e
way as those now existing on the coast of Holland--Whether the
sea-level is higher or lower now than formerly with regard to the
land-level of the Low Countries--On the wearing of coasts in past and
present times, and the means of prevention--Whether a profitable
manufacture of iodine may not be attempted on the shores of the
Netherlands from certain marine plants and animals--Whether the
_cinchona_ can be profitably cultivated in the Dutch colonies--On
the influence of the nerves in the origin and progress of
inflammation--Whether electricity, either static or dynamic, has
anything to do with the production of Daguerreotype figures: and one
that will interest ethnologists--The Laplanders are said to be the
remains of a people who were once numerous over great part of the
north, as the Basques are and were in the south; required, a
description of the two, with peculiarities and craniological
examinations and explanations in full detail. These are important
questions, and well worth attention; the treatises may be written in
Dutch, French, Latin, German, Italian, or English, so that aspirants
to scientific honours in most parts of Europe have now the opportunity
to prove their merits.

The forthcoming publishing season promises to be a brisk one: we are
to have good books of history, travel, and science, besides something
from Carlyle and the Laureate; and in the matter of light literature
there will be no lack; Thackeray is again in the field, with three
volumes of the old-fashioned sort, so acceptable to novel readers; and
Sir Thomas Talfourd has found time for literary as well as legal work.
A learned Hindoo, after thirty-five years of labour, has just
completed a Sanscrit Encyclopaedia--a desirable work for scholars; and
the United States' government have published a second volume of the
great work on the Indian tribes--a handsome book to look at, but less
valuable than it might have been had proper care been bestowed on its
contents. The Smithsonian Institution have brought out the third and
fourth volumes of their _Contributions to Knowledge_--one of the two
being a 'Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language,' the work of
missionaries who, eighteen years ago, settled in the Minnesota Valley,
to teach and reclaim the Sioux or Dakotas, who number about 25,000.
Among the reasons assigned for the publication of the handsome quarto,
they state: 'Our object was to preach the Gospel to the Dakotas in
their own lan