arts, or by their functions as rock-constituents. A few rare species are, indeed, described, but only on account of certain marked peculiarities, either physical or chemical. Two plates of crystalline forms bring the work to a conclusion. Vegetable Teratology: an Account of the Principal Deviations from the usual Construction of Plants. By MAXWELL T. MASTERS, M.D., F.L.S. London: Published for the Ray Society, 1869. THE attention which Dr. Masters has for many years bestowed on abnormal developments of the various organs of plants, renders this last publication of the Ray Society from his pen a peculiarly valuable one. The importance of a study of teratology, both to the morphological and to the systematic botanist, in determining not only the true relationship of organs to one another, but the structural position of difficult orders, has only recently been acknowledged. Moquin-Tandon's has been heretofore the standard work on the subject, but is completely out of date in the light of modern research; since his time St. Hilaire, Morren, and others have investigated the subject; but up to the present time nothing of importance has appeared in this country, except a very old treatise by Hopkirk. The classification of a number of facts necessarily so unconnected with one another as monstrosities and irregular growths presents considerable difficulties; in our present imperfect state of knowledge of the causes of these variations from typical structure, we think Dr. Masters has done wisely in adopting in the main MoquinTandon's somewhat empirical arrangement, rather than attempting one with more claims to a philosophical basis. He arranges the phenomena under four heads:-1st. Deviations from ordinary arrangement, including union or independence of organs and alterations of position; 2nd. Deviations from ordinary form; 3rd. Deviations from ordinary number, whether increased or diminished; and 4th. Deviations from ordinary size and consistence, including hypertrophy and atrophy. Under any classification a certain amount of repetition is unavoidable; but is probably as small under the one here adopted as could reasonably be expected. The work does not profess to be a philosophical treatise on the causes of aberration from typical form, but rather a chronicle of the most important instances which have come under the notice of the writer himself and of other observers; and the immense variety of these deviations from the usual construction of plants must astonish the casual observer. We have well-authenticated examples, for instance, not only of the comparatively common transformation of sepals into petals, or of complete suppression of the calyx or corolla, but of the far rarer production of ovules within the anthers, in the case of a Cucurbita, and of pollen within the ovules in the instance of a passion-flower. Scarcely less curious is the formation of a flower-bud within the pod in the charlock, and of a miniature siliqua in the place of a seed in the wall-flower. Of greater practical importance than these strange abortions, are the minor irregularities in the less vital organs, constituting the possible origin of new races that have obtained predominance in the "struggle for existence." To the physiologist who devotes himself to the investigation of the causes which lead to the production of abnormal forms, and of their connection with the origin of species, Dr. Masters's volume will be an invaluable repertory of facts. We cannot too highly commend the care with which the innumerable instances that must have come before him have been sifted, and those selected which are undoubtedly authentic, and which may be considered as typical; or the labour which has been bestowed on the bibliography of the subject, consisting mainly of separate articles and descriptions in the various English and foreign botanical magazines, collated under the different heads into which the book is divided. The volume is illustrated with upwards of 200 capital drawings by E. M. Williams; many of the best of which have already appeared in the pages of the Gardener's Chronicle' and other publications. We are glad to hear that a translation of the work into French is already arranged. Cyclopædic Science Simplified. By J. H. PEPPER. London: F. Warne and Co., 1869. PROFESSOR PEPPER has not only distinguished himself by the eminently practical way in which he has converted the Polytechnic Institution from a losing to a paying speculation, by discovering the proper combination of electricity, conjuring, dissolving views, chemistry, ghosts, and comic songs-a sort of scientific Punch, in fact-which draws the largest audiences; but he has brought the same talents to bear upon literature, and has given to the world, at intervals, three books-The Play Book of Science,' 'The Play Book of Metals,' and the one now under our notice. Looking at these books from a highly scientific stand-point, we have no doubt much fault might be found with each of them; but from the point of view of that large section of the public whom Professor Pepper addresses, it would be difficult to say how they could be greatly improved. The present book embraces Light, Heat, Electricity, Magnetism, Pneumatics, Acoustics, and Chemistry. In each of these subjects, a large amount of information, generally of the newest character, is given; the original papers on the various subjects as read before the learned societies being copiously quoted. As the author is almost bound, he gives full details of the various illusions and scientific tricks, ghostly and tangible, which have tended so much to popularize the Institution with which he is connected. The illustrations are numerous, and valuable in many cases, possessing an interest to men of the highest attainments in their respective spheres; and the initial engravings to the chapters are in many cases portraits of eminent philosophers. Thus, on page 197 we have James Watt, with autograph; at 392 is one of the best portraits we have ever seen of Sir Charles Wheatstone; on page 527 is an excellent portrait of Faraday; and at page 578 is one of Sir David Brewster. In addition to these, there are over 530 woodcuts, some of most elaborate description, and a chromolithograph as frontispiece, in which the author is exhibiting to an astonished audience the wonders of spectrum analysis, on a scale of magnitude never before witnessed. Taking all things into consideration, we have no hesitation in saying that Cyclopaedic Science' is one of the best books for boys we have ever met with. Its intrinsic attractiveness will do much to give a taste for science, and lead to a spirit of inquiry which will not be satisfied until the young philosopher possesses an experimental laboratory of his own. CHRONICLES OF SCIENCE, Including the Proceedings of Learned Societies at Home and Abroad; and Notices of Recent Scientific Literature. 1. AGRICULTURE. THE past three months have bristled all over with topics of agricultural interest-many of them, unfortunately, involving disagreeable experience. It is certain, now that a large portion of the wheat crop has been threshed, that the harvest of 1869 has been very much below the average productiveness of past years: and the low prices which wheat commands, owing probably to no one wanting corn in the general market of the world except ourselves, whatever their benefit to the nation at large, have materially aggravated to English farmers the injury of a deficient yield. It is The foot and mouth disease-a cattle plague of more or less virulence and frequency ever since 1839, when it first appeared-has been unusually general and severe during the past autumn. now, however, believed to be on the decline. Though rarely fatal, it is a painful malady, stopping the milk of cows and wasting the flesh of fatting cattle, and thus destroying the property of stock owners. It is generally supposed to be an importation from the Continent; but though that probably was true thirty years ago, it can now hardly be doubted that the disease has become indigenous. Careful quarantine, both at the ports of debarkation, and in home localities wherever it exists, has, however, all along been urgently demanded, and it has been at length conceded, so that we may hope to see the evil reduced within less serious limits.-The miseries of cattle transit, whether by land or by sea, have been urged on public attention, especially by the interest which Miss Burdett Coutts has taken in the subject. The use of a railway cattle-truck, in which live stock shall have access to both food and water on a long journey, is most desirable; and it is believed that the inferior condition in which cattle after a railway journey reach the metropolitan market from great distances, when they have had no refreshment on the road, must at length make consigners of such cattle willing to pay the expenses involved in the provision of better accommodation. An experiment directed by Miss Coutts, in which six cattle were sent from Edinburgh to London, shows that cattle will eat and drink upon the way with great comfort to themselves and great advantage to their owners, if they have the opportunity. The condition of Ireland, which is to a great extent an agricultural question, has of late occupied the public mind more painfully than any other topic. Among the most valuable and suggestive of the many pamphlets which have been lately published on this subject is one by Mr. James Caird, in which he insists upon the curative influence of the lease of land for a term of years, as that which by its proved effect elsewhere is more likely than any other agency within our reach to be serviceable in Ireland. The Lothians of Scotland, which are the very model farm of British agriculture, were a century ago as badly off as Ireland is at present. Since 1780, owing chiefly to enabling laws" affecting the condition of strictly entailed estates, the principle has become established, and the practice has become universal there, that the duty of the landlord is to provide the farm with buildings and other permanent improvements, and that the duty of the tenant is to find the capital for cultivation under the security of a lease for a fixed term of years. It is the influence of the lease for a term of years that has been so wonderfully illustrated in Scotland; and Mr. Caird would accordingly confine all Government assistance in land-improvement to estates and farms let on lease; and in other ways he would urge on Irish landlords and Irish tenants the acceptance of the lease, certain that it would create fertility and ensure industry and promote contentment in Ireland, as it has elsewhere. A very striking picture of foreign agriculture has been drawn by Mr. James Howard, M.P., in a lecture before the London Farmers' Club. He has proved conclusively that the small-farm system prevalent in many continental countries is greatly inferior to our own plan of large holdings in almost every particular in which they admit of comparison. In the actual maintenance of a large population directly on the land we presume the former must be acknowledged superior; but the condition of both occupier and owner under such circumstances is shown to be below that of the English farm-labourer, while the labouring class in such a case are in a miserable plight indeed. The small-farm system, and still more the small-estate system, may possibly be defensible on other grounds of state policy, but for its power to turn the soil to the most useful account; and for its power, or rather want of power, to "stock" the country with an intelligent middle-class population, it admits of no defence. Mr. Howard's excellent paper is indeed a sufficiently convincing proof that English agriculture, in spite of our higher northern latitude, is on the whole more productive than that of such districts as he had visited; and that taking even Belgian farming with which to compare it, and with which it has been occasionally contrasted to its discredit, the agriculture of our country is on the whole superior, whether as to its produce of grain and of meat or as to its maintenance of an intelligent and wellconditioned tenantry.-The condition of the English agricultural labourer has lately occupied the attention of several Farmers' Clubs, and it seems proved that the mere labourer in the country is on the |