"We know that the organic and inorganic worlds have been formed by a thoughtful reasoning being; but the 'how' or 'why' are hidden among the mysteries of Omnipotence . . . ." and further, Dr. Bree having nearly exhausted his vocabulary of abusive epithets against Mr. Darwin and those who believe with him, says of the Darwinian theory that "if proved in every point to be true, it would still leave the fact of special creation in all its wonderful mystery. The organic cannot be formed from the inorganic; nor could the organic, even if it were so formed, be endowed by any physical force with the laws and properties of life. Go on still in speculation, and I ask whence the inorganic-its beginning, its ending, its grand and inexplicable laws, which the physicist in vain attempts to correlate with the vital? whence gravitation, and what? the sidereal system and its movements? the spirit that breathes, through illimitable space, and lives through an eternity of time?"

To a shallow mind it may seem a very grandiose speculation, but suppose we go further, and assuming the existence of the Creator, ask the author whence did he come, what answer will he give? We dislike this kind of speculation intensely, it carries the narrow-minded person off his balance, but to the man of thought it is simply the verbose and shallow wanderings of a mind which has not yet arrived at the conclusion that the whole subject he has been talking of is most probably for ever removed from the speculations of man. It is an absurd wandering from the matter of animal life and from the very simple though yet unproven question, whence comes man, from the apes or from mud?

HERE

AIR AND RAIN.*

[ERE we have a book which is new in its subject and mode of treatment; and it is a large one too, extending over more than five hundred pages. What shall we say of it? Is it good or bad, too long or too short; too much confined to facts without deductions; or given to over-extended generalisations, to the exclusion of accurate observation? We must answer these several questions by stating that the work appears to us a good one, but unsuited either to the general reader or to the scientific man. It is unsatisfactory for the former because of the quantity of tabular matter which is introduced into its pages, and to the latter because the author indulges in a great series of observations which are not clearly put, and which are intended for general audiences. Still, it seems to us to be a good book: it is one with which we have hardly a single fault to find; and we give the author the highest praise for the manly and fearless manner in which he has in all cases spoken his mind, and for the intense labour which the work must have entailed by reason of the numerous analyses which it contains of air and water made over every portion of the kingdom. It would be a labour without end to attempt anything like a full notice of the author's various and manifold researches. We shall

"Air and Rain: the Beginnings of a Chemical Climatology." By Robert Angus Smith, Ph.D., F.R.S., F.C.S. London: Longmans, 1872.

content ourselves with a few remarks on the author's opinions relative to that important question whether drains, as we have in London, or middens, which some of the manufacturing towns possess, are, all circumstances considered, the most convenient and healthy. Thus we shall leave the various analyses he publishes out of the question, and shall pass his drawings of the products found by the microscope in the air of certain localities altogether aside. The latter we do more especially because the author has given us little or no idea of the enlargement of the specimens, and we fancy that in most cases low powers of 400 to 600 diameters have been most usually employed. We shall merely notice, too, the fact that he has been at pains, in conducting his analyses, to employ the most recent analytic methods excluding Dr. Frankland's, and including Wanklyn & Chapman's method. Neither shall we deal with the author's views on the subject of meteorites, which we deem on a par with Sir William Thompson's notion, which was given to the British Association. But it seems to us that Dr. Smith's observations on the subject of crowding are most valuable, and we hope they will be read and carefully remembered by all those who have to do with the building of our towns and the general management of house property. Dr. Smith says, "There is a want of willingness to pull down dangerous property, but a readiness to rush forward to save the life of the greatest crimimals. Reason is out of the question in the matter; we are misled by an uneducated feeling. We like to save property, forgetful that deadly weapons and poisons are subject to peculiar laws, and their indiscriminate use is forbidden to the nation. Houses that produce death are not property; as well might a man claim his debts as such. If a man sells unwholesome meat, the law interferes ; if he sells the use of a room with fever in it, the nation seems not to complain. . . . The time must come—and the sooner the better-when it shall be enacted that no land shall contain more people per acre than we know, by experience in several places, can live healthily thereon. The same thing must be said regarding houses. . . because of the degradation of some of the population." On the midden versus sewer system, the author's opinions clearly lead us to this, that where water is abundantly flushed through the sewer, it is the best; otherwise the midden is infinitely superior, and causes much less death to the population. Dr. Smith says, he has "come long ago to the conclusion, that the water-closet is one of the greatest of luxuries invented in modern times; but also thinks that the midden is better than the bad sewer . . . The question is not a simple one for a yes or no, but an extremely complicated one, where many conditions must be balanced. This experiment, however, is desirable-the examination of the air outside of the houses of a sewered town and a midden town. I feel almost confident of the answer; indeed, the analyses in this volume may be said to give it, because the backs and fronts of the houses of a midden town give different airs-the backs giving worst; whereas the backs and fronts in a water-system town cannot be different, one would suppose. . . . I think it probable that, as matters are now conducted, the water system will be the worst in all houses not large enough to have sufficient separation. .. We come to this, that the danger is outside in the midden system, and inside in the water system, where the danger does exist."

Dr. Smith's remarks are judiciously cautious, but they are to the point; and the multitude of analyses by which they are accompanied bear them fully out. Altogether, we are well pleased with the book, which, with a few deficiencies in style, is an admirable essay on a very difficult question.

THE

MILLER'S CHEMISTRY: PHYSICS.*

THE fifth edition of Part II. of this excellent treatise on Chemistry is now before us, and we may just say a word or two about it. We remember well enough the appearance of the first edition of this work when we were at college some fifteen years ago. It was an excellent introduction to chemical physics-clear and intelligible to the lowest intellect, amply illustrated, and printed in a large and bold type. In what, then, does the present work difler from the first one? Well, it is nearly twice the size, contains a bulk of matter which renders it a terrible book to the readers of the first edition, and the matter is excellently arranged, and is all that the mere student of chemistry can require; indeed, it is much more than an ordinary chemical student requires. Still, there are some parts which ought to have additions made to them, and some which, in our opinion, might as well have been cut out. But, doubtless, that was out of the question in editing a work like the present one. Mr. McLeod has, we think, performed his task with extreme caution and excellent good taste; and he has introduced a quantity of matter in relation to spectrum analysis, and to the question which has lately occupied the Chemical Society-that of atomicity; thus bringing the book up to the time, so that it forms an excellent manual of physics for the chemical student.

DUR

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF OHIO.†

URING the time occupied by the geological survey of the State, the Chief Geologist is required to make an annual report of the progress of the survey, with such necessary illustrations as may exemplify the same; and the present volume is the result of the field and other work for 1870. The determination of the geological structure of Ohio was not only important as bearing on the character, variety, and distribution of the mineral riches of the district, but also as showing the connection of the geological features of the country lying between the Atlantic and Mississipi. Already the number of formations known to exist in the State has been nearly

"Elements of Chemistry, Theoretical and Practical." By William Allen Miller, M.D., D.C.L., late Professor of Chemistry in King's College, London. Revised by H. McLeod, F.C.S. Part II. Chemical Physics. 5th edition. London: Longmans, 1872. +"Geological Survey of Ohio: Report of Newberry, Chief Geologist, and Assistants. sections. Columbus, 1871.

Progress in 1870." By J. S. 8vo., pp. 578, with maps and

doubled, and their general structure determined; but the final report will embody all the local details of the different counties, with the needful maps, plans, and sections necessary for their proper illustration.

From the present report it appears that the coal measures occupy a larger portion of the surface area than any other formation; and, from the number of economical substances associated with them, their character and distribution has been carefully studied. The first part comprises a sketch of the lower coal measures in north-eastern Ohio, by Mr. Newberry; from which it appears they contain seven or eight workable seams of coal, all of which lie below the celebrated Pittsburg seam, and include, in fact, the most important coal strata of the State. The coal measures do not form one symmetrical basin, but several troughs in a general way parallel with the axis of the great one of which they are parts. On the east side of each of these subordinate basins the strata rise, or are horizontal, and the easterly dip is neutralised; so that on the east line of the Columbiana county the section of the hills is nearly the same as that found on the banks of Killbuck, one hundred miles west-the average dip in this interval being not more than three feet to the mile. In tracing the strata from the western margin of the coal-field to the Pennsylvania line, some of the coal seams disappear, and others come in; and local changes are discoverable both in the development and purity of the different seams of coal and iron. The coals are of various qualities. The upper seams are well adapted for the generation of steam; below them are the cannel coals, which, although the difference in heating power is not great, contain a larger amount of ash than the English Wigan cannel; still, however, they can yield a large volume of good illuminating gas. The most valuable seam is the lowest, or Briar Hill coal, both for its thickness, purity, and being well adapted, in the raw state, for the smelting of iron ores. With regard to surface features, Mr. Newberry points out that the rivers, as the Killbuck and Tuscarawas, run in parallel synclinal valleys, and that the folding of the strata which formed these subordinate troughs and ridges in the coal basin first gave direction to the drainage streams of the region, and which lines of drainage have retained, through all subsequent mutations, the directions thus given them; and that this direction, as well as that of the main tributaries of the State, have been determined by the same causes that produced the great folds of the Alleghany mountains.

The other portion of the volume contains a report of labours in the second geological district, by E. B. Andrews, accompanied by maps of grouped sections, showing the strata of the lower coal measures in detail. The geology of Highland county, by E. Horton; which county contains a more extensive geological series than is to be found in any other county of the State, as it includes the Lower and Upper Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous formations, besides some Drift deposits and evidences of glacial action. The agricultural survey is by J. H. Klippart, and is intended to give a brief exposition of the physical and chemical characters of the various soils, their origin, the part they play in the growth of vegetation, the source of their fertility, and the theory of their impoverishment. The chemical report, by T. G. Wormley, is more specially devoted to the analyses of the coals, iron ores, furnace-slags, fire-clays, soils, limestones, and the pro

cesses by which they were effected. Sketches of the geology of Geauga and Holmes counties, by M. C. Read, and of Williams, Fulton, and Lucas counties, by C. K. Gilbert. On the present state of Iron Manufacture in Great Britain, by W. B. Potter. And, lastly, some interesting notes on the present state of the Steel industry, by H. Newton.

A

MAN'S ORIGIN AND DESTINY.*

SINGULAR book this; one of its own kind, full of learning, and rather addressed by its style to those who are engaged in similar pursuits than intended for the populace. It is essentially a deistical work, not Atheistic, for the author concludes by expressing a belief that there is a Deity, and that we shall hereafter, when we have passed from this world, enjoy a life of intense happiness. However, it is not that portion of the book which contains the speculations of the author that is the most important. Especially those chapters-and they are numerous enough, as the book extends over more than 770 pages-which deal with the scriptural account of the Lord, and the various other writings, some of them very old, and others the works of the holy men of the middle ages, are full of interest, for they let us into secrets that were unknown to all but those who bave made the biblical records the study of their lives. We cannot attempt to review the author's efforts for they are to be judged alone by those few Eastern scholars who can thoroughly follow the writer throughout. Still we see beyond question that he is quite correct in his onslaught on the supposed divine origin of the Pentatench, and other biblical writings. Starting with Origen's question, he asks, “What man of good sense will ever persuade himself that there has been a first, a second, and a third day, and that these days have each of them had their morning and their evening, when there was as yet neither sun nor moon nor stars? What man is there so simple as to believe that God, personifying a gardener, planted a garden in the East? that the true tree of life was a real tree, which could be touched, and the fruit of which had the power of preserving life?" It is certainly too true that the great mass of people believe the tales of Moses, whilst they would not think of believing them if they were in the writing of a Greek philosopher, or a Rabbi, or a Mahometan, because they believe Moses to have been inspired. But we certainly agree with the learned author, that when we see that these books of Moses are full of repetitions and contradiction, we must give up all notion of their being inspired. A few of these contradictions may not be known to all, so we give them from the author: "The hesitation of Moses when he received the order to deliver the Israelites is mentioned twice in different terms. The miracle of the cloud on the tabernacle is related twice with different particulars. Jacob is made to be 84 years old when he took Leah to wife, while Dinah was scarcely seven years of age when she was violated by Shechem, and Simeon and Levi

*On "Mankind, their Origin and Destiny," by an M.A. of Balliol College, Oxford. London: Longmans, 1872.