286 
POPULAK SCIENCE EEVIEW. 
REVIEWS. 
THE ATMOSPHERE.* 
I T is witli a good deal of pleasure we observe that of the many scientific 
works addressed to the general population which are being published in 
this country, a considerable number are brought out under the superintend- 
ence and editorship of men whose knowledge of the subject on which the 
work treats cannot for a moment be questioned. And this is essentially 
requisite, for most assuredly it is better to have no knowledge of science 
whatever than such an one as is attainable by the readers of not a few of 
the works which are issued even in this country. And if we may lay down 
this a rule in regard to English writings, how much truer is it of those 
admirably got up volumes which make their appearance on the other side of 
the Straits of Dover. And by this — which may appear to some less expe- 
rienced in the matter as a somewhat sweeping assertion — we mean to 
exclude those issued by German writers, which are particularly excellent 
and advanced. But assuredly there has very rarely been issued by any 
publishing firm a more excellent work in point of authorship, or a more 
admirable one in regard to the physical details of publication than the pre- 
sent one of M. Elammarion, which bears Mr. Glaisher’s name upon its title 
page. And curiously enough this could not be said of the edition from 
which the book is produced. It required the combined qualities of editor, 
translator, and author, to bring the work to its present high standard of 
excellence. The reason of this may appear so obscure without explanation, 
that a few words are necessary in justification of what we have said. In 
the first place, as the editor very properly observes in the preface to the 
volume, many Erench works — and the present one is by no means an excep- 
tion to the general rule — exhibit a tendency “to ^fine ’ writing, which ill 
accords with the precision and accuracy that ought to be a characteristic of 
scientific information, even when expressed in language free from technicali- 
ties. There is a good deal of this exalted kind of composition in M. 
Elammarion’s book which — even in the Erench, not very agreeable to an 
English reader — becomes, when translated, intolerable. I have therefore 
* “ The Atmosphere.” Translated from the Erench of Camille Elammarion 
by C. B. Pitman, and edited by James Glaisher, E.R.S., Superintendent of 
the Magnetical Department of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. ^ 
London : Sampson Low, and Co. 1873. 
