but we cannot say much for their quality. 
They have a horrible degree of flatness, which gives one the idea that the 
shell has, while preserving its outline, been squashed ” into one plane by 
some ingenious process ; in some instances this is carried to a degree which 
renders the figure useless for any purpose save as a terrible warning to 
natural history artists. The Supplement contains the epitome of a number 
of facts and notes recorded by the author during the course of publication 
of the work. The index is a full and well-arranged one, and the hints on 
collecting are practical and useful. If it were not for the plates, the work 
would be one of the most convenient and portable handbooks in our lan- 
guage. 
HALF-HOURS WITH THE STARS.t 
H ere are twelve maps accompanied by explanatory letterpress, and so 
arranged that finy one — be he or she ever so ignorant of astronomy — may 
study the constellations on any night in the year. As the author says, the 
beginner in astronomy usually purchases a set of ordinary star maps, for- 
“ British Conchology.” An Account of the Mollusca which now in- 
habit the British Isles and the surrounding Seas. Vol. V. Marine Shells, by 
J. Gwvn Jeffreys, F.R.S. London : John Van Voorst, 1869. 
* “ Half-hours with the Stars.” A plain and easy Guide to the Knowledge 
of the Constellations. True for every year. By R. A. Proctor, B.A., 
F.R.A.S., etc. London : Hardwicke, 1869. 
