i88i.] 
353 
Analyses of Books . 
pretend to suffer from heat in July and August. In Norway the 
past winter is said to have been more severe than has been expe- 
rienced for many years. 
If such a change is really going on, agricultural depression in 
Britain and Ireland, with all its consequences dirert and indirect, 
must continue to increase in spite alike of legislation and agita- 
tion. Civilisation in Europe will gradually have to retire, and 
those nations which have secured territories in tropical or sub- 
tropical regions will be compelled to take refuge there. The 
narrowed expanse of habitable and cultivable lands will necessi- 
tate a wolfish struggle for existence, in which the weak and the 
scrupulous must perish. The only fa Cl we can remember which 
does not agree with the author’s prediction of an approaching 
ice-age is the decrease of the glaciers of the Alps. 
We must recommend this little work not merely to men of 
science, but to all who can see or who care to look beyond the 
exigencies of the present moment. 
Sight : an Exposition of the Principles of Monocular and Bi- 
nocular Vision. By Joseph Le Conte, LL.D., Professor of 
Geology and Natural History in the University of California. 
London : C. Kegan Paul and Co. 
Prof. Le Conte will be doubtless favourably known to most of 
our readers as an able and thoughtful naturalist, but they will be 
perhaps some little surprised to find him taking up a subject 
which is generally left to the physicists. He contends, however, 
that there is not in the English language any work covering the 
same ground as that which he has selected, and he pronounces, 
not without truth, the study of vision almost exceptional as a 
means of scientific culture, connecting together, as it does, -the 
sciences of physics, physiology, and even psychology. 
In an introductory sedtion the author treats of the relation of 
general sensibility to special sense. He deals with the gradation 
among the senses. In touch we require diredt and generally 
solid contaCt ; in taste, liquid contadt ; in smell, aeriform con- 
tact ; in hearing contadt is no longer needed, and we perceive at 
a distance ; lastly, in sight, we recognise objedts at a distance 
which is illimitable. He remarks that it is on these two higher 
senses that Fine Art is wholly, and Science is mainly, founded. 
Here we must suggest a doubt. We have often imagined it pos- 
sible to constitute a fine art appealing to the sense of smell, and 
in chemistry both smell and taste give us much more information 
concerning the properties of bodies than does hearing. Prof. 
Le Conte confines himself, in the book before us, to human sight, 
