n, or the
result of known or of new principles, the subject merits a careful
investigation.

(In connexion with walking along the ceiling is noticed the beautiful
contrivance of the foot of the house-fly and gecko, and the head of the
sucking-fish. To the next portion, Chemistry has supplied fewer wonders
than we expected: they occupy but fifty pages.

The examples in this book are the most quotable portion, but the
majority of them would be new to few readers: who, for instance, is
unacquainted with the feats of Topham, the strong man, or the Invisible
Girl. The explanations are not so easily transferable, since they are
generally accompanied by illustrations.

By the way, how many of these wonders are recorded in the early volumes
of the Philosophical Transactions, with all the gravity of the FF.R.S.
whose zeal, industry, and emulation rendered the early years of the
Society peculiarly brilliant. The very titles of some of the early
papers would make a "wonderful museum;" as Four Suns observed in
France--Worms that eat Stones and Mortar--which are almost as marvellous
as one of Sir David Brewster's lines--a coach and four filled with
skeletons. The Royal Society has now existed a century and
three-quarters: in their early Transactions are inquiries relative to
the tides--observations on the darting threads of spiders--"experiments
about respiration"--"of red snow seen at Genoa," &c.; yet scores of
philosophers, at the present moment, are controverting these very
subjects.)

* * * * *

PILGRIMAGE THROUGH KHUZISTAN AND PERSIA.

(This is not just so good a work as its full title-page may lead the
reader to expect. It runs thus "Fifteen Months' Pilgrimage through
untrodden tracts of Khuzistan and Persia, in a journey from India to
England, through parts of Turkish Arabia, Persia, Armenia, Russia, and
Germany." Now, there is attractive promise in the word "untrodden," and
it may be said to apply to the Asiatic tour of the author, or his first
volume, but is not appropriate to the second, which owes its main
interest to his interview with Skryznecki, the illustrious Pole. Neither
is the term pilgrimage characteristic of the journey, which has the
sketchiness and levity of a flying tour rather than the observant
gravity of a patient pilgrimage. Nevertheless, the work is altogether
full of vivacity and interest, and the author, Mr. J.H. Stocqueler, must
be as pleasant on his travels,