clear in its reasoning, is discursive, and applies to a variety of merely cognate subjects. "The Deluge" is a suggestive essay; but "The Mosaic Cosmogony" attempts more than it well accomplishes. There can be no objection to the general principle adopted to harmonise the Mosaic account of the creation with facts; but more care in details, and larger space, were necessary to do it justice. In stating that an universal ether is supported "by the observed contraction of the periods of Encke's comet," the author appears not to know that later observations show that what is recorded of Encke's comet does not apply to comets outside the orbit of Mercury; and that the resistance offered apparently (if the calculations on which it was based be really correct) to Encke's comet must be local, and is probably due to coronal matter. These defects, however, are small compared with the value of the book. We heartily commend it to our readers; and sincerely hope, in the interests of truth, it will have a large circulation.

The First Book of Botany. Designed to Cultivate the Observing Powers of Children. By Eliza A. Youmans. London: H. S. King and Co. 1872.

AMID the numerous and excellent school manuals of botany that exist, there is room for this one. It puts into the child's hands a power to become its own teacher. An intelligent child, furnished with this book, and with ample opportunity of roaming the fields and lanes, might become fully acquainted with the fundamental principles of botany in a single summer; and the exercise must prove in all senses pleasurable. The illustrations are, for the object in view, exhaustive; and the instruction clear, simple, and accurate.

The Forces of Nature: a Popular Introduction to the Study of Physical Phenomena. By Amédée Guillemin. Translated from the French by Mrs. Norman Lockyer, and edited with Additions and Notes by J. Norman Lockyer, F.R.S. London: Macmillan and Co.

1872.

How much the interests of popular science will be indebted to this book it is not easy to say. It is one of the most brilliant expositions of "Natural Philosophy that ever came from the English press. To the gifted translator we owe much; and the invaluable and easily traced "Additions" of her husband give the book a further value and interest. The latest results of scientific research are not only indicated, but their rationale clearly given. Dr. Huggins' magnificent discovery, by means of the spectroscope, of the recession or advance of the "fixed" stars, is explained with great simplicity and beauty. We know of no other popular treatise in which this is done. Every department of physics is in a similar manner brought up to the very latest achievements. To the publishers, as well as to the authors, the utmost praise is due. As a "book," it will be probably the most

beautiful of the season.

The "eleven coloured plates and four hundred and fifty-five woodcuts" are certainly unsurpassed by anything we have seen. It is such books as this that awaken a love for science, and leave lasting impressions on the minds of general readers.

The Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice and Glaciers. By John Tyndall, LL.D., F.R.S., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution. London: Henry S. King and Co. 1872.

THIS is the first volume of "The International Scientific Series," which is to consist of popular treatises on every important subject, physical and metaphysical, to be supplied by the most distinguished authors in Europe and America, and to be published simultaneously in England, America, Germany, and France. It is a series that promises much, and we may well believe will fully redeem its promise. The volume before us is, as we might anticipate, eloquent and instructive in an eminent degree. The meteorological phenomena manifested by water form the subject; and to say that these are expounded in a manner at once exhaustive and fascinating is but truth. The pages devoted to a brief exposition of the wave theory of light, and the necessary co-existence with this of a similar theory of heat, are admirable. The way in which the heat of the sun is shown to be the cause of the glacier and the iceberg, and the river-like movement of glaciers as demonstrated by Forbes, Agassiz, and the author, explained, and above all, the exposition of the regelation theory as accounting for the down-flow en masse of the mighty glaciers of the Alps, are worthy of the author. We could have wished, however, that Professor Tyndall had confined himself to his province, instead of going out of his way to make thrusts at theology. There are points when the beauty of nature awakens his indignation that "nature's Author should be thought blind" (pp. 31, 32); yet no opportunity escapes him of weakening in his pupil's mind the conviction of the existence of the Deity as revealed. Water ceases to contract at 39° Fahrenheit; hence as ice it floats. Were this not so in the colder regions, all masses of water would in time become mere masses of ice, and all life be extinguished. As it is the ice floats, and life in the waters is preserved. This has been pointed out by theologians as a proof of "design." When this was done, however, it was not known that this property of water was shared by other bodies. It is now proved that iron and bismuth act in a similar manner-the solid floats upon the liquid. "There is no fish to be taken care of here," says Professor Tyndall, "still the contrivance' is the same." And then follows a severe utterance against those who, seeing design in the universe, insist on a Designer; for "the presumption, if not the degradation, rests with those who place upon the throne of the universe a magnified image of themselves, and make its doings a mere colossal imitation of their own" (p. 125). Does Professor Tyndall

mean by this that, because iron and bismuth share a property with water, the argument from design disappears? A larger science has shown that the teleologist was wrong in making this an exclusive peculiarity of ocean, lake, and river; but this only throws us upon a vaster design-a grander purpose. It may have been a fault in some cases to presume to "explain the designs of Infinite Wisdom" (p. 123), but Professor Tyndall knows in spite of it that the consciousness of design remains. The design is only larger, since this property is shared by other forms of matter. It does not diminish, it enlarges our admiration of the power of gravity to find that it applies to the double stars. The design it discloses is only the more majestic. If a profound religious consciousness has erred in narrowing down "design" to single points, when in truth it has a grander harmony, we think we may claim indemnity; for the history of science is one stream of corrected blunders. If Professor Tyndall had left "the beautiful myths and stories of the Bible (p. 152) alone, his charming little volume would have been free from a needless disfigurement.

The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. By Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S., &c. With Photographic and other Illustrations. London: John Murray. 1872. WE can but give, at present, a brief notice of this very important work. Mr. Darwin has written nothing that is more indicative of his peculiar powers. As in former instances, it is not so much for the discovery of what is new, as for the novel application of what is old, that the book is remarkable. Its eminent author has followed a certain cumulative argument in his writings. The Origin of Species lays the foundation for The Descent of Man; and now man's development by evolution, through the agency of natural and sexual selection, is to be made manifest by showing that the instruments by which his emotions are expressed are not made for that purpose, but are inherited from the ancestral brute, and are used because they are there, rather than because they are given to be so used. It may suffice now to say that "Natural Selection" and the "Evolution " which it implies form the basis of all the inferences here made; but that a wholly different complexion may be given to the beautiful series of illustrations employed, we shall hope to show by a careful discussion of this volume in our next issue.

The Foreigner in Far Cathay. By W. H. Medhurst, H.B.M. Consul, Shanghai. London: Edward Stanford. 1872. MR. MEDHURST gives, in small compass and unpretending manner, a good deal of information about China and Chinese affairs, and, more particularly, about the position of foreign residents in China. With regard to several matters he endeavours to correct erroneous estimates current among us in this country, and his judgments seem to us to be

generally fair and reasonable. It is plain that no national life can hang together without some wholesome constituents of character; all sweeping charges brought against a people must be tempered by the admission that the mere existence of society implies some qualities beside bad ones. Here is, to our mind, the consoling thought when contemplating what is quite dark and dreary enough, the life of a heathen nation. It need by no means blunt the edge of Christian compassion toward such a nation to acknowledge that there are things which " even nature itself teaches," so that, in no community under the sun is natural affection wholly trodden out, or human kindliness and good-will unknown. Considerations like these are sometimes forgotten, and statements made respecting the depravity of a people that are far too general to be true. Mr. Medhurst does not claim on behalf of the Chinese, that they are free from the common vices of the heathen, or that they do not possess some defects of character in a special degree; but, considering all things, he says, "There is much cause for marvel that they hold virtue and its kindred characteristics in such high estimation, and that their standard of what is good and commendable so nearly approaches that of more privileged and gifted nations. . . . Their sense of honour, for example, though not of that nature which is ready to resent the slightest insult by pugnacious demonstration, is, nevertheless, very keen, and the educated classes especially are painfully sensitive to insult or indignity." The whole. chapter on "the Character of the Chinese" is well worth reading, though it would have been better if less apologetic in strain. With regard to the honesty of servants, Mr. Medhurst states a fact worth quoting: "As far as my own experience of some thirty years' residence in the country is to be relied on, I can vouch for never having lost a single article save a small revolver, and that was restored a few days afterwards, on my assembling the servants, and appealing to their sense of right not to allow the stain of theft to rest on the household. They discovered the thief without difficulty, and he was soon obliged by the rest to leave my service." A curious contrast between the Chinese, or, to speak more generally, the Oriental temperament and the European, is pointed out. "The mere sight of a cut finger or broken nose will occasion more bemoaning and fuss than a fractured limb or a ghastly wound would beget amongst Europeans. On the other hand, this native gentleness and timidity disappear when horrors present themselves wholesale before the Chinaman's mind. Although he will rouse the neighbourhood if a little blood is drawn by accident, or in a petty quarrel, yet he will munch his rice unconcernedly whilst human victims are undergoing torture or decapitation by the score in the next street." The combination, in the same character, of almost feminine timidity and an indifference to suffering and death such as the Western races never show, is a problem that has not been sufficiently explained. When all allowance is made for the influence of the most desponding of religious philosophies, we do not seem quite to have got to the bottom of this strange peculiarity. The remarks on

missionaries in China should be read for the contradiction given to that nonsense about the "inevitable gunboat" which is still occasionally repeated, and for some candid criticism which deserves to be weighed by the friends of missions. It is pointed out that the comparison sometimes made between Romanist and Protestant missionaries to the disparagement of the latter "is, to say the least, unfair. The two classes of labourers go out under such diametrically opposite systems of Church organisation and discipline, and they pursue their objects in such entirely different methods, that no comparison, except as regards the several results of their labours, can be either just or accurate, and thus it is next to impossible to institute it to any satisfactory degree." It is the custom of the Romanist missionaries to disassociate themselves from foreigners, and to work disguised as natives, disappearing, so to speak, among the people by conforming to their dress and modes of life. It cannot be denied that this demands a great sacrifice from an intelligent European, and that the Roman Church can provide any number of men willing to make this sacrifice is an element of her power which should never be overlooked. Of course, it is only made possible by the compulsory celibacy of her clergy. On this subject Mr. Medhurst says, "As regards the married condition of the Protestant missionaries, I am not by any means prepared to condemn it, or to advocate celibacy as a rule, for I know of many devoted couples whose united and energetic efforts have been productive of great good. At the same time, I venture to think that a man or woman, labouring single-handed, must, of necessity, prove a more effective missionary as far as China is concerned, for not only is increased leisure afforded for undivided attention to the work, but more opportunity and freedom are given for complete disassociation from foreign surroundings, and a thorough seclusion amongst the natives; and there is a greater likelihood, moreover, of earning the good-will and respect of the Chinese, in whose eyes celibacy constitutes an important element of self-sacrifice." The Protestant Churches may, and do, employ both married and unmarried missionaries, a freedom which gives them the command of two kinds of moral strength, and saves them from the great perils inseparable from a compulsory celibate. In this very field of Chinese Missions the name of William Burns comes at once to mind as representing the one class, and many instances readily recur where the character and labours of a Christian wife have greatly increased the missionary's power for good.

Mr. Medhurst writes rather gloomily of the future in our relations with China. He is of opinion that the feeling of the Government and influential classes is thoroughly hostile to foreigners, and that the merest accident, at any point, may bring about a dangerous outbreak when least expected. It appears to be the practice of the Chinese officials to stimulate public opinion into fear and dislike of foreign innovations, and then to urge that they are unable to restrain or correct the very opinion they have diligently laboured to create. As to the necessity of firmly maintaining existing treaty stipulations, Mr. Med