538 Notices of Books . [October, 
century, the cause must be sought out not so much in any short- 
coming of the author as in the nature of his subject. The 
fauna and flora of Norway are comparatively poor, and differ 
little from those of the rest of Northern Europe, and its natural 
phenomena in general have been well and often investigated. 
That Mr. Williams has been able to secure such valuable glean- 
ings from so ably reaped a field makes us regret the more that 
he has not turned his attention in preference to some richer and 
less-known region. But his tastes are evidently ultra-Hyper- 
borean ; he advocates “ Ardlic Expeditions for the Million,” and 
declares that he should hugely enjoy an excursion up to 
8i° 30' N. lat., the bare idea of which causes our flesh to 
creep. 
Among the abundance of interesting matter it is not easy to 
make a selection. So plunging at once in inedias res we are re- 
minded that Norway is the classical home of the sea-serpent. 
No scientific traveller can visit the fjords without attempting to 
solve this mystery and to account for its alleged existence. Our 
author’s conjecture, though we cannot accept it, must be pro- 
nounced bold and original. Observing the existence of certain 
low interrupted ridges of rock stretching out into the sea, he 
thinks that these, under certain atmospheric conditions, may have 
been mistaken for the coils of an enormous serpent, “ floating 
many a rood.” It must, of course, be admitted that the currents 
of air which in bright sunny weather may be perceived rising up 
from a heated surface may give a semblance of motion to a fixed 
and inanimate objedt. It will also be granted that, according to 
Pontoppidan and other the like authorities, the sea-serpent was 
in the habit of appearing only in calm, sunny weather, in the 
height of summer, and of sinking down out of sight as soon as 
a slight wind happened to spring up. So far the features of the 
case are in favour of our author. But his supposition would, at 
best, only account for the appearance of the supposed monster 
in some very few localities. Further, we cannot go so far as to 
assume that fishermen — familiar, from their youth up, with the 
existence of the rocks in question and with their aspedi in every 
kind of weather — could be thus easily deceived. Suppose the 
sun to become overcast, or a wind to spring up, the undulations 
of the air would of course cease, and the seemingly life-like 
movements would be at an end. But the rocks would remain in 
their wonted places, and the spectators — instead of concluding 
that a serpent previously present, in addition to these rocks, had 
just disappeared — would far more probably draw the corredt in- 
ference, that they had mistaken a motionless ridge for a living 
creature. 
Let it not be for a moment supposed that we hold a brief for 
the sea-serpent. The existence of a marine Ophidian surpassing 
the python and the boa in size, in the same proportion as the 
whale exceeds the elephhant, has become too improbable to be 
