267 
1876 .] , Notices of Booh. 
at the centres of activity. Such a medium may possess enor- 
mous space forces, — gravity which is inherent in matter being 
one of its modes, and forming a link between force and matter. 
“ The adtion of our ethereal medium, and the stream of ra- 
diance, may confer upon the planets their orbital and rotatory 
motion. 
“ The diurnal oscillation of the barometer is claimed as 
evidence of the external adtion of space forces upon our planet. 
“ This theory cannot explain the origin of the universe or the 
manner of the endowment of its motive powers ; but it holds 
that an immortal universe is necessary as a habitat for immortal 
beings, and as a possession for its immortal Creator.” 
The Appendix on the Climatology of New Zealand is worthy 
of a careful examination. 
The Creation; the Earth's Formation on Dynamical Principles , 
in accordance with the Mosaic Record and the Latest Scien- 
tific Discoveries. By Archibald T ucker Ritchie. London : 
Daldy, Isbister, and Co. 
The Bible has been put to strange uses. Placed in one scale of 
a balance, and weighed against a woman accused of witchcraft, 
it was sometimes made to decide the question of her guilt or 
innocence. Hung up from a key, or according to some with a 
key inserted between the leaves, it was expedted to point out a 
thief amidst a circle of bystanders. Opened at random, in 
imitation of the Sortes Virgiliance , it was supposed to afford an 
augury as to the success or failure of any undertaking. But it 
is very questionable whether any of these obsolete superstitions 
involves a more fundamental misconception of the rightful 
claims of the Scriptures than does the notion — still lingering in 
the British Islands, especially in the lowlands of Scotland and 
the north of Ireland — of viewing them as a physical revelation, 
and of endeavouring to extradt from them geological, chemical, 
or biological truths. Whenever, therefore, we meet with a so- 
called scientific treatise like the one before us, we know that the 
author has taken a radically false stand-point, and that we must 
prepare for a duty equally odious and unprofitable. 
Mr. Ritchie is firmly convinced in his own mind of certain 
very strange propositions. He holds that the earth did not 
always rotate diurnally round its axis ; that the sun, though the 
centre of gravity of the solar system, afforded no light ; that the 
earth was a perfedt sphere, covered everywhere “ with a dark, 
unruffled mass of turgid waters and, above all, that there was 
no atmosphere ! Under these circumstances, nevertheless, the 
waters were “ the abode of innumerable races of living apulmonic 
