192 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
twenty lines which would he complete in themselves, but in vain. The 
writer has such a habit of saying in one part that a fact which occurs shall 
be explained further on, that it is impossible to find any part of the lecture 
complete, and which yet does not amount to more than a few sentences. 
The other book is not of so fascinating a character as that upon the 
candle, yet it is, if anything, more philosophic. It is an excellent popular 
attempt to put before the reader what Mr. Grove (now, we believe, Judge 
Grove) has given the more scientific public, viz. the idea that all forces 
are but modifications one of the other, and are reproducible. Thus, gravi- 
tation, or mechanical force, gives rise to heat, heat to light, electricity, 
magnetism, and chemical action ; and all may be converted into one form, 
which they came from originally. And this is what is demonstrated so 
wonderfully^popularly in the clever little book before us. There is but one 
portion which we will quote, as it shows the author’s peculiar style better 
than anything else. He is endeavouring to explain the method by which 
he himself can become a conductor of electricity, and he shows it thus : 
“ And if I were to show you a stool like this, and were to explain to you 
its construction, you would easily understand that we use glass legs 
because they are capable of preventing the electricity from going away to 
the earth. If, therefore, I were to stand on this stool and receive the 
electricity 'through this conductor, I could give it to anything that I 
touched (the lecturer stood upon the insulating-stool, and placed himself in 
connection with the conductor of the machine). Now I am electrified I 
can feel my hair rising up. Let us see whether I can succeed in lighting 
gas by touching the jet with my finger (the lecturer brought his finger near 
a jet from which gas was issuing, when, after one or two attempts, the 
spark which came from his finger to the jet set fire to the gas). You now 
see how it is that this power of electricity can be transferred from the matter 
in which it is generated and conducted along wires and other bodies, and 
thus be made to serve new purposes utterly unattainable by the powers we 
have spoken of on previous days.” And all through the book is written in 
this simple, easy, familiar style — a style which was as characteristic of the 
man as any other circumstance of his remarkably simple mode of life. 
WHERE THERE’S A WILL THERE’S A WAY.* 
T HOSE who are strongly democratic in their tastes will doubtless like 
this little book, for it is a very well-written history of a series of men 
who — almost all poor men — under the greatest difficulties, devoted 
themselves intensely to the study of natural history. Of course, the 
author of such a book is an extreme admirer of such men as he has taken it 
upon himself to describe, and is likely enough, in writing of their lives, to 
exaggerate the actions of his heroes, so as to make them seem to calmer eyes 
a little too heroic. If we say this, it is merely to guard our readers against 
* “ Where there’s a Will there’s a Way ; or, Science in the Cottage. An 
Account of the Labours of Naturalists in Humble Life.” By James Cash. 
London : Hardwicke, 1873. 
