Technology as the science of the utilitarian arts, and expressed his intention of at once giving a systematic course, 66 so that the Museum will minister to the Chair, not the Chair wait upon the Museum." AS A TEACHER AND EXPOUNDER. "While many of Dr. Wilson's contemporaries could pursue a train of research with greater ability, none perhaps could render the new truth thus obtained so attractive by copious imagery and varied illustration. The expansiveness of his style, which led to his strictly scientific works being considered in some quarters too diffuse, is a beauty in those where he appears as the illustrator of our physical knowledge, for every figure tells, and every fresh point of view has its own peculiar value. His popularity as a lecturer, both with his students and with the public at large, was very great. This arose partly from his thorough knowledge of the subjects he handled, but more from the felicity of his descriptions, the clearness of his explanations, and the poetry and pathos which rendered the whole beautiful. His little book on chemistry in Chambers's Educational Course,' which is adapted for those who desire a knowledge of the fundamental principles and leading facts of the science, without entering into any great detail, has already attained a sale of upwards of twenty-four thousand, and that prose poem, the Five Gateways of Knowledge,' has led many to find a new world of thought and enjoyment in the old region of their five senses. His treatise on Electricity and the Electric Telegraph gives a most intelligible account of this wonderful agency; the Chemistry of the Stars' shows how he could carry the fancy of his readers forward from the results of dry analysis." "As instances of the extraordinary clearness with which Dr. Wilson illustrated difficult points, I would refer to his exposition of the numerical laws of chemistry in the educational treatise just mentioned, which I think the most easily comprehensible in existence, and to his more popular description of the nervous system, given in Dr. Reid's Life." "The beauty of Dr. Wilson's discourses and writings depended not a little on his religion, and on his fine æsthetic taste. His quotations from the Holy Scriptures, and references to spiritual 1 Macmillan & Co., Cambridge. 2 These are printed together, and constitute Part 26 of the 'Travellers' Library.' things, were frequent, not in the form of a pious deduction dragged in uncomfortably at the end of a lecture, but as the natural reflections of a mind thoroughly embued with the love of God and man, and accustomed to refer every good gift to the Father of Lights. In his addresses to medical or other students, he delighted to draw attention to the great facts of the spiritual world; but his Chemical Final Causes' is the only one of his scientific writings which has a deliberately theological character. In it he attempts. to add to the ever-accumulating proofs of design, by showing especially that phosphorus, nitrogen, and iron, are the best adapted of the known elements for the purposes they are required to fulfil in animal organisms." "As to Dr. Wilson's æsthetic taste, he was an instance that a chemist is not one (to quote his own humorous description") whose "vocation has been so prowl around, like a very demon, seeking what of the poet's property he might lay hands on and devour; to prove himself a man of the earth, earthy alike by profession and by relish for the work of a disenchanter, to whom a mystery is interesting only because it may be explained, and an object beautiful because the cause of its beauty may be discovered." The popular impression about some chemists, that "the aquafortis and the chlorine of the laboratories have as effectually bleached the poetry out of them, as they destroy the colours of tissues exposed to their action," certainly never arose from an acquaintance with Dr. Wilson. In his writings there is often a rhythmical charm and balance of expressions which suit well with the poetic quotations in which he sometimes freely indulges. As instances, I take almost at random from his discourse on the Progress of the Telegraph :-" We nicely discuss whether telegram is a proper word or not, and invoke the heroes of Homer to side with us for or against a term which would have tried every Greek tongue in its utterance, and vexed every Greek ear in its hearing; and all the while the bees who rejoice amidst the sugar plantations of our heather warn and welcome each other in songs which the bees of Hymettus sang to each other: and the grasshoppers signal from meadow to meadow as they did of old, when the musical shiver of their wings rang over Greece as its cradle-psalm." And again, speaking of the compass-needle "as the guide of Vasco de Gama to the East Indies, and of Columbus 1 Edin. Univ. Essays,' 1856. 2 In The alleged Antagonism between Poetry and Chemistry.' to the West Indies and the New World, it was pre-eminently the precursor and pioneer of the telegraph. Silently, and as with finger on its lips, it led them across the waste of waters to the new homes of the world; but when these were largely filled, and houses divided between the old and new hemispheres longed to exchange affectionate greetings, it removed its finger and broke silence. The quivering magnetic needle which lies in the coil of the galvanometer is the tongue of the electric telegraph, and already engineers talk of it as speaking." 6 "One might almost think that Dr. Wilson was the living analogue of that astronomical fact which he thus describes :1 "I would liken science and poetry in their natural interdependence to those binary stars, often different in colour, which Herschel's telescope discovered to revolve round each other. There is one light of the sun,' says St. Paul, and another of the moon, and another of the stars: star differeth from star in glory.' It is so here. That star or sun, for it is both, with its cold, clear, white light, is SCIENCE: that other, with its gorgeous and ever-shifting hues and magnificent blaze, is POETRY. They revolve lovingly round each other in orbits of their own, pouring forth and drinking in the rays which they exchange; and they both also move round and shine towards that centre from which they came, even the throne of Him who is the Source of all truth and the Cause of all beauty." Contributions to Paleontology. By Prof. JAMES HALL. Prof. Hall has for some time been in the habit of publishing annually in the Report of the Regents of the University of New York, the more important new species described by him during the year. These reports have the useful purpose of giving early notice of Prof. Hall's discoveries to those who may be working in the same field. We can here only direct attention to those in our hands, that those concerned may take due notice of their contents. The report for 1859-60, relates to species of Orthis and Cyclonema from the Hudson R. group of Ohio and the Western States, to the distinctions between Bellerophon and some allied genera, with descriptions of new species; to a new genus of shells resembling Cleodera, and named Cleoderma, of which six species are described, and to a number of new species from the 1 In 'The alleged Antagonism between Poetry and Chemistry.' Upper Helderberg, Hamilton and Chemung groups. The report for 1860-61, (dated August and September, 1861,) continues the latter subject, and is of much greater length, extending to 84 pages, and containing descriptions of a large number of new forms of gasteropods, cephalopods, and crustaceans, with one annelid and spirorbis. Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa; with Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People, and of the chase of the Gorilla, the Crocodile, Leopard, Elephant, Hippopotamus, and other Animals. By PAUL B. Du CHAILLU; with numerous illustrations. New York: Harper & Bros. Montreal: B. Dawson & Son. Notwithstanding the suspicion that has been cast upon the integrity of Du Chaillu's statements, and the reality of his explorations, by certain critics in England, the reading public seem to have received the book with confidence and enthusiasm. It has passed through many editions both in England and America, and is read with avidity by all classes of the community. There is an unquestionable truthfulness in the style and substance of the book. It appears as if impossible, that the great part of it could be written by one who had not actually seen what it describes. That there are some confusion and mistake in the dates of the several journeyings recorded is manifest to the careful reader; and the author has himself acknowledged that some of the illustrations were copied, without acknowledgment, from the works of another. With these exceptions nothing has been alleged against the book which cannot be satisfactorily accounted for. There is the fact that Du Chaillu has with him, to verify all his strange accounts of the zoology of the regions in which he travelled, the skins and skeletons of the animals which he hunted and discovered. When one so competent to judge as Owen has recognized the importance of the author's discoveries, and when the British Museum, at Owen's reccommendation, has purchased for their collection some of the rarer and finer specimens, the ordinary reader need have no hesitation in accepting the book as containing a genuine account of the countries professed to have been visited. But even if the book is not true, we can assure our readers that it is worth perusing, inasmuch as it is as curious and interesting as the charming fiction of Robinson Crusoe. In four years Du Chaillu travelled, unaccompanied with other white men, 8000 miles through the equatorial regions of Africa. He shot, stuffed, and brought home more than 2000 birds, of which upwards of 60 are new species. He killed above 1000 quadrupeds, of which 200 were stuffed and brought home, with more than 80 skeletons, not less than 20 of which are species hitherto unknown to science. In the course of his travels he suffered 50 attacks of the African fever, endured much famine, was exposed to heavy tropical rains and attacks of ferocious and venomous insects. The book is full of strange incidents pertaining to the customs and habits of the African race. The Cannibal Jans he introduces for the first time to the knowledge of Europeans. They are evidently a fine and hopeful race of people, and with the exception of their liking for human flesh, seem to be more agreeable savages to live among than many of the tribes around them. The author had a proper dread of eating native cookery, fearing, lest unconsciously, he should be feasting upon some portion of a fellow-creature.. These races of colored people -many of them are not black-have features of character which give much promise. They are by no means destitute of capacity or sense, and their ways of acting in civil and social life are not different from those which we find among people of another skin. Were they only Christianised and civilized they might become a great people, and raise their country to a high place among the nations. This country is yet a virgin ground to the missionary and the trader. The author's aim is to open it up to both. The geographical portion of the work is of great interest. The mountain ranges and the river courses have been noted with precision, and much that is new has been discovered. We commend this book to all readers. To the young it will be "as interesting as a novel," and to the lover of science it will be no common treat. MISCELLANEOUS. BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF CANADA. Regulations for the exchange of Specimens. The laws of the Society provide for the formations of the public herbarium and the extension and improvement of private herbaria. In order to accomplish these important objects, arrangements have been made for receiving from members contributions of dried specimens of |