Partington, C. F., Author of various Works on Natural and Experimental Philosophy, &c.: The British Cyclopædia, in monthly 4to Parts, 1s. each [subsequently raised to 1s. 6d. each]. Division III. (purchaseable separately), Natural History, combining a Scientific Classification of Animals, Plants, and Minerals; with a popular view of their Habits, Economy, and Structure.

Part i. contains 56 pages of letterpress, two plates, and some woodcuts. It is far, indeed, from faultless; but at a cheaper rate than any work on natural history which has yet been offered to the public.

Lees, Edwin, F.L.S., Hon. Curator of the Worcestershire Natural History Society, &c.: The Affinities of Plants with Man and Animals, their Analogies and Associations; a Lecture delivered before the Worcestershire Natural History Society, on Nov. 26. 1833; with additional Notes and Illustrations. 8vo, 120 pages. London, 1834. 3s. 6d. This is a choice addition to what we would term the polite literature of botany. Plants have not failed to produce some embellishing effect on the polite literature of mankind in general, while we think that the literature of botany has remained, strange as it may seem, until latterly as unpolite as well could be. The ideas expressed on plants, and the terms in which they have been expressed, have been, among the botanical (ourselves, if we may do ourselves this honour, included), too much those of the dissecting room. Plants are poetical pictures; and to view them but with anatomical eyes is, perhaps, to defraud ourselves of the prime of the pleasures they give. Well, however this may be, Mr. Lees has, in the work before us, collected, and originated, and connected with them, a volume of sweet and pleasing associations; and so done much to enrich the imagery of the science of botany, and multiply the influences of plants upon human sentimentality.

"There is a still, a soothing thought,
With purity and calmness fraught,

That steals upon the mind;

Soft as the tear that eve distils,

Sweet as the breath of murmuring rills,
Or music on the wind."

And plants are," when all within is peace," effective incentives of this blissful state of feeling. The considerations which Mr. Lees has offered on them are in promotion of this state of feeling; and the enriching and exercising our faculties of fancy, memory, and understanding by means of them: the offices of plants to these ends constitute what Mr. Lees has denominated" the affinities of plants with man."

Lindley, Ph. D., F.R.S. &c.: Ladies' Botany: or a Familiar Introduction to the Study of the Natural System of Botany. 8vo, 302 pages, and 25 plates. London, 1834. 16s.

This is another addition to the polite literature of botany; and it is a very welcome one, because such a one has been for some time really wanted, and because it supplies the want in (we conceive, from a glance through the work) a clever and agreeable manner. The office of the present work is not so much like that of the work above, to introduce to ideas which appertain without particular relation to the investigation of their structure; but to lead us through the outlines or general course of this investigation, and to guide us in an agreeable narrative, and not needlessly technical manner, to that dominion. in knowledge among plants which botany alone can give. The plan adopted comprises twenty-five letters, each devoted to the explanation, in some detail, of the features which mark the distinctions of the more obvious of the natural orders, and to each of the letters is prefixed a plate, in which the parts described in the given characteristics of the orders, and specimens of the plants from which they are taken, plants for the most part very easily obtainable, are exhibited.

Lea Isaac; a Member of the American Philosophical Society, &c.: Contributions to Geology. Philadelphia, 1833. 8vo., 227 pages; and six plates which bear tinted figures of 224 species of fossil shells, and four fossil remains of species of fishes? Carey, Lea, and Blanchard, Philadelphia. "I hope to add some new facts contributing to the developement of the geology of our country. Little, comparatively, has yet been accomplished in defining, with perfect accuracy, most of the beds of the great geological masses of our extended formations; and these contributions are presented with a view to assist, though in a small degree, in the accomplishment of an object desirable to every American geologist, a perfect and thorough knowledge of American geology. Preface.

The subjects of the work are, an "introduction," in which an abstract is presented of the conditions and characteristics of the different formations recognised in general geology: then, the "tertiary formation of Alabama:" this is the main of the subjects, and comprises descriptions and illustrations of more than 200 species of shells, and those of some Pólypi: then, descriptions and illustrations of "new tertiary fossil shells, from Maryland and New Jersey." In relation to the two last treatises, the author has, in his preface, this remark, "Presuming the species to be new, I have endeavoured to make minute descriptions, accompanied by faithful figures of

each, with the hope of determining their characters permanently." Lastly, a short notice of the "tufaceous lacustrine formation of Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York."

Hawkins, T., F. G. S.: A Memoir on the Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, with several Lithographic Prints. Folio, 21. 10s. London, 1834.

This work, announced in VI. 267, is now published, and a copy of it, with which we have been favoured, we have sent to a geologist for review, whose remarks we hope to present in our next number. In the mean time, we may notice that the illustrations contained in the work are striking; that they present, besides pictures of the wonderful creatures which are the subject of the volume, numerous details of their osteology and general structure; and so supply, we presume, in conjunction with the text, the fullest and most perfect account of these wonders of the animal world of former ages, which has yet been produced. The author in his geological deductions seems in entire accordance with the account of the creation by Moses, taking the separate days as distinct geological epochs.

ART. II. Literary Notices.

A ZOOLOGICAL Text Book, by G. R. Gray, is announced, in the Entomological Magazine for April. The text book is to consist of "an explanation of all the terms employed by zoologists in the description of beasts, birds, fishes, reptiles, insects, shells, worms, corals, &c. ;" and it is to be "illustrated by numerous plates, representing the various parts in their natural situation, and in detail." This title bespeaks a work nearly respondent to one for which we have often wished; although the title of A Dictionary of the Language of Natural History would more precisely express the kind of work of which we have often felt the want.

The Entomologist's Popular Guide to the Study and Classifi cation of British Insects, with an Account of the Habits of the most remarkable Species, illustrated by numerous woodcuts, by G. R. Gray, is announced.

Of the Iconografia della Fauna Italica, di L. Bonaparte, it is announced that fasc. 3. 4. and 5, are published: folio, 15s. each.

In the press, in 8vo., A Treatise on Primary Geology: being an Examination, both practical and theoretical, of the older Formations by Henry S. Boase, M. D., Secretary of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall.

THE MAGAZINE

OF

NATURAL HISTORY.

SEPTEMBER, 1834.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

ART. I. On the Meteors seen in America on the Night of Nov. 13. 1833. By the Rev. W. B. CLARKE, A.M. F.G.S. (A Supplement to Mr. Clarke's Essay, No. 3., in p. 289-308., On certain recent Meteoric Phenomena, Vicissitudes in the Seasons, prevalent Disorders, &c., contemporaneous, and in supposed connection, with Volcanic Emanations.)

66

Quid sit, unde sit, quare sit. . . . . quod ipsum explorare et eruere sine universitatis inquisitione non possumus, cum ita cohærentia, connexa, concatenata sint."-M. MINUTIUS FELIX, Xvii.

In the last number of my remarks on the supposed connection of volcanic and other phenomena (p. 289-308.), I have attended to the extraordinary display of meteors on the night of Nov. 13. 1833, as described in Silliman's Journal of Science and Arts, vol. xxv. p. 411. In vol. xxvi. p. 132. of that work, for April, 1834, are "Observations thereon, by Denison Olmsted, Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Yale College."

Professor Ölmsted sets out with quoting previous examples of meteorites seen at various periods. Amongst these, he alludes to several quoted by me, especially the meteors of Nov. 19. 1832, seen in England; the matter which fell at Wolokolumsk, March, 1832; the meteor of Brunck, Nov. 14. 1832; and those seen by Humboldt, Nov. 12. 1794, in Cumana; and the aerolites of Candahar. Others are, the fall of red rain in different countries, on Nov. 13. 1755, and in Picardy, Nov. 14. 1765; and a great meteor seen in Ohio, Nov. 1825; and that seen in England, Nov. 13. 1803.

By error, the date is before given, by me, Nov. 17. (p. 293.); as is 1728, for 1828 (p. 305.).

The testimony of an eyewitness is also adduced for the appearance of meteors, exactly resembling those in England, five days afterwards, at Mocha, on the Red Sea, where the same phenomena occurred, from 1 A.M. till after daylight, Nov. 14. 1832. (Amer. Journ., xxvi. 136.)

Professor Olmsted also mentions a shower of meteors seen in America about the middle of April, 1803, which I have no hesitation in connecting with the shower of stones at L'Aigle, in France, April 26. 1803. (Mag. Nat. Hist., VII. 296.) The other examples of the professor are, I think, plainly to be referred at once to a volcanic origin, especially the black dust at Constantinople in 472, which, according to Procopius, was traced from Vesuvius. Additional information has been received that the meteors of 1833 were seen, contemporaneously with the other localities, at Kingston, Jamaica; in Mexico, in lat. 34° 30′ N.; and on the shores of Lake Huron.

The explanation of the professor is most elaborately minute, and does no injustice to his celebrity as a calculator: but I must say that, if I were not attached to my own hypothesis, I could not agree in his upon his present showing. He assumes that the matter of which these meteors were composed is similar to that which composes the tails of comets, and that the meteors of 1799, 1832, and 1833 are results of the destruction of one and the same body; and thence, by the aid of astronomical reasoning, deduces this conclusion:-"That the meteors of Nov. 13. consisted of portions of the extreme parts of a nebulous body, which revolves round the sun in an orbit interior to that of the earth, but little inclined to the plane of the ecliptic, having its aphelion near the earth's path, and having a period in time of 182 days nearly."

I have neither time nor leisure, at present, to examine here in detail the very ingenious, and apparently satisfactory, process by which these meteors are resolved into cometic fragments. I imagine that philosophers will find so many difficulties in the admission of the professor's theory, that he will not be able to maintain it. I would merely ask, if the appearances seen in such different places imply the object to be the same, why we may not include other similar displays in that comprehensive identity? Why we may not suppose that the meteors, of precisely similar character, seen on August 10. 1833, in Worcestershire, at 10 to 12 P. M.*, were cometic fragments? How happens it that, if this comet has a motion from N.w. to S.E. (Prof. Olmsted, p. 143.), the meteors seen at Mocha, on Nov. 14., made their appearance in England five * See Mr. Lees's paper on the aurora, in The Analyst, No. i. p. 33., for August, 1834.