354 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
RAMBLES IN SEARCH OF MINERALS * 
A MOURNFUL interest clings to this little book as being the last work 
which issued from the active pen of the late Prof. Ansted. Perhaps 
no science is more difficult to popularize than Mineralogy, since its veriest 
rudiments cannot be understood without some scant knowledge of solid 
geometry and of chemistry. Notwithstanding the necessary exclusion of 
crystallographic and chemical expressions, Prof. Ansted has contrived to 
give intelligible descriptions of a number of minerals, and to convey to the 
reader in a pleasant gossipy way a great deal of information about their 
mode of occurrence. The volume forms one of a series entitled 'Natural 
History Rambles, but the rambles in this case must necessarily be taken 
rather far from home, since the principal part of the book is devoted to a 
popular description of gems and various ornamental stones which are not 
likely to be met with in any part of the British Islands. But if gem-stones 
be taken away, mineralogy loses nearly the whole of its popular element, and 
we are consequently not disposed to cavil at their intrusion into our Natural 
History Rambles. 
GUTHRIE’S ELECTRICITY.! 
rpiJE critic finds his occupation gone as he reads on the title-page of this 
JL work that it has already reached the ‘ Fifteenth Thousand.’ Such a 
sale is alone sufficient to show that Dr. Guthrie’s text-book has been found 
widely useful to students of physics. Having used the work in class-teaching 
the present writer can testify without hesitation to its sterling worth. The 
work is based upon the lectures which the author has been in the habit of 
delivering in his annual course at the Royal School of Mines. It is to be 
regretted, however, that successive editions are not revised so as to keep 
pace with the advance of electrical science : we fail to find, for example, 
any reference in the Index to such subjects as the Telephone and Micro- 
phone. 
THE SUPERNATURAL IN NATURE. J 
nninS very able book, published at first anonymously, has reached a second 
edition, and its success has determined the author to reveal himself and 
also to thank some well-known scientific men for their help. The object of 
* Natural History Rambles : in Search of Minerals. By D. T. Ansted, 
M.A., F.R.S. 8vo. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 
188 °. 
f Magnetism and Electricity. Collins’ Advanced Science Series. By 
Frederick Guthrie. With 300 Illustrations. 8vo. London and Glasgow: 
Wm. Collins, Sons, & Co. 
| The Supernatural in Nature, a Verification by free use of Science. By 
Rev. Joseph William Reynolds, President of Zion College. 8vo. London : C. 
Kegan Paul and Co. ISSO. 
