for great and needed revolutionary measures, that never would be otherwise adopted, such as the abolition of slavery, and the resumption by the national government of its constitutional function of controlling all issues of money, or whatever, by any governmental authority, circulates as money; so that, instead of being multiplied endlessly at the pleasure of some forty States, at once flooding the country, and having a mere local credit, we may have a currency issued by the national authority, and gladly received for the value of its face in the remotest nook and corner of our country. Prof. Bowen tells us, that "the great advantages of these local peculiarities (of State Banks) is, that the local currencies stay at home, bank-bills circulate only in the neighborhoods where those who receive them are well acquainted with the character and management of the issuing institution,” etc. (p. 371). For ourselves, and we think we speak for ninety-nine out of every hundred, we have had enough of the benefits of these "local currencies," which could not be sent in a letter from Massachusetts to Minnesota, without incurring a heavy percentage of loss; which often caused a loss to merchants, amounting to a heavy percentage of their profits, in procuring their redemption; which supported great banks, and banking-houses in all our great cities, in the business and profits of redeeming them; which caused an annual heavy loss to all periodicals, and others receiving their dues in small sums by mail. Do travellers wish the return of this "local currency?" We have ourselves had bills of specie-paying banks in New Jersey, refused by hotelkeepers in Massachusetts, and specie demanded. The very thought of pleading the superiority of State to National Bank currency, seems to us unaccountable.

And it is not in keeping with this when the author tells us (p. 381), "It was a great mistake to take away the whole bank edifice from its solid foundation on private commercial credit and place it on the morass, the quaking bog, of national stock, which may be selling at par to day, and 70 or 80 next week?" Indeed? Do not banks and bankers, after all, prefer the security of this "quaking bog" to private commercial credit for their loans? And do not the people likewise

prefer the same for their bank-bills? But says Prof. Bowen:

"Still it may be said that here is no real ground of complaint, for it is the very essence and excellence of the system that one bill shall be as good as another anywhere. Let us see. A depositor once had occasion to have a small check cashed at a bank which never, under the old system, paid him any thing but its own bills. This time it paid him four bills, one from some town unknown to him in Pennsylvania, a second from some place equally unknown in Michigan, a third from New York, and the fourth was an old State Bank bill. Now the National Bank bills, though legal tender to and from the United States, except for the payment of duties or interests on national stocks, are not legal tender between man and man. Suppose the person had occasion for some greenbacks, which, at present and for some indefinite time to come, are 'lawful money,' in order to make a tender for the discharge of a debt. His own local bank is not bound to obtain them for him, for he has none of its own bills to present for them. He must write to some friend, if he can find one, either in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, to another at Chicago, to a third at Albany or New York, and ask them to present these bills for redemption at the proper places; and then, after considerable delay, and some expense in writing letters, and for postage, and some risk in transmitting money by mail, he will receive lawful money in exchange for his little share of Mr. Chase's uniform National Currency."-Pp. 373-4.

One simple fact finishes this operose illustration. Every bank is bound to pay the checks of its depositors in "lawful money," i. e., legal tender or coin

if demanded. Does not the author say in this very paragraph, that National Bank bills are "not a legal tender between man and man ?" Certainly not then between banks and men.

These are fair specimens of the author's whole style of dealing with this great subject. What he says about the profits and privileges involved in the circulation of the National Banks, is equally mistaken. We much regret that so good a book should suffer from such blemishes.

The Sublime in Nature; compiled from the descriptions of travellers and celebrated writers. By Ferdinand de Lanoye. With large additions. Wonders of Glass-Making in all Ages. By A. Sanzay. Illustrated by sixty-three engravings on wood.

The Sun. By Amédée Guillemin. From the French, by A. L. Phipson, Ph. D. With fifty-eight illustrations.

The above are three additional volumes of the "Illustrated Library of Wonders," in course of publication by Messrs. Charles Scribner & Co. We have already brought some of the preceding volumes to the favorable attention of our readers. As the series goes forward we confess that we are more and more impressed with its excellence. It is seldom that any set of reading books appear that so happily combine the entertainment of the novel with the choicest practical and scientific instruction, fitted alike for the old and the young, the cultivated and uncultivated, the individual and the family. The graphic sketches and pictorial illustrations are equally useful and fascinating. The descriptions of the great mountains, volcanoes, rivers, and cataracts of the globe in the first of the volumes above noted are derived from the best sources.

The second on the wonders of Glass-Making is quite unique, and there are few who will not be charmed by the descriptions and illustrations of the processes and products of human art in the various forms of this most useful and beautiful substance in different countries and ages.

The third volume on the "Wonders of the Sun," is still more remarkable in the grandeur, magnificence, and utility of its unfoldings. It expands and rises with the vastness and sublimity of its object. The great discoveries of modern science are brought within the reach of the ordinary reader, in a way to inform, astonish, and delight him. We append one or two extracts from this volume.

"" THE FUNCTIONS OF HEAT AND LIGHT.

"Heat cannot supply the place of light in the important function of vegetation. A plant which is shut up in a dark place, even when there is a sufficient degree of temperature, becomes chlorotic; its green color disappears; it only lives and grows at the expense of its own substance. M. Boussingault has recently studied the phenomena of vegetation in the dark; his experiments prove that if the young plant raised from a seed be developed out of all contact with light, the leaves do not act as a reducing apparatus; a plant born under such circumstances emits carbonic acid constantly, as long as the substance of the seed can supply any carbon, and the duration of its existence depends upon the weight of this substance. It is a singular fact that a plant, developed in complete darkness with stalk, leaves, and roots, performs functions like an animal during the whole period of its existence. It is only under the influence of light that leaves are sensitive, endowed with periodic movements, and capable of motion. In the dark they are rigid and appear to be asleep.' (J. Sachs, 'Vegetable Physiol

ogy.")

"Finally, if the development of the various colors of flowers be independent of the local action of light, the latter is no less indirectly the indispensable agent both of the formation and of the colors of flowers, since the corolla and the staminæ can only grow and subsist at the expense of substances formed in the leaves by the action of light.

"THE RAYS OF THE SUN THE FIRST CONDITION OF EXISTENCE FOR ORGANIZED BEINGS.

"The rays of the sun are, therefore, from every point of view, the first condition of existence for organized beings on the surface of the Earth. They supply them with heat, without which life would soon be extinguished; with light, which presides over the nutrition of plants, and consequently over the lives of every being in the animal world; at every moment they determine numerous chemical combinations and decompositions. They constitute an incessant and periodically renewed source of movement, power, and life. Men of the present day profit not only by the prodigious quanity of force which the Sun annually pours upon the Earth in the form of calorific, chemical, and luminous undulations, but they are consuming also that which has been preserved for thousands of centuries. What are, in fact, the accumulated masses of coal buried in the crust of the Earth by geological action, but the produce of solar light condensed some thousand centuries ago in gigantic forests? Their carboniferous principle transformed by a kind of slow distillation amassed itself first into a peaty tissue, then into more and more compact strata, until the layers of vegetable remains were completely converted into basins of coal. At the present day in our manufactories, our locomotives, and steamers, these precious fossils give back to man in light, heat, and mechanical power, all that they had formerly acquired for thousands of years from the rays of the Sun."

Since the foregoing was written we have received from Scribner & Co. two additional volumes of the series of "Illustrated Wonders," viz. :

The Wonders of the Human Body. From the French of A. L. Pileur, Doctor of Medicine. Illustrated with forty-five engravings.

The Wonders of Italian Art. By Louis Viardot. Twenty-eight engravings.

The former rich in anatomical and physiological instruction popularized; the latter opening to the great reading public the wealth and magnificence of art in the land of artists. We take from it the following extract:

"MICHAEL ANGELO'S REVENGE ON BIAGIO.

"The fresco of Michael Angelo was not yet finished when it was nearly being destroyed. From the denunciation of his chamberlain, Biagio of Cesena, who considered the painting more suitable for a bath-room or even a tavern than for the pope's chapel, Paul III. had, for a short time, the wish to have it destroyed. To revenge himself on his denunciator, Michael Angelo condemned Biagio to the pillory of immortality. He painted him among the condemned under the form of Minos, and according to the fiction of Dante in the fifth canto of the 'Inferno:'

Stravvi Minos orribilmente e ringia,

that is to say, with the ass's ears of Midas and a serpent for a girdle, which recalls the lines of an old Spanish romance, on the King Rodrigo, crying out from his tomb:

Ya me comen, ya me comen,

Por do mas pecado habia.

Biagio complained to the pope, demanding that at least his features should be effaced. 'In what part of his picture has he placed you?' asked the pope

'In hell.'' If it had been in purgatory, we could have got you out, but in hell, nulla est redemptio.'"

Annual of Scientific Discovery, or Year Book of Facts in Science and Art, for 1870. Exhibiting the most important Discoveries and Improvements in Mechanics, Useful Arts, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Astronomy, Geology, Biology, Botany, Mineralogy, Meteorology, Geography, Antiquities, etc. Together with Notes on the Progress of Science during the year 1869; a List of recent Scientific Publications, Obituaries of Eminent, Scientific Men, etc. Edited by John Trowbridge, S. B., Assistant Professor of Physics in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; aided by Samuel Kneeland, M. D., Professor of Zoology and Physiology in the Institute; and W. R. Nichols, Graduate of the Institute. Boston: Gould & Lincoln, 59 Washington Street. New York: Sheldon & Co. London: Trub

ner & Co. 1870.

This title-page does such justice to the contents of this great Annual, which we always welcome, that we cannot improve upon without stretching our remarks beyond a short notice to an extended article. It is quite indispensable to all who would keep at all abreast of the immense strides of pure and applied science. A prodigious amount of most valuable and interesting matter is closely packed into it. Few could read it without finding practical suggestions from which they could gain economical advantages greatly surpassing its cost. The schemes of the foundation of separate species by natural selection and by derivation, as against an origin by creation, are not dealt with quite according to their deserts. The Word! or, Universal Redemption and Salvation; pre-ordained before all Worlds. A more Evangelical, Philanthropic, and Christian Interpretation of the Almighty God's Sacred Promises of Infinite Mercy, Forgiveness, and Grace; reverently submitted to Christendom. By George Marin De La Voye, a Septuagenarian Optimist. London: Whittaker & Co.; Trubner & Co. New York: Scribner, Welford & Co.

If the title-page does not sufficiently display the nebulous (is it too much to say, delirious?) magniloquence of this amiable and venerable rhapsodist, almost any page of the book will. We give our readers, instar omnium, the following from the first pages (48–9) at which we happened to open:

66 FIRST AND FOREMOST SALUTARY PRESENCE OF EVIL.

"It was the eternal monotheocratic Lord of all things, visible and invisible, who, having mentally' created Adam, upon first discovering that a self-generated incipient ether, of an extremely virulent nature, was imperceptibly but effectively contaminating the souls of his heavenly spirits and powers, besides spreading influential pestilence throughout his principalities and kingdoms, had furthermore anticipatedly composed those prophecies, revelations, and sacred warnings (including our Lord's prayer), which were in due time to constitute the most important portion of our Sacred Bible.

"Although not yet self-multiplied, our Almighty God, the ever-flowing 'Foun tain of Divine Love and Grace,' combined within his all-sufficient and formidable Oneness, I am Alpha and Omega.-The First and the Last' all the wonderful attributes of the Three incomprehensible Gods of that godhead, which he secretly imposed, after a time, by miraculous divisions, and separations, mercifully

to treble.

"Therefore, annihilating forever, by a single thought, the total existence of the

above-mentioned ethereal malefic principles of evil, Jehovah next evoked from the infernal abysses, where he had for myriads of centuries past confined him at the extremest verge of the immeasurable universe, that false Archangel he intentionally formed and endowed as a 'spiritual antidote,' perfectly subservient to his Almighty will, against the deplorable ills which he from the very beginning had foreseen and forefended."

A History of the Free Churches of England, from A. D. 1688-A. D. 1851. By Herbert S. Skeats. Second edition. London: Arthur Miall. New York: Scribner, Welford & Co. 1869.

A field is here explored in regard to which there is a wide desire and need of information on historical, ecclesiastical, theological, political, and sociological grounds. The above volume is really a history of dissent from the established church in England. He traces its various forms in their origin, progress, developments, and their joint and several influence upon the religion, politics, the social, moral, educational condition of England. He shows how much that country owes to its Dissenters, for all that is most precious in the present state, privileges, and franchises of the people.

In the present agitations, which are shaking Great Britain on Establishment, Disestablishment, and Voluntaryism, this large and solid volume is a valuable thesaurus of historical information. The subject of Free Churches and the proper support of them and their ministers, has an unfailing interest in this country. Sustentation-funds yet constitute the unsolved problem of our American Voluntaryism. The English churches sketched in this volume are also of interest to American Christians, as most of our great American churches are their offspring, which have largely outgrown the mother churches whence they sprung. We have noticed in this volume an incidental confirmation of what we have always believed, in regard to the relation, position, and agency of Wesley and Whitefield in that great religious awakening in the English Church, out of which the Methodist Church grew. It was at a later stage in organizing and shaping it, that the hand of John Wesley was most felt. Says Mr Skeats (p. 354):

"Much, however, as John Wesley's name has been identified, and justly so, with the great religious awakening which followed from his preaching and from that of his followers, it is to Whitefield that the origin of the movement is more especially due. It was not Wesley, but Whitefield, who first awoke the people from the sleep of spiritual death; and it was not Wesley, but Whitefield, who first broke the bonds of ecclesiastical conventionalisms and laws. This occurred while the Wesleys were in Georgia."

We have received from Scribner & Co., the publishers, Vols. IX. and X. of their cheap edition of Froude's History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth; being the 3d and 4th volumes upon the Reign of Elizabeth. This work has been so fully and frequently characterized, and its great merits specified by us in connection with the issue of previous volumes, that we deem it necessary to do no more than welcome an edition whose cheapness will render it as accessible as welcome to a greatly enlarged circle of readers.

The Laws of Discursive Thought: being a Text-Book of Formal Logic. By James McCosh, LL. D., President of the College of New Jersey, Princeton; formerly Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, Queen's College, Belfast. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 1870.