44 
Analyses of Books. 
[January, 
I heologians will stand aghast at finding in the next paragraph 
—and indeed throughout the book — Michael the Archangel iden- 
tified with Satan. 
Scientific didta, or rather utterances on scientific topics, are 
numerous, but for the most part they are utterly contradictory to 
our present knowledge. Nor is there any evidence vouchsafed 
in proof of Mr. Forrest s conclusions. He writes : — “ If anyone 
were to ask what nothing is, we might say that nitrogen is the 
nearest to it in existence. We should begin by defining its pro- 
perties, or more exactly the properties it does not possess ; it 
shou d have neither weight, hardness, taste, appearance, sound, 
smell, and no motion, therefore no colour or light, and be un- 
c ear, voich Nitrogen has no weight or action in the universe, 
being nothing.” We need scarcely say that nitrogen has deci- 
dedly weight, and, though inert in the free state, is, when in 
combination, an essential constituent of foods, organic poisons, 
o the most beautiful colours, of many medicines and explosives. 
Heat, we are told, “ is a rubbing pressure, cold is a motionless 
pressure. ’ Weight or gravitation is said to be “ an improper 
, 9 x y£ en * s P ron °unced a heavier body than other gases. 
.e read further of “ white motions, suns, or stars.” Water is 
said to be “ formed by a thin and invisible motion (such as hy- 
drogen) moving in perfecft space, grasping within its surface the 
sti oxygen till it has assimilated or filled itself, and ceasing its 
own acftion, as also that of oxygen, both become water together 
which is clear like space.” 
Ws roust confess that we are unable to reach the point of view 
needful for appreciating these propositions. 
writer concludes with a fascinating picfture of “human 
life before time was.” 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. Vol. XVI. Part 2. 
1882. 
This part contains a Synopsis of the Fossil Vertebrates of India, 
by R. Lydekker. The oldest known amphibian, it appears, is 
represented merely by a skull and a part of a vertebral column 
of a large species from the Gondwanas. Curiously enough this 
specimen was sent to England for description eighteen years 
unnoticed HaS ° n 7 JUSt been recovere d, having lain all the time 
; e , Pt ’i e f ! here is a notice of some vertebrae from 
the Panjab and Sind belonging to a python, and not to be distin- 
guished from the living P. molurus. 
Among the tortoises is mentioned the enormous Colossochelys 
