1879.] 
’( 437 ) 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 
Vols. xiii. and xiv. Melbourne : Mason, Firth, and McCut- 
cheon. London : Williams and Norgate. 
We cannot congratulate the Royal Society of Victoria on the 
subjects of the papers printed in the thirteenth volume of their 
“ Transactions.” More than half the volume is taken up with 
a treatise on practical geodesy, and of the remaining memoirs 
there is not one which might not quite as easily have been 
written in London, Paris, or Berlin. What the learned world 
tacitly expects from such societies is that they shall prominently, 
and before all things, busy themselves with the rich crop of un- 
recorded facts and phenomena which surrounds them, waiting, 
so to speak, for recognition. The geology, the palaeontology, 
botany, zoology, and ethnology of their own region constitute 
the sphere in which they can render the greatest services to 
Science and win for themselves the highest honour. 
Vol. xiv. contains four noteworthy papers : — “ Notes on the 
Coast-line of the Western District, and Proofs of the Uniform 
Condition of Meteorological Phenomena over Long Periods of 
Time,” by Mr. T. E. Rawlinson ; on some “New Marine Mol- 
lusca,” by the Rev. J. E. Tennison-Woods — a most able and 
persevering scientific worker ; “ Extracts from a Diary in Japan,” 
by F. C. Christy ; and “ History of Palaeozoic ACtinology in 
Australia,” by R. Etheridge, jun. The last-mentioned memoir 
is a summary of what has been already discovered concerning 
the fossil corals of Australia. Mr. Christy’s diary teems with 
interesting faCts concerning the climate, the vegetation, agricul- 
ture, and horticulture, the architecture, religion, government, 
domestic economy, mining, and natural history of these wonder- 
ful islands. The author remarks that in Japan eight adults live 
from the produce of one acre, and keep it in good condition with 
their excreta, whilst in England the excreta from 800 to 
1200 persons are used per acre without profitable result. The 
fauna of Japan agrees wonderfully closely with that of Europe. 
Mr. Christy gives a list— too long for insertion here — of butter- 
flies, moths, and bees common to Japan and England, and re- 
marks : — “ In referring to the very many species identical with 
those of England it is remarkable, because Japan consists of a 
series of islands so very distant and isolated from England, and 
goes far to disprove Darwin’s theory that the farther species are 
from species — that is, the more they are diffused by distance — 
the more they must differ, having to struggle for existence over 
