490 Analyses of Boohs. L August, 
tured by the Crown Metal Company, and considered the manifold 
applications of which they are capable. 
Mr. Davies has evidently taken great pains in the compilation 
of this work, and the information given as to the occurrence, the 
properties, and the uses of the various minerals named, is, 
with very rare exceptions, absolutely accurate. 
The account given of the phosphates, now so extensively used 
in the manufacture of chemical manures, is almost important 
and elaborate enough to form a distinCt work. 
We do not find any mention of the occurrence of vanadium in 
the iron-slags of Creusot, nor of its very important application 
in developing aniline-blacks in calico-printing. Bauxite is men- 
tioned merely as a source of metallic aluminium, whilst its chief 
use at present is doubtless in the manufacture of sulphate of 
alumina and alum. In England and Scotland alum is rarely now 
produced from the alum-shales, as, though these contain a con- 
siderable quantity of sulphate of alumina ready formed, the cost 
of extracting it and freeing it from iron is such that china-clay 
and bauxite are preferred as the raw materials. 
All persons interested in mining, quarrying, and the utilisa- 
tion of mineral products will find this book an indispensable 
guide. 
The Atheistic Platform. VIII. (Fortnightly.) “ Is Darwinism 
Atheistic ?” By Charles Cockbill Cattell, Author of 
“ A Search for the First Man,” &c. London : Freethought 
Publishing Company. 
The circumstance that Mr. Cattell is the Secretary of the Darwin 
Institute, Birmingham, combined with the plea of precedents 
(the faCt that now and then this Journal does penetrate into 
subjects having contact with rather than constituting “ science ”), 
must furnish our excuse for drawing attention here to a page and 
a-half of English print into which is condensed more intellectual 
or moral obliquity than perhaps any other Darwinian applauder 
has yet contrived to compress into the same compass. 
Mr. Cattell’s aim is to deprive of force “ a few phrases [which] 
are frequently quoted to prove ” that Darwinism requires us to 
“ speak of matter endowed with life, endowed with intelligence, 
&c.,” rather than to “ speak of living matter.” This is done by 
collating the quotations with italic emphasis, as below, as to all 
organisms being “ descended from some one primordial form,” 
and as to “ The Creator [having] originally breathed life into a 
few forms, perhaps four or five." These “ theological phrases 
are “ popular modes of expression.” 
