no Notices of Books, [January, 
Elementary Treatise on Physics, Experimental and Applied, for 
the Use of Colleges and Schools. Translated and Edited from 
Ganot’s “ Elements de Physique.” By E. Atkinson, 
Ph.D., F.C.S. Seventh Edition, Revised and Enlarged. 
London : Longmans, Green, and Co. 
The fa< 5 t that this book, in its English version, has reached its 
seventh edition since 1863 deprives us of the orcinary scope for 
criticism. Ganot’s work is known and appreciated by teachers 
and students here as well as on the Continent. The present 
edition contains seventeen entirely new illustrations, whilst the 
additions to the text amount to twenty-seven pages. An appendix 
has also been added containing a series of numerical problems 
and examples in physics, arranged so as to afford students who 
have not the advantage of regular professorial instruction a 
means of testing the accuracy and thoroughness of their know- 
ledge. We have every reason to believe that the present edition 
of this book will be received even more favourably than the fore- 
going. 
A Dictionary of Science, Literature, and Art. Edited by W. T. 
Brande, D.C.L., F.R.S. L, and E. (late of Her Majesty’s 
Mint), and the Rev. G. W. Cox, M.A. New Edition. 
London : Longmans, Green, and Co. 
This work is, in point of fact, an encyclopaedia, embracing 
nearly the whole extent of human knowledge. Its total extent 
being merely three oCtavo volumes of some nine hundred pages 
each, minuteness of detail cannot be expended. The distribution 
of the space at command in a publication of this nature is a 
matter on which differences of opinion are certain to prevail. 
The chief attention of the surviving editor has been, perhaps 
naturally, turned rather to literature and art than to science. 
The historical, archaeological, and mythological portions strike 
us as having been carried out on alarger scale than other subjects. 
Technology, chemical, physical, and mechanical, cannot be said 
to have fared well. Calico-printing, for instance, is despatched 
in nine lines, the soda-manufaCture receives not quite a column, 
whilst “ballad” enjoys a column and a quarter, and “ballot” a 
column and a half. It may, however, be considered that those 
who take a special interest in technological questions will have 
recourse to Dr. Ure’s “ Dictionary of Arts,” to which the work 
before us may in some sort be regarded as complementary. 
The scientific articles are of very varying degrees of merit. 
Those treating on biological subjects are perhaps the least satis- 
factory. Where matters of fact are concerned, the notices are 
exceedingly brief, and a part of the little space at command is 
generally spent on the derivation of the name where further 
information on the thing named is urgently needed. Important 
