Science Classes of the Department of Science and Art, who wish to submit to the Government examinations, to pass with credit. The present volume treats more especially of the physical characters of minerals generally, eighteen of the twentyseven chapters being devoted to a description of Miller's system of crystallography, all mathematical formulæ being avoided. The other physical properties of minerals such as cleavage, structure, magnetism, optical properties, &c. are also well described; the analysis of minerals by the blowpipe is, however, dismissed in ten pages. There are but few elementary manuals of chemistry in which any space is given to blowpipe analysis. It seems a pity, therefore, that the opportunity was lost of giving a more detailed account of a subject of such vital importance to the working mineralogist. The use of the spectroscope in the qualitative analysis of minerals is hurried through a dozen lines. We fear that the system of publishing books in series of volumes, each containing an exact number of sheets, is a mischievous one, for in too many instances it compels authors to restrict certain portions of their work within inconvenient limits. The work is illustrated by nearly six hundred diagrams. The second volume, which will shortly be published, will treat of descriptive mineralogy.

Building Construction, showing the Employment of Timber, Lead, and Iron Work, &c. By R. SCOTT BURN. Vol. I., Text; Vol. II., Plates. London and Glasgow: W. Collins, Sons, and Co. 1878.

THE fame which Mr. R. Scott Burn has gained for his numerous works on the constructive arts renders it almost unnecessary to say very much about the latest production of his pen and pencil. We need only open it at any page to see that it is written by a thoroughly practical man, possessed of the power of explaining his meaning in clear homely language. The text is illustrated by nearly five hundred woodcuts, besides which there is a quarto volume of plates, containing thirty pages of plans, working drawings, and diagrams, illustrative of the text. Amongst them are also a number of plates containing examples explanatory of the excellent instructions for mechanical and free-hand drawing.

We cordially recommend these volumes to all who are connected with the constructive arts. The work forms part of Collins's Advanced Science Series.

Botany Outlines of Morphology and Physiology. By W. R. MCNAB, M.D., F.L.S., Professor of Botany, Royal College of Science, Ireland. London: Longmans and Co. 1878. THIS little work forms part of the series of London Science Class-Books, edited by Prof. G. Carey Foster and Mr. P. Magnus, and is stated to be intended for pupils who have already acquired a rudimentary knowledge of botany. The growth of cells of different kinds, their aggregation to form tissues, and the general external conformation of plants are treated of in the first three chapters. The next five are devoted to the nutrition of plants, their general conditions of life and growth, their movements and modes of reproduction. The book ends with a chapter on classification. So far the general arrangement, which is excellent; but we regret to see a constant tendency on the part of the author to use terms derived from the Greek and Latin, most of them neologisms, when English ones would serve just as well. What possible end can it serve to call the stem of a plant a caulome, the leaf a phyllome, and its hairs trichomes, and that, too, without giving the pupil the least clue to the derivation of these and a hundred other similar words? We must really warn teachers against using a book for any class of school-boys whose chief end seems to be to cram their minds with such facts as thesethat "imperfect self-fertilising flowers are kleistogamous;" that "flowers fertilised by the agency of birds are called ornithophilous;" or that "in sympodial dichotomies the sympodium consists either of the fork-branches of the same side, right or left, the bostrychoid (helicoid) dichotomy, as seen in the leaf of Adiantum pedatum; or the branches are alternately right and left, the cicinnal (scorpioid) dichotomy of many of the Selaginellas." We thought that pedantic cramming was being speedily eradicated from our educational system, but the noxious plant seems to be still flourishing.

A Treatise on Photography. By W. DE WIVESLIE ABNEY, F.R.S., &c. Text-Books of Science. London: Longmans and Co. 1878.

CAPTAIN ABNEY has already earned the gratitude of both professional and amateur photographers by his little work "Instruction in Photography," published some twelve months since. His first book, however, was almost entirely practical in its nature, the theory of photography being only treated of incidentally. The present work fully supplements the first, and enters into full details with regard to the theory of the subject. It must not be thought that the author confines himself entirely

to theory, for there are sufficient technical instructions for all the best known wet and dry processes to enable anyone possessing the book to become an accomplished landscape photographer. The history of photography-from the days when Scheele first saw luna cornua blackening in the sun, to the latest improvements in photo-engraving processes-is succinctly given in the first chapter; after which the author gives a series of experiments on light, which form an admirable introduction to his third chapter, which treats of the theory of sensitive compounds. This chapter is undoubtedly a tough one, but it will fully repay any amateur or professional for the time and trouble which he may take in mastering it. The next two chapters-on "The Action of Light on Various Compounds," and on "The Support and Substratum "-may be looked upon as a continuation of the third. We are now introduced to the more practical part of the subject, the daguerreotype being the first process treated of. Some practical photographers may smile at this exhumation, but they are perhaps not aware that it was employed by the French astronomical expeditions which were sent out to observe the transit of Venus in 1874. Where minute measurements of the photographic image have to be made, as in astronomical or spectroscopic work, the advantage of having a rigid immovable surface to work on, instead of an unequally contractile film, will be readily understood; in fact, we are surprised that so many photo-spectroscopists should still adhere to the wet or dry collodion process. This being the case, the chapter in question might have been longer. The various collodion processes are next described, the practical instructions being very copious. As might have been expected, they take up a large portion of the book. The gelatino-bromide process and the old-fashioned catotype, which Capt. Abney informs us is still practised in remote districts in India, next claim our attention. We next come to the various printing and toning processes, both on glass and paper; printing with ferric, uranic, and chromic salts, the various autotype processes being as fully described as the secrets of trade will allow. The Woodburytype process is also well described. The next chapters are devoted to the photo-lithographic processes of Col. de C. Scott and Sir Henry James,-much used by the Ordnance Department for the reproduction of enlarged or reduced copies of charts and maps. It may interest our readers to know that large numbers of maps reduced by a modification of this process, introduced by Captain Ali Bey, the chief of the Photographic Department of the Seraskierate, were largely and profitably used by the officers of the Ottoman army engaged in the late disastrous campaign. Photo-engraving and relief processes are next described, but of course practical details are wanting, so many of the operations connected with them being kept secret. A print from a photorelief plate, by Warnerke, produced by a secret process, is given,

and is one of the best specimens of the kind that we have seen. The two chapters on Lenses and Apparatus will be of great assistance to the amateur purchaser, who frequently wastes an immense deal of time and money through being ignorant of his real requirements. The chapter "On the Picture" is a most valuable one from an artistic point of view. Not only are minute instructions given for obtaining artistic pictures instead of mere photographic transcripts, but the photographer is shown what is right and wrong by means of nearly a dozen beautifully executed woodcuts of scenery of all descriptions, taken from photographs by Manners Gordon, Woodbury, H. P. Robinson, and other masters of the craft. A chapter on actinometers and actinometry follows, and the remainder of the book is devoted to photo-spectroscopy, celestial photography, micro-photography, and the miscellaneous applications of photography.

We most cordially recommend Capt. Abney's book to our readers. We regret to say that the Index to this important work is so meagre as to be almost useless.

A Critical Examination of the Flints from Brixham Cavern. By A. WHITLEY. London: Hardwicke and Bogue.

THIS pamphlet, which is a reprint from the "Transactions of the Victoria Institute," has for its object to disprove that the flints found in the Brixham Cavern were knives, or otherwise show traces of human labour. The author brings to his task no small ingenuity, and a too obvious desire to make the most of every circumstance upon which the faintest doubt may be founded. This is the weak side of his argument; we cannot trust a critic who speaks not as a judge, but as a most passionate advocate. That he has established a charge of carelessness against some of the discoverers and custodians of the relic in question is undeniable.

Zoology of the Vertebrate Animals. By ALEX. MACALISTER, M.D. London: Longmans and Co.

THIS treatise is one of a series entitled the "London Science Class Books," edited by Messrs. G. C. Foster and P. Magnus. According to their Preface, these gentlemen consider that there is still a want of books adapted for school purposes upon several important branches of Science." Their object being to supply this want, they have sought to obtain the co-operation of men who combine special knowledge of the subjects on which they write with practical experience in teaching."

Within the very brief space allotted-some 120 small pages— the author has given a fair, but of course very sketchy, account of his subject. We are somewhat surprised to find it stated that the common viper is "easily recognised by its dark green colour." Among the hundreds we have captured, from England to Dalmatia, we never met with a specimen that could be called green; the males were various shades of grey, and the females copper-colour. We fear the author's estimate that over 10,000 deaths take place annually from snake-bites is far too low. As an oversight, we may also notice that the swift is ranked among the birds which leave us "about the first week in October."

Report of the Board of Health of the City of Nashville for the Year ending July 4th, 1877. Nashville: Tavel, Eastman, and Howell.

In addition to a Report on Sanitary Reform in Nashville, this volume comprises papers on the topography, the geology, the water-supply, and the climate of the city. Nashville is a place whose sanitary history, as here given, is exceedingly instructive. It was once a summer health resort. By neglect of proper precaution and regulation during its increase from a village to a city-as has happened in too many places on both sides of the Atlantic-its death-rate increased; but now intelligent attention has been awakened, the tide is turning. Mention is made of one J. M. Bass, who, "as Receiver, replaced the entire City Government," and who "made the fatal mistake of economising at the expense of the public health." It would be well, indeed, if so-called economists, who are always counting the cost of any projected measure, would be fair enough to add the reverse of the medal, and count the cost of letting things alone; it would often prove much the heavier. We find here a high compliment paid to our country of which we are scarcely worthy. The Report speaks of " Great Britain, the acknowledged leader in all sanitary reform." When we read these words we remembered the multitudes of inhabited cellars in our English towns-an abomination entirely absent in Paris.

The following facts, if no mistake prevails, must rank among the unsolved mysteries of medical science :-"that cholera is never seen in Iceland, Siberia, Greenland, or Australia; that phthisis is never seen in Iceland, and only rarely in Norway, Madras, or the elevated plains of Mexico."

We are glad that the sanitary value of trees is fully recognised in this Report, and that planting is urged as a public duty.