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lie should remember bow Hopkins’s mathematical reasonings, as to the 
solidity of the earth, have been demolished lately by M. Delaunay, not 
because they were unsound as reasonings, but because the data turn out to 
have been inaccurate. AVe would ask an Inner Templar not to waste his 
time in speculation, but to turn to practical science and do good work. 
THE ORIGIN OF THE SExASONS.* 
IITR. MO.SSMAN is an ingenious compiler, but we have a very poor 
4*-L opinion of his capacity as a thinker. In the present work he has 
clipped with discriminating scissors from the works of Lyell and Croll, and 
has produced a sort of general treatise on Physical Geography, in which 
he attempts to explain the variations in climate which different parts of the 
earth have experienced in Geological epochs ; by supposing that the internal 
forces had modified the earth’s form, and thus from certain astronomical 
reasons, that the tropica had expanded. We have, we must confess, a 
lively horror ” of philosophers of this stamp, men who quietly settle all 
the gi’eat problems of the time, in a few moments, with the aid of a rule 
and pair of compasses, and we fear that Mr. Mossman is one of our hc4e$ 
noires. How far Mr. Mossman’s tropics must have extended will be evident 
to those who read Dr. Oswald Ileer’s account of the fossil plants of Green- 
land. Argument is useless in dealing with writers of this class, who con- 
descendingly smile at the speculations of Lyell as being at least pardonable. 
The Anali/sis of Sound and Colour. By John Denis Macdonald, M.D., 
F.R.S. London : Longmans, 1869. That sound and colour are analogous 
is hardly a new idea. Nor does the author put forward the idea as a 
novelty. He, however, urges many arguments in support of their analogy, 
and illustrates his views wdth some excellent diagrams. 
The House I Live in. Edited by T. C. Girtin, surgeon. New edition, 
Longmans, 1809. We never read such unmitigated rubbish as this in the 
whole course of our lives. It abounds in inaccuracies, is written in an awk- 
ward vulgar style, and is altogether so discreditable to medical science that 
wo are surprised to see it published by the eminent firm who have put 
their name on its title-page. 
The Laws of Vital Force. By E. Haughton, A.B., M.D. London : 
Churchill, 1861). The author w'rites on wdiat he calls Physiodynamic Thera- 
peutics : we have no idea w'hat they are. The reader must not confound 
Dr. E. Haughton with I’rofessor Haughton, of Trinity College, Dublin. 
'J’he latter is a most dislinguished physiologist. 
• “The Origin of the Seasons considered from a Geological Point of 
View.” By S. Mo.ssraan. Edinburgh : Blackwood. I860. 
