or indirectly, by means of schools, Bible classes,
zenana missions, and public preaching, they are
leavening the masses with half- unconscious
yearnings after some purer, larger faith than
that which their Brahman guides condescend
to teach them. Let us add that Mrs. Mitchell
writes pleasantly of other things besides mis-
sionary work. She can describe scenery, and,
being a woman, she can help us to see what
passes behind that pardah which screens the
women's apartments from the gaze of masculine
eyes. The story of her visit to a Toda camp in
the Nilgiris will be full of interest to those who
have not read Col. Marshall's book.

very imperfect political order which prevailed-millions of low-caste or out-caste poor. Directly
were, he thinks, more than compensated by the
absence of all class distinctions (unnecessary
where the fine Spanish manners were universal),
and by indifference to money, and other savage
virtues; in short, that "sweet archaic simplicity
of life and conversation which has vanished from
the Old World to return no more. Having
left the beautiful wife at Montevideo, he started
in search of occupation, and his various adven-
tures are described with great spirit and gusto,
giving what we can well believe to be a faithful,
as it certainly is a vivid, portrayal of the spirit
and character of the society into which he was
thrown, and incidentally of the country through
which he travelled. We find him by turns
spinning yarns with the gauchos by their camp
fires, succouring distressed ladies-all beautiful,
but not all equally retiring-or inveigled by
them into revolutionary escapades. Finally, he
gets back safely to his wife, with whom he finds
himself as much in love as ever, so he, of
course, thoughtfully suppresses those points
in his story which might give her too much
anxiety. The narrative ends abruptly with their
return to Buenos Ayres to face the wrath of the
lady's father, and the serious consequences,
under Argentine law, of a clandestine marriage.
The reader who has followed the author's for-
tunes so far will heartily wish him a prosperous
ending to his troubles.

In Southern India. By Mrs. Murray Mitchell. (Religious Tract Society.)-Mrs. Murray Mitchell describes the tour which she made with her excellent husband, himself a missionary of no small repute, among the chief mission stations in the Madras Presidency. Having laboured together in the same good cause for several years in Northern and Western India, Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell were at length enabled to fulfil a long-cherished hope of noting how much progress their fellow workers had been making in the South, where Christianity, of one sort or another, had taken root long before any missionary set foot in Bengal. It is to Southern India, indeed, with its millions of Dravidian folk, speaking a language wholly different from that of the Aryan Hindus, that Christian missionaries and their friends must chiefly look for encouragement. Out of the million and a half of native Christians in India, more than a million are to be found in the Southern Presidency and the adjacent state of Travancore. Of these nearly five-sixths are Roman Catholics, most of them descended from converts made in the course of several hundred years. The Protestant minority dates back only to the first years of the eighteenth century. Of late years its numbers seem to have been augmented through the zeal and growing wealth of the great missionary bodies. In the district of Tinnevelly, according to Mrs. Mitchell, there are now a hundred thousand Protestant Christians in a population of about two millions. In spite of their comparative poverty, the Roman Catholic missions still make nearly as many converts as their wealthier rivals, and are 66 very diligent," as the author allows, "with schools, orphanages, and such kinds of mission work. It is with the various Protestant missions that Mrs. Mitchell is specially concerned; and her account of the work doing in Madras, Madura, Tanjore, Travancore, Cochin, and other mission centres, may be read with interest not only by well-wishers to the cause she advocates, but by those who share the Anglo Indian prejudice against the typical native" Christian "of Upper Indian towns and cantonments. The Christians in the South, at any rate, seem on the whole to be of "Massa's caste in a higher sense than that inferred by the satirist or the cynic. After all deductions for the enthusiasm of a wife and an earnest missionary, Mrs. Mitchell's experiences encourage the belief expressed by Sir Richard Temple, that Christian missions are doing good work and sowing the seeds of what may soon be an abundant harvest among the

OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

have preserved intact their ancient charms of
quaint conceit and quite unconventional lan-
guage. The introductions, three of which are
due to Mr. Gomme and two to Mr. Wheatley,
testify to great pains having been taken by their
writers to elucidate the texts with which they
deal, and to render of practical use narratives
which were originally intended only to amuse
persons easily susceptible of diversion. The
first part contains The History of Thomas
Hickathrift, one of the very limited number of
English folk-tales which appear to be mainly of
home manufacture. Mr. Gomme, following Sir
Francis Palgrave, is inclined to trace the story
back to the Saga of Grettir.
There are, no
doubt, certain points of similarity between the
two, but there seems to be no necessity for going
so far back. The strength, the early laziness,
and the subsequent activity of Hickathrift bear
testimony to his close relationship with the
strong heroes of folk-tales found in so many
lands, who love in early life to lie beside the
hearth, but later on bestir themselves to great
purpose. The History of the Seven Wise
Masters of Rome forms the second part, printed
from the edition of Wynkyn de Worde, 1520,
and accompanied by a summary of its literary
career for which the compiler acknowledges his
indebtedness to Mr. Wright's edition of the
searches respecting the Book of Sindibad,' and
Mr. Clouston's excellent editions of the 'Bakht-
yar Nama' and the Book of Sindibad.' Third
in order comes Mother Bunch's Closet newly
Broke Open, a collection of charms and dreams,
the popularity of which is sufficient to prove
that superstitious people a couple of centuries
ago were as foolish as similar persons are in our
own days. The fourth part contains The His'
tory of Patient Grisel, prefaced by some account
of the Griselda literature, with special reference
to the use made of the original story by Boc-
caccio, Petrarch, Chaucer, and Dekker. The
fifth part is devoted to The History of Sir
Richard Whittington. The preface speaks but
lightly of the suggestion that the celebrated Cat
was merely a vessel used for the carriage of
coals, and it takes no notice whatever of the
achat hypothesis. The cat episode is, as Mr.
Wheatley says, "a widespread folk-tale which
has been grafted upon the history of the life of
an historical character," with the result, in this
instance, of rendering immortal the memory of
a worthy citizen who would otherwise have been
long ago forgotten.

IN The Palace and the Hospital: Chronicles of Greenwich (Hurst & Blackett), as in his account of Chelsea, Mr. L'Estrange gives an immense deal of general English history with an extremely little local information sandwiched between it. So many pages of his book, indeed, relate to contemporaneous history that one suspects they are fragments of a children's history of England, which, in the exercise of a wise discretion, he has decided not to publish, but which he thinks it a pity should be wholly lost to posterity. For example, in the first volume pp. 45-55'Sevyn Sages,' Prof. Comparetti's learned 'Reare taken up with a history of the Palæologi and their times, introduced on the somewhat slender ground that Manuel was met, not at Greenwich, but at Blackheath by Henry IV.; and pp. 62-67 tell us all about Agincourt, the General Council of 1413, Huss, Wycliff, Sigismund, and all the rest of them for precisely the same reason; while in the second volume the Earl of Derwentwater's rising in the '15 is dilated on from p. 142 to p. 154, because the Hospital had a grant of his estates. The writer has no single qualification to write a topographical book, for, besides being tediously dull, he is painfully inaccurate, while incredible as it may seem, there is no description of the Hospital itself at all in either volume. Quoting an inquisition of 51 Edward III. as to the foundation of a guild, the author refers to a church of St. Alfridis, and to certain men acquiring for themselves and their successors that they should find a chaplain to celebrate mass. To turn the genitive Alfridis into its nominative (even if this is not a misreading for St. Alphege, the local saint), or to read " taking upon" for "acquiring for," does not seem to have occurred to him. Of this certificate he sapiently says that it, "not being easily deciphered, has

been the cause of several erroneous statements

made by early topographers," viz., statements
by Weever and others as to certain monastic
foundations. What was working in the writer's
inner mind when he considered that their state-
ments as to the settlements of friars were
"caused by a misunderstanding of the above
document," which wholly and solely relates to
the foundation of a guild, perhaps some one else
may be able to guess, but we cannot. The only
thing in common is the one word "foundation."
Of blunders of all sorts there is no end.
kill the Dane is turned into "Kyrkyll" (twice
on pp. 6 and 7, so this is no printer's error).
Herons " wave "their wings on p. 19, Walworth
hits Tyler over the head with his "sabre" at
p. 40, and brigantine armour is derived from
brigands (instead of the vice versa derivation
usually adopted) on p. 95. It would, however,
be a waste of time to further seriously criticize
a stupid and worthless book.

Thur

largest work of reference which is produced in As the year closes Messrs. Kelly send us the one volume, the Post Office London Directory. Its extreme accuracy is a point we have often insisted on, and we have received a new proof of it in the shape of a circular from a firm who find that their name is misprinted. It says a great deal for the correctness of a work of this size and also for its wide circulation, that an error of a single letter is thought to be a good foundation for an advertisement.

Boscawen's (W. St. C.) From under the Dust of Ages, 2/swd.

Poetry.

How's (Right Rev. W. W.) Poems, enlarged edition, 12mo. 3/
How's (Right Rev. W. W.) Poems and Hymns, 12mo. 3/6 cl.

History and Biography.

Dictionary of National Biography, edited by L. Stephen,
Vol. 5, roy. 8vo. 12/6 cl.
Elliot's (A.) Hood in Scotland, Reminiscences of Thomas
Hood, Poet and Humourist, 4to. 5/ cl.

Fergusson's (A.) The Laird of Lag, a Life Sketch, 8vo. 12/cl
O'Hagan's (Right Hon. T. Baron) Selected Speeches and
Arguments, edited by G. Teeling, 8vo. 16/ cl

eeman (H.) On Speech Formation as the Basis for True Spelling, cr. 8vo. 3/6 cl.

pssfeld's (C.) English-German Commercial Correspondent,

ossfeld (C.) and Sanchez's (M.) English-Spanish Commercial Correspondent, 32mo. 2/

martine's (A. de) Jeanne d'Arc, edited with Notes, &c., by Rev. A. Clapin, 12mo. 2/ cl. (Pitt Press.)

way to Edinburgh. He wrote to his brother
from Abbotsford, but that letter has, unfor-
tunately, been lost. The following extracts are
taken from a letter dated "Keswick, 20th
September." It is a very long letter; but
postage at that time between Keswick and
Penzance would have been at least eighteen-

The next morning after breakfast, Mr. Wordsworth and I get out at ten o'clock and did not return till eight at night......We came to a fine watersuddenly became silent, and he walked for some fall amidst a naked and rugged scene. Wordsworth time along the rushing stream its sound amidst the savageness of nature was no doubt inspiring him with some poetic imagery. We had reached a most interesting point of view, when he said he wished to repeat to me a passage of his poetry. We sat and the sun shone vividly on the low land on the down on a part of the rock; before us was Helvellyn,

THE SCIENCE OF FOLK-LORE.

New Club, Glasgow, Dec. 14, 1885. EVERY one is entitled to his own opinion as to the proper classification of folk-lore, and I am glad to note Mr. Stuart Glennie's careful analysis, but I doubt whether he does not unnecessarily and unfortunately narrow the subject. "Folk-lore," he says, "is knowledge of folklife, or the life of the uncultured classes, as distinguished from culture-lore, knowledge of individualized life, or the life of the cultured classes." This is surely quite a mistake. Folklore is the knowledge of and in the people, and if put in opposition to culture-lore, we must define it by "traditional knowledge of the people." But it has nothing in itself to do happens, their traditions are most available with "the uncultured classes," although, as it

for study; and it is not the knowledge of the life of the people, but it is the evidence on which we may found some argument as to the life of the people. There is folk-lore to be learnt from the educated classes despite their culture; sometimes that culture itself either degenerates into folk lore or gives rise to some new form of traditional belief. All knowledge which is unliterary and undemonstrable might be, in some sense, called folk lore, for to me nothing seems more erroneous than to confine the word to superstitious beliefs and oldworld customs. Magic and witchcraft may be, as Mr. Glennie says, the physical sciences of the comparatively cultured classes of primitive society; but all the knowledge of a so-called primitive people is "folk-lore," and I fail to see why the relics of magic and witchcraft among a cultured people should not be called "folk-lore" also.

Mr. Glennie's interesting remarks have suggested this note, and I hope that here or elsewhere he will give them in fuller form. Why not to the Folk-lore Society? WILLIAM GEORGE BLACK.

THE BYRON QUARTO.

5, Taviton Street, Gordon Square, Dec. 21, 1885. I BELIEVE further discussions will sustain the allegation that no single poem of Byron's juvenilia was worked off separately.

The four books were issued by the Messrs. Ridge in a complete form in this order: first, the small quarto, 1806; second, 'Poems on Various Occasions'; third, second edition of same-both 1807 for private circulation; and, fourth, Hours of Idleness,' on sale to the public.

Of the quarto, whatever number of copies were printed and distributed, all were returned

by request, save, as was supposed some years back, three-Col. Wildman's (now at Newstead), Becher's, and one in Scotland, where not precisely known. Pigot's copy was not then spoken of, and the one disposed of at Miss Pigot's sale was, if I recollect rightly, 'Hours of Idleness,' purchased by Mr. Ridge, bookseller, Newark, for over two pounds, who still retains the printing press used for the four editions; but, as I understood at the time, neither he nor any member of the family, until then, had a single copy of any of the four books.

A copy is in the possession of Mr. Tallents, of Newark, made highly interesting by a letter, also his, from Byron to his printer Ridge respecting the poem 'Love's Last Adieu.' edition has forty pieces, Love's Last Adieu' This on p. 39. I give a copy of the letter :

Trin. Coll. Camb., Decr. 11th, 1807. MR. RIDGE,-Omit 'Love's Last Adieu,' we shall then have an equal number, as College examinations are to remain, &c.

[Addressed] Mr. Ridge, Bookseller, Newark, Notts.

BYRON.

WILLIAM CRONIN.

rank among German publishers, but it will
throw some new light on the state of German
literature at the end of the last century.
Göschen was a personal friend both of Wie-
land and of Schiller, and a considerable cor-
respondence with them and with Goethe has
been preserved by the family. The prices
paid for their respective works are some
index of the repute in which these authors
were then held. Thus, for the first edition
of his Thirty Years' War' Schiller received
400 thalers, and he writes, "Sie haben mich
nicht bezahlt, sondern belohnt." Wieland
for the collected edition of his works (pub-
lished in quarto at the fancy price of 250
thalers) received no less than 7,000 thalers.
Göschen published also the first collected
edition of Goethe's works, 1787-91, and had
business relations with Klopstock, Iffland,
Wolf, and a host of minor authors. On his
death in 1828 the business was carried on

No 3035, DEC. 26, '85

Mr. Alfred Forman; a Shelley Primer,' to
be written by Miss Mathilde Blind, with Mr.
W. M. Rossetti's help, and published by
Messrs. Reeves & Turner next April; a
'Shelley Concordance,' for which Mrs.
H. B. Forman will place her material in the
Society's hands for completion, &c. Mr. T. J.
Wise will edit the first reprints, the hand-
some quarto of 'Adonais' in the second
series, and the first selection of biogra-
phical articles, beginning with those of Hogg
in the Monthly Magazine, as valuable for
Shelley's early life. The committee have
opened a subscription for a repetition of the
performance of the 'Cenci' in May, and a
third of the sum needed has already been
received.
Mr. W. M. Rossetti, 5, Endsleigh Gardens,
Contributions should be sent to
N.W.; or Dr. Furnivall, 3, St. George's
Square, N.W.

for a short time by his youngest son Her-porary Review will contain articles by the
THE forthcoming number of the Conten
mann Julius, and then sold to the firm of Bishop of Peterborough on Oaths, Parlia
mentary and Judicial'; Sir Charles Warren

Cotta.
MR. HENRY LARKIN, who for the space
of ten
years assisted Mr. Carlyle in
his literary work, is about to publish a
Secret of his Life,' a work which is intended
volume entitled Carlyle and the Open
to throw a new light upon the character of
the sage.

IN continuing the work of cataloguing
the Rawlinson MSS. in
Library, Mr. Macray has lately found one
the Bodleian
the old French Pietists. It is a copy of
of considerable interest with respect to
Madame Guyon's 'Life' with alterations.
These alterations appear in the text, which
is described as being revue et corrigée
par elle-même," and not the original
readings, and many passages are omitted.
being transcribed from the original by one
The greater part of the MS. is noted as
M. de Piallier. There is no division into
chapters or even paragraphs. The work
ends with the words " que de le laisser
dans la souillure et l'impureté. Déc. 1709."
Ir may perhaps be advisable to draw
leian Library to the fact that the floor of
the attention of the Curators of the Bod-
the gallery, leading to the reading-room,
which is raised at both ends, presents some
danger. Some years ago Prof. Aufrecht,
of Bonn, and Archdeacon Palmer, of Christ
Church, had severe falls through not noticing
the raised floor. Others just escaped by
catching hold of some object. Only last week
Mr. Thompson, of the British Museum, met
with an accident on leaving the reading-
room when it was getting dark. It would
be easy with little expense to prevent dis-
agreeable accidents.

on

'Recent Events in South Africa'; Sir Charles Grant on 'The Burmese Question"; Mr. Justin McCarthy, M.P., on ' Home Rule in Ireland'; Mr. George W. E. Russell on 'Self-Government in the Church'; and an imaginary conversation between Parnell and Grattan, by Mr. H. D. Traill.

THE Sette of Odd Volumes will hold their January 8th, when an opusculum on callinext meeting at the Freemasons' Tavern on Kettle. Mr. E. Walford will be installed graphy will be presented by Mr. D. W.

as an Odd Volume." Mr. Charles Welsh will present his newly published work on John Newbery, and read a paper on Century, with a Few Words on the Philan 'Some of the Children's Books of the Last thropic Publisher of St. Paul's Churchyard.'

years ago a collection of English sonnets, is MR. S. WADDINGTON, who published some preparing for publication a selection of sonnets translated from the poets of other countries. He will be glad to receive par ticulars of any such translations from persons ton's address is 47, Connaught Street, Hyde interested in the subject. Mr. Wadding Park, W.

Birch's Cartularium Saxonicum' will con THE forthcoming part of Mr. W. de Gray tain texts of forty documents, ranging in date between A.D. 903-925. Among those of special interest are a charter relating to Prince's Risborough, co. Bucks, from the Stowe (Ashburnham) Collection; the boundaries of Wrington, co. Somerset, from the Glastonbury chartularies in the Bodley Library and at Longleat; a charter of Aston, co. Worcester, from the Winchilsea Collec tion in the British Museum; a grant to Asser, Bishop of Sherborne and biographer of King Alfred, from one of the registers of Wells; a new text of the important Synod of A.D. 905, which resulted in the consecra tion of seven bishops in one day by Archbishop Plegmund; the boundaries of the land held by Ealhswith, wife of King bably founded the Nunnery of St. Mary of Alfred, in Winchester, on which she proNunnaminster; and a new charter from Mr. Wynne's chartulary of the Abbey of Burton-upon-Trent.

A NEW daily evening newspaper will be commenced in Edinburgh on January 4th. It will be entitled the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, and will be published at the offices of the Scotsman, forming an offshoot of that journal. The price will be one halfpenny. THE Shelley Society will issue its publications in four series: (1) the papers read certain of Shelley's works; (3) reprints of before it; (2) reprints of original editions of articles on Shelley, (a) biographical, (6) critical; (4) miscellaneous, to include a cheap edition of the Cenci,' for the Society's performance of the play, with an introduction by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, and notes by and Romantische Schule,' by Mr. Francis A TRANSLATION of Heine's 'Reisebilder'

CAPT. TROTTER is going to publish by subscription his History of India under Queen Victoria.' It will fill two octavo volumes of fewer than five hundred pages, prise on the ground, will be welcome to all and though it deals with the events of fourand-forty years (1837-80) the author has endeavoured to make it readable, so that it may interest the general reader as well as the Indian specialist. Among the subscribers are Lord Northbrook, Lady Lawrence, Sir R. Temple, Sir H. Maine, the Dean of InSalisbury, and Mr. Bosworth Smith. tending subscribers should send their names

of a work without precedent or experience, is now reduced by M. de Lesseps (p. 72) to the maximum of 700,000,000 francs, or 28,000,0007. And as, according to Mr. Rodrigues, up to September, 1884, 19,482,000l. had been raised and disposed of (p. 168), while up to April of that year only of the excavations were ready, and that consisting of the easiest work, we can hardly affect to think the financial practicability of the enterprise a matter open to question. So, no doubt, says M. de Lesseps, but with a confidence in the oppo

site sense to our own.

There are, moreover, men competent to form an opinion on the subject who deny the physical probability of the execution of the canal, whatever be the amount of money that may be found available for its execution. Omitting many minor but very serious difficulties, there are two of which it is not easy to estimate the magnitude. At the fiftyfourth kilomètre from the Atlantic terminus of the line surveyed the Culebra range of mountains rises to a height of 356 ft. above the bottom of the canal, measured on the centre line of the proposed water-way. From a little eastward of this summit to the sea the course staked out runs through a valley that forms the outfall of a large number of rivers, draining an area, according to M. Reclus, of 4,000 square kilomètres, or more than 1,500 square English miles. The rainfall of this large district exceeds 120in. in annual depth, and falls of from 6 in. to 7 in. within a few hours are not rare. The river Chagres, the master stream of the valley, is said to have risen from 35 ft. to 40 ft. in a single day. Before floods of this kind the puny workmanship of human or of mechanical excavators would be swept away in a few hours. So fully is this admitted on all hands that the idea of impounding the floods by walls or dams, allowing the escape of the water only at a certain measured rate, has been accepted as a cardinal feature of the scheme, as well as the construction of lateral canals to allow of the escape of the floods without entering the navigable channel. Of these

various works the chief is the closure of the valley of the Chagres, for which a great wall or dam with sluices is said by Mr. Rodrigues to have been at first proposed. It was subsequently discovered that there was no adequate foundation for such a work, and an embankment, to be formed from the Culebra cutting, was substituted, the height to be attained in the deepest part being, according to Admiral Ammen, 148 ft., and the whole containing 26,000,000 cubic yards. The formation of this, or some other effective mode of arresting the floods of the Chagres, is an absolutely necessary preliminary for the safe execution of any work below Matachim. In February, 1882, 4 l'on placement présumé du barrage qui doit fermer la vallée du Chagres pour régulariser le débit des eaux de cette rivière a été ex

Let any one take his stand on the Suspen-
sion Bridge at Clifton, and in imagination
double the height of that great natural gap,
and he will form some idea of a cutting 360
feet deep; and as that depth is measured on
the side of a mountain, the uphill slope may
run to a distance impossible to foretell, with-
out such cross sections as are non-existent.
The estimate of M. de Lesseps regarded this
vast trench as one to be cut through solid
rock, and concluded that the sides would stand
very nearly perpendicular. Miners
very nearly perpendicular. Miners will
doubt this, if any plastic or friable strata
should occur at a considerable depth. But
the borings show that only about one-fourth
of the depth, measured from the level of the
bed of the canal, is hard rock. At the slope
required for soft material, the width of this
cutting at the top must thus be nearly one-
third of a mile. The cubic volume of earth
to be removed will be something too stu-
to be removed will be something too stu-
pendous to put in figures. But that is not
all. No earthen slope, steep or flat, would
resist a rainfall such as we have seen to be
not unfamiliar to the district. In spite of
an endless supply of money and endless
relays of labourers, the floods of one season
would wash away the toil of months. An
earth cutting 360 feet deep, exposed to a
tropical rainfall, may well be regarded as
inexecutable.

That a person holding the high position
which M. de Lesseps enjoys, at least among
his fellow countrymen, should imperil it
by asking, and by obtaining, twenty-two
millions of their hoarded savings, to be cast
into a quicksand of the nature indicated,
may well be regarded as inexplicable. For
the explanation offered by Mr. Rodrigues we
refer the reader to his book.

In June, 1883, out of an expenditure of nine millions sterling, the modest sum of 152,000l. appears to have been spent on actual work. We question whether such an account has been given to the world since the famous tavern bill of Sir John Falstaff.

On the organization of the company in
1881, with a share capital of 12,000,000l.,

half the amount on the shares was called
up.

February, 1880, the International Technical Commission found it to be 75,000,000 cubie mètres. M. de Lesseps now admits a total of 125,000,000 cubic mètres. But as the magnitude of the undertaking became less and less capable of disguise the sum re quired for the completion was made to dwindle. The estimate of the Congress was 42,000,000l., not including some of the heaviest contingencies. The "Technical. Commission" gave a figure of 33,720,0001. M. de Lesseps fixed the amount, as the basis of the constitution of the company, at 24,000,000l., or 6,647,000l. less than the sum now standing to the debit of the undertaking. When we add to this that the estimate of Mr. Rodrigues, which amounts to 107,803,1617., is in many items under, and in none over the mark, on the data furnished by the Bulletin du Canal, and that the annual deficit on working the canal, if it be completed for this sum, will be more than three millions sterling, it is difficult to resist the conclusion of the Economiste Français that we are likely to witness "the most terrible financial disaster of the nineteenth century." Nor is it doubtful that, in that case, the longer it is deferred by such promises as

have been the constant manufacture of the last five years, the more overwhelming will be its magnitude.

Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission. Vol. IV. 1884. (Washington.)-The fourth volume of the Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission' is as full of interesting and instructive matter as its predecessors, and it gives evidence of another departure in the activity of its dis tinguished director, Prof. Baird. He has made an arrangement with the life-saving service and the lighthouse board for collecting whales, por poises, sharks, and strange forms of marine life. Within nine months numerous specimens were thus obtained, some of which were very rare; the most remarkable was, perhaps, the pigmy sperm-whale, which appears to be new to science. The first animal received was a shark (Pseudotriacis microdon), the only other example of which had been obtained off the coast tugal. Prof. Baird's correspondents are by no

Por

means confined to the United States. One writes for information from Victoria, and it is of interest to note that among the fishes which the director recommends to Australian waters

"Out of that sum 1,800,000l.," says Mr. Rodrigues, "went at once into the pockets of the promoters and concession- is the American catfish, of which an excellent naires." A further sum of 625,000l. was a character is given. There is a plate illustrating rebate" on the issue of debentures. Up the characters of the fish-eating bladderwort to September, 1884, M. de Lesseps had (Utricularia), the habits of which were discovered received 5,900,000l. on shares, and cash to by Mr. Simms, of Oxford, and specimens the amount of 16,698,9687. on a nominal which were sent to America by Prof. Moseley, There are in less than five hundred pages no issue of 24,747,7007. in bonds. Thus the fewer than two hundred and twenty-three reports company became responsible for a total of or notes, several of which we observe are com 30,647,7007., for which they only received munications from lieutenants in the United States 22,598,9687. in cash. And at this date only navy; and there is, as usual, an excellent index. 8,094,570 cubic yards, out of a total of Where to Find Ferns, with a Special Chapter 125,000,000, had been excavated, while the key to the whole enterprise, the great on the Ferns round London. By F. G. Heath. Chagres dam and diversion, was untouched. -We could almost wish that Mr. Francis It is not matter for wonder, or even for George Heath would keep his information to blame, if a writer expresses himself forhimself and a select few. Not that we would in the smallest degree curtail the legitimate

ploré et deboisé," says M. Hersent. What cibly in face of such figures as these. One

sort of work would prove trustworthy under fact is indisputable, and to any impartial we could, to confine the sport to genuine fern

only by the imagination. But that such a work could ever be completed, when any violent flood of the Chagres would certainly destroy it if coming on it in an incomplete

more attention has been given to the survey
of the line-which ought to have been com-
pleted before the public was asked for so many
millions-the larger has been the calculation

more mischievous marauders whose only interest in the matter is a mercenary one. However, Mr. Heath thinks otherwise, and there is much to be said from his point of view. His book is

state, can hardly be within the bounds of of the bulk of excavation necessary. In cheap, and the illustrations of the ferns are

physical possibility.

accurate so far as the conditions will allow.

Impossibility No. 2 is the Culebra cutting. of Paris at 46,000,000 cubic mètres. In

1879 this was estimated by the Congress They are, the author tells us, reduced copies of

the facsimile illustrations in the 'Fern Portfolio,"