LAMB's lines,

""Tis pleasant, lolling in our elbow chair, Secure at home, to read descriptions rare Of venturous traveler in savage climes: His hair-breadth 'scapes, toil, hunger," although they do not rank high as poetry, express a widely felt truth. No one can be insensible to the contrast between the peace of the library and the turmoil that has made the traveler's book interesting; and even the less exciting volumes give some entertainment to those who are curious about their fellow-men in foreign climes. When the statement of facts is such fascinating reading one cannot help wondering that Jules Verne

who is the most prominent offender in this respect - should find it necessary to cram his books with the charlatanry that has made his name notorious. In his melodramatic books he caricatures science, and falls in interest far behind those writers who simply record the truth. Yet no one can ever read the description of a journey without being reminded of his old friends, Eyes and No-Eyes. Some travelers will go round the world and come home with hardly anything more than a list of their breakfasts, and especially of the breakfasts they did not eat. Others, again, seem to have that most desirable quality, a touch of omniscience. Indeed, a traveler in remote regions has to fit himself out with a good knowledge of botany, geology, philology, etc., before he can observe properly strange countries and their inhabitants, and before he can satisfy the public at home that is ever growing more exacting in what it demands of those who write about their journeys. The report of the Challenger Expedition is, as one would naturally expect, a model of completeness. The

1 The Voyage of the Challenger. The Atlantic. A Preliminary Account of the General Results of the Exploring Voyage of H. M. S. Challenger, dur ing the year 1873 and the early part of the year 1876. By Sir C. WYVILLE THOMSON, Knt., LL. D., D. Sc., F. R. SS. L. and E., F. L. S., F. G. S., etc.,

aims of the investigators were clearly defined beforehand, the main object being the study of the physical and biological conditions of the great ocean basins. Precise instructions were given with regard to all the details of this vast task. They were to record the temperature of the air, of the surface of the water, of the sub-surface strata, — that is to say, at every five fathoms down to twenty fathoms, at every two hundred and fifty fathoms down to twelve hundred and fifty fathoms, and at the bottom, with especial attention to any marked deviation. Currents and tides were to be carefully investigated. So far as possible the elevation or subsidence of the land was to be noted. The specific gravity and transparency of the water were to be ascertained, and chemical observations made of the water and sea-bottom. The botanist, too, had his work cut out for him, and the zoologist was not to be idle.

A

For the thorough performance of these complex labors a good part of the ship was converted into a floating laboratory, with the various scientific instruments required and they were many - neatly placed in the compactest space, and with the best accommodations for work that could be devised. chapter is devoted to the description of the means at the command of the scientific men in their manifold occupations, with illustrations showing the various instruments used, sounding machines, trawls, etc., as well as the stationary apparatus. The two volumes are mainly filled with a full account of the work done by the men who were thus admirably prepared. The men themselves were carefully chosen: Professor Wyville Thomson was appointed the head of the Regius Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, and Director of the Civilian Scientific Staff of the Challenger Expedition. In two volumes. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1878.

civilian scientific staff, with numerous assistants, among whom was a young German, Dr. Rudolf von WillemoesSuhm. He died on the 13th of September, 1875, and an interesting volume, written, if we are not mistaken, by his mother, gives not only an admirable account of his zoological investigations, but also an inspiring picture of scientific enthusiasm. It is a book that might repay translation; certainly those who know German would find it worth reading.

As may be imagined, this report does not waste space on what fills the ordinary entertaining book of travels. That vague person, the general reader, to whom all is caviare except the narration of incidents and accidents, will not find much here to delight his soul. It is no indirect attack against this book to say that there are other scientific reports which are more generally interesting reading. Darwin's account of the voyage of the Beagle, for instance, will fascinate almost every one, mainly because the multitude of diverse subjects that the author writes about is pretty sure to strike some stray whim or fancy of almost every reader, while there are few who care for more than very vague information about the temperature of the sea and the formation of the seabottom. Of course, these volumes were not written for the humoring of the popular taste, which will be fully gratified by very weak dilutions of the mass of information they contain. Those, however, who care for a full account of so well organized an expedition will be duly grateful for Sir Wyville Thomson's thoroughness. He gives a satisfactory description of those parts of the long voyage which have to do with the Atlantic Ocean, with a log of the scientific work in compact tables, diagrams, and lists, and clear statements of the general results obtained.

The course of the ship, on its departure from England, December 21, 1872, was first to the Canary Islands, this part being regarded as merely tentative, and as an opportunity to get everything into working order, and it was only after

sailing from that port that the real labor began. The run was made from Teneriffe to Sombrero, thence to the Bermudas, and from them to Halifax, across the Gulf Stream. Returning to the Bermudas, they sailed eastward to the Azores and Madeira, and thence to the coast of Brazil, and so, across the South Atlantic, to the Cape of Good Hope, which they reached October 28, 1873. It was not until January 20, 1876, that they sailed into the Atlantic again, through the Strait of Magellan, on their somewhat less tortuous homeward voyage.

Although the author explains that it is yet too early to make a full report of all the scientific information that has been acquired, there is certainly enough included in the final summary to attract every one's attention. Some of the most interesting results, briefly condensed, are the following: The supposition that the depth of the Atlantic increases rather suddenly to between two thousand and twenty-five hundred fathoms along the coasts of Europe and North Africa is confirmed. From Teneriffe westward, except at one spot, the water deepens to thirty-one hundred and fifty fathoms at the bottom of a wide valley which extends more than half way across the Atlantic. Then there is a rise to nineteen hundred fathoms, and another depression to three thousand and fifty fathoms, and thence it shoals rapidly up to the West Indies. The greatest depth discovered in the Atlantic was thirtyeight hundred and seventy-five fathoms, at a point north of the Virgin Islands, between St. Thomas and the Bermudas. The mean depth of the Atlantic is a little over two thousand fathoms. For the outlines of the different basins of greatest depth the reader must be referred to the book.

The bottom of the main Atlantic, at depths between four hundred and two thousand fathoms, is covered with a calcareous deposit, the globigerina ooze, which consists to a great extent of the more or less decomposed shells of pelagic foraminifera. These foraminifera Sir Wyville Thomson now holds, in opposi

tion to his opinion before taking this voyage, to be inhabitants of the surface and upper strata of the water. At a greater depth than two thousand fathoms the ooze is replaced by a more or less homogeneous red clay, produced mainly by the decomposition of feldspathic minerals.

The distribution of the ocean temperature is reported at too great length to receive even the rough condensation of the two subjects just treated. The general facts and conclusions are to be found briefly recapitulated, vol. ii., pp. 279, 280, and these are what the reader would do well to consult. The first conclusion being "that the Atlantic must be regarded in the light of an inlet or gulf of the general ocean of the water hemisphere, opening directly from the Southern Sea," the temperature, with some few exceptions, is dependent on that of the Southern Sea, and, with the exception of the Labrador current (which gives the Boston east wind its diabolical sting) and the Spitzbergen current, the Atlantic is not specially affected by any cold indraught from the Arctic Ocean.

With regard to the fauna, even less can be said here. Animal life is to be found in the bottom of the ocean at all depths, though less abundantly at great depths, with a belt of complete, or nearly complete, absence of life between the surface and the bottom. Farther down than five hundred fathoms the ocean is inhabited throughout by a fauna presenting generally the same features. The forms most nearly related to extinct types seem to occur in the great est abundance and of the largest size in the Southern Ocean.

But one might almost as well form an idea of the Atlantic Ocean from a teacupful of salt water as judge of the thoroughness and the fullness of these two volumes by this inadequate sketch. They are valuable store-houses of information, recording most lucidly the results of careful observation by trained men, and may serve another good pur

1 China: A History of the Laws, Manners, and Customs of the People. By JOHN HENRY GRAY, M. A., LL. D., Archdeacon of Hongkong. Edited by

pose as the memorials of a wise and generous act on the part of the English government. It is doing them injustice to try to skim scraps of information from these painstaking chronicles of scientific work.

Archdeacon Gray's book on China 1 will be found well worth attention. There is no need of repeating the many causes that have kept that country comparatively unknown; it is enough to say that we have here a book written, not by a traveler, but by a man who can be fairly considered an inhabitant of the land he describes. The archdeacon nowhere tells us exactly how many years he has passed in China, but from the various dates he mentions it may be gathered that he has spent nearly, if not quite, twenty years there. They were years well spent. It would be hard to give any one who has not read the two volumes at all an adequate notion of the immense mass of information he has put together for us. He traces the course of the Chinaman from the cradle to the grave: he describes the ceremonies at his birth, his education, his marriage, or, more frequently, his marriages; he tells us about his death and his funeral rites; we find all his religious feelings, his numerous superstitions, set before us, as well as the care the government takes of good citizens, and the pains and penalties imposed on the vicious. We hear how the Chinaman who is refractory is tortured; and this is certainly curious reading at the present day, when the question of the treatment of the criminal classes is one of so great interest. In China torture is a recognized method of judicial procedure, and the punishments inflicted on those deemed guilty are indeed terrible.

What the author tells us about the religions of the Chinese is of importance, for it has been by no means easy to form a definite notion of the relation of Buddhism, for instance, to the people and to the other religions. That relig ion has indeed sunk from its old estate;

WILLIAM GOW GREGOR. In two volumes. With One Hundred and Forty Illustrations. London: Macmillan & Co. 1878.

most of the priests appear to be but little more than lazy monks, who are addicted to opium-smoking, although there are some who obey the laws of their creed by begging their bread from door to door. On the whole, Buddhism in China would seem to be a mass of superstition. At any rate, this is Dr. Gray's verdict in the comparison he makes between this religion and Taonism on the one side, and Confucianism on the other.

A long article might be made out of judicious selections from these two wellpacked volumes, which surprise the reader by the great variety of the information collected. There seems to be nothing that has escaped the author's careful observation; no subject seems strange to him; he speaks as one having knowledge of Chinese ways of thought and action, of their occupations, of the appearance of the country, etc., so that it will be only with a smile that the reader will receive Dr. Gray's very humble apology for his ignorance of geology, and his consequent inability to speak of the geological formation of the country. Surely something must be pardoned to fallible man, and this slight omission would never have been noticed by the reader if attention had not been thus called to it. Other books, notably Baron Richthofen's Travels in China, supply this gap, which is more than made up by the really immense mass of information given us about Chinese life.

A book of a very different kind is a volume on Constantinople,1 by Edmondo de Amicis. It makes no pretensions to adding to the sum of human knowledge, but it contains a brilliant and picturesque account of many of the wonders of that famous city. It is empty of statistics, being only a vivid record of what the traveler sees as he wanders about the narrow streets of the town and its surroundings, but it is written with so much real interest in the subject, and it shows such genuine admiration for the abundant artistic richness of Oriental life, that

' Constantinople. By EDMONDO DE AMICIS. Translated from the Seventh Italian Edition by CAROLINE TILTON. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1878.

2 Canoeing in Kanuckia; or, Haps and Mishaps

no one can fail to be affected by the writer's enthusiasm. The travelers are not so very many who go to Constantinople, and they are still fewer who can equally well describe what is to be seen there. Everything fascinated the ardent young writer, and he put down on paper his impressions while they were still fresh; consequently, thanks to his vivid style, which well survives translation, the reader gets most glowing pictures of what can be best presented by such treatment. Though we may smile here and there at the writer's excessive earnestness, it is to just this quality that the book owes its value. It is by no means a mere story of sight-seeing; the author reflected wisely on what he saw so keenly, and what he has to say concerning the Turkish character is worth reading. It will be found in one of the last chapters of this interesting book.

Canoeing in Kanuckia,2 by Messrs. C. L. Norton and John Habberton, describes a little tour in canoes made by those gentlemen and certain of their friends. They seem to have enjoyed their trip exceedingly, -one might almost say, excessively. They found everything amusing: if it rained, they were delighted; if the sun was hot, that too was an entertaining joke; but the height of happiness was attained when one or more of the canoes upset and its owner was ducked. One of the more important incidents of the voyage was the destruction of a coffee-pot by being held in the flames by an indiscreet amateur cook; but this is made much of, and the generally meagre outline of events is filled in with a faithful report of the incessant chaff in which the various members of the party indulged at each other's expense. All this was doubtless amusing enough at the time, but it may be questioned whether it was of the texture of which entertaining books are made. It is safe to say that most readers will fail to find on the printed page Afloat and Ashore of the Statesman, the Editor, the Artist, and the Scribbler. Recorded by the Commodore and the Cook (C. L. NORTON and JOHN HABBERTON). Illustrated. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1878.