Foreign Medical Review), that it is sufficient to remark that our author agrees with Prichard in maintaining the unity of the human species.

With the second volume of the COSMOS, we shall deal very briefly. It is divided into two great parts, the first being an essay, or rather a series of essays, on the Incitements to the Study of Nature,' whilst the latter is devoted to the History of the Physical Contemplation of the Universe.'

The incitements which promote the study and contemplation of nature are, according to our author, of three distinct kinds :-1, the poetic and vivid description of nature and natural scenery; 2, landscape painting, especially where it has caught the characteristic features of the animal and vegetable world; and 3, the more widely diffused cultivation of tropical plants, and the more strongly contrasted opposition of exotic and indigenous forms.

It is difficult to speak in suitable terms of the elevated views and profound scholarship of these essays. In reference to poetic descriptions of nature, Humboldt observes, that it has been his endeavour "to manifest in a fragmentary manner the different influence exercised by the external world on the aspect of animate and inanimate nature at different periods of time, on the thoughts and mode of feeling of different races ;" and with this view he has collected examples from the literature of all ages and nations-from the earliest writings of the Greeks, Romans, and Indians, down to our own time. Landscape painting, in its animating influence on the study of nature, is traced from its earliest germs to its most brilliant period, the seventeenth century; and the importance of a more extended cultivation of exotic plants is feelingly illustrated by a reference to his own youthful experience. It was the sight of a colossal dragon-tree and of a fan-palm in an old tower of the botanical garden at Berlin, that first implanted in his mind the germ of an irresistible desire to undertake distant travels. "He who is able to trace through the whole course of his impressions that which gave the first leading direction to his whole career, will not deny the influence of such a power." But we must refer our readers to the volumes themselves for his various historical illustrations of the general accuracy of his views, and will merely add his concluding remark, that

"We may regard it as one of the most precious fruits of European civilization, that it is almost everywhere permitted to man, by the cultivation and arrangement of exotic plants, by the charm of landscape painting, and by the inspired power of language, to procure a substitute for familiar scenes during the period of absence, or to receive a portion of that enjoyment from nature which is yielded by actual contemplation during long and not unfrequently dangerous journeys through the interior of distant continents."

The history of the physical contemplation of the universe may be regarded in the light of a grand, and, we may add, a successful attempt at a history of objective discovery-a history of those epochs or momenta in the progress of scientific knowledge which have advanced it to its present state; and must not be confounded with the history of the physical sciences. To adopt our author's words, the history of the physical contemplation of the universe is the history of the recognition of the unity of nature, the representation of the efforts made by man to comprehend the combined action of natural forces on the earth and in the regions of space; and hence it designates the epochs of advancement in the generalization of

views; being a portion of the history of our world of thought, in as far as it refers to objects manifested by the senses, to the form of conglomerated matter, and to the forces inherent in it. The following extract more definitively shows his exact aim:

"In order to give some idea of what has been collected at separate epochs under this point of view, it appears most desirable to adduce separate instances, illustrative of the subjects which must either be treated of or discarded in the succeeding portions of this work. The discoveries of the compound microscope, of the telescope, and of coloured polarization, belong to the history of the Cosmos, since they have afforded the means of discovering that which is common to all organisms; of penetrating into the remotest regions of space; of distinguishing between reflected or borrowed light and the light of self-luminous bodies, or, in other words, determining whether solar light be radiated from a solid mass or from a gaseous envelope. The enumeration of the experiments which, since Huygen's time, have gradually led to Arago's discovery of coloured polarization, must be reserved for the history of optics. The consideration of the development of the principles, in accordance with which variously-formed plants admit of being classified in families, falls in like manner within the domain of phytognosy or botany; whilst the geography of plants, or a study of the local and climatic distribution of vegetation over the whole earth,-alike over the solid portions and in the basins of the sea,-constitutes an important section in the history of the physical contemplation of the universe." (Vol. ii, pp. 466-7.)

The principal momenta in the history of a physical contemplation of the universe, as laid down by our author, are the following:

I. The basin of the Mediterranean considered as the starting point of the attempts to extend the idea of the Cosmos.

II. The campaigns of the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, and the long enduring influence of the Bactrian empire.

III. The increase of the contemplation of the universe under the Ptolemies.

IV. The influence of the universal dominion of the Romans, and of their empire, on the extension of cosmical views.

V. The irruption of the Arabs, and the effects of the foreign elements thus introduced on the development of European culture.

VI. The period of oceanic discoveries, especially the discovery of the western hemisphere.

And VII. The period of great discoveries in the regions of space, by the application of the telescope.

But on these subjects, treated as no man save Alexander von Humboldt could treat them, we must not dwell. As an antiquary, a historian, and a man of science, his strength seems equally gigantic, and he has brought all his forces to bear on the consideration of these points.

A brief retrospect of these successive epochs, collectively embracing a period of upwards of two thousand years, from the time of the earliest traces of civilization amongst the nations dwelling around the basin of the Mediterranean and the fruitful river valleys of western Asia, to the commencement of the last century, when general views and feelings were already beginning to blend with those of the present age, terminates with a glance at the increasing difficulty of separating the branches of science, in consequence of the multiplicity of the links of connexion between them, and with the following remarks on the characteristic genius of our own times:

"That which has especially favoured the progress of knowledge in the nineteenth century, and imparted to the age its principal character, is the general and beneficial endeavour not to limit our attention to that which has been recently acquired, but to test strictly, by measure and weight, all earlier acquisitions; to separate certain knowledge from mere conjectures founded on analogy, and thus to subject all portions of knowledge, whether it be physical astronomy, the study of terrestrial natural forces, geology, or archaeology, to the same strict method of criticism. The generalization of this course has, most especially, contributed to show on each occasion the limits of the separate sciences, and to discover the weakness of certain studies in which unfounded opinions take the place of certain facts, and symbolical myths manifest themselves under ancient semblances as grave theories. Indefiniteness of language, and the transference of the nomenclature of one science to another, have led to erroneous views and delusive analogies. The advance of zoology was long endangered from the belief that, in the lower classes of animals, all vital actions were attached to organs similarly formed to those of the higher classes. The knowledge of the history of the development of plants in the so-called Cryptogamic Cormophytes (mosses and liverworts, ferns, and lycopodiacea), or in the still lower Thallophytes (algæ, lichens, and fungi), has been still more obscured by the supposed discovery of analogies with the sexual propagation of the animal kingdom. "If art may be said to dwell within the magic circle of the imagination, the extension of knowledge, on the other hand, depends especially on contact with the external world, and this becomes more manifold and close in proportion with the increase of general intercourse. The creation of new organs (instruments of observation) increases the intellectual and not unfrequently the physical powers of man. More rapid than light, the closed electric current conveys thought and will to the remotest distance. Forces, whose silent operation in elementary nature, and in the delicate cells of organic tissues, still escapes our senses, will, when recognised, employed and awakened to higher activity, at some future time, enter within the sphere of the endless chain of means which enable man to subject to his control separate domains of nature, and to approximate to a more animated recognition of the Universe as a Whole." (Vol. ii, pp. 741-2).

The works by Cotta and Reuschle, whose titles stand prefixed to this article, have been called into existence by the publication of the COSMOS; they differ, however, essentially from each other. Reuschle's volume is divided into four books, treating respectively of

1. The position of our earth in the world of space, and its cosmical natural relations.

2. The natural history of the heavens.

3. The interior of our earth as contrasted with the surface, and the formative processes that have taken place in the earth's crust.

4. The surface of the earth as it now exists.

Cotta's work, of which at present we have only the first part, consists of a series of forty letters, on various points alluded to in the first volume of the COSMOS. We select the subjects of a few of these letters, as illustrating the character of the book: the fixed stars, double stars, our solar system, the moon, comets, terrestrial magnetism, volcanic activity, formation of rocks, erratic blocks, the tides, the atmosphere, the geography of plants and animals, man. Cotta's is the more popular volume of the two; but each is well adapted for the object that both authors had in view, namely, to supply to the general reader a sufficient preliminary knowledge of the physical sciences to enable him to read the CoSMOS with profit and advantage.

It only remains for us to say a word in justification of our preference

for the English translation which, out of three, we have deemed it our duty especially to recommend. We have carefully compared all the English versions with the original German. Two of them-those, namely, of Mrs. Sabine and Miss Otté-are entitled to the highest commendation. Their translations are not only accurate, but elegant; and the genial spirit of the venerable author breathes through every page. Proud, indeed, may we feel of our fair countrywomen, when from their ranks there issue such women as those to whom it is now our pleasing duty to offer the highest meed of praise in our power to bestow. The third, which we may characterise as Mr. Baillière's, is in every respect the least successful. The translator or translators of the first volume wisely preserve their incognito; to the second volume the name of Mr. Prichard is attached, and it is with extreme regret that we find ourselves unable to speak favorably of this, his first literary effort. Many very serious errors and misunderstandings of the original are to be found, as he is doubtless by this time well aware, in the earlier portion of his volume-errors, into which we feel assured he would not have fallen, had he allowed himself due and sufficient time for the proper execution of his translation. But publishers are ofttimes hard taskmasters, and, in such cases as the present, the desire to be first in the field leads to an over-taxing of the translator's powers, and gives rise to a system in all respects prejudicial to sound literature. That this has been the case in the present instance we do not entertain a doubt.

The following are the reasons why we prefer the translation of Miss Otté to that of Mrs. Sabine. In the first place, it is the more accurate, and we have not detected in it any blinking of puzzling words or expressions, as we have done in one or two instances in the other version. Thus, for instance, in the first note to page 534 of the translation we have adopted, the German word Waller-see has been a stumbling-block to both Mrs. Sabine and Mr. Prichard. Secondly, the reading of the work is much facilitated by the translation into corresponding English terms of all the foreign measurements, and by the notes being removed from the end of the volumes and placed beneath the text in their appropriate positions. In the third and last place, this edition is enriched by many valuable notes, having reference to researches in physical science, made subsequently to the publication of the original work.

We need scarcely add that no ordinary work would have given rise to three rival translations. If we have succeeded in conveying to the minds of our readers even a faint conception of the rich stores of classical, antiquarian, and scientific lore with which the Cosmos abounds, and can thus induce them to read and study it for themselves, the object that we proposed to ourselves is attained.

It is but seldom that we diverge from the path of strictly professional matter in the pages of this review. There are occasionally, however, cases in which a deviation from our regular course is expedient; and we would fain hope that none of those into whose hands our journal falls, will regret that we have directed their attention to "an attempt to delineate Nature in all its vivid animation and exalted grandeur, and to trace the stable amid the vacillating, ever-recurring alternation of physical metamorphoses."

ART. IV.

1. Return of the Mortality in 117 Districts of England, for the Quarter ending December 31st, 1847. Published by authority of the RegistrarGeneral. No. IV, 1847.

2. On the Influenza or Epidemic Catarrhal Fever of 1847-8. By THOMAS B. PEACOCK, M.D., Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, Physician to the Royal Free Hospital, &c. &c.-London, 1848. pp. 182. At the time when a formidable epidemic disease is extending itself over these countries towards the south-west of Europe and the shores of the Mediterranean sea, and when the attention of the profession is strongly directed to the phenomena which attend its progress, and manifest more or less distinctly the laws which govern it, it may not be inopportune to turn for a moment from our study of this disease, and to place conspicuously before ourselves the phenomena exhibited by another malady equally entitled with cholera to the appellation of epidemic. It may be advisable to see whether there is anything in common between the two affections, or any peculiarity of the one which may throw light on the course of the other. But, apart from this, the disease which we propose now to pass in review may well claim careful and repeated investigation from the practitioner of medicine. It is of all epidemic diseases the one which, at the time of its prevalence, is most widely diffused; the one which is least restricted by conditions of locality; and which, compared with other affections of the same great class, is least affected by the peculiarities of the systems it attacks, whether these are produced by condition of life, age, sex, or vigour, imperfection, or peculiarity of frame. Consequently it invades almost all nations on the face of the globe, and it attacks a large proportion of the individuals of each nation. It has prevailed from time to time for 700 years, and probably from ages immemorial. Its ravages were recorded even by the ignorant chroniclers and physicians of the middle ages; and historians paused from their warlike recitals to note the occurrence of the disease, which spared neither the noble in his castle nor the peasant in his hut. Its successive invasions have caused a great destruction of life, although, from the vast number of cases, the relative mortality is low. In 1311 it was very fatal throughout all France. In 1403 the courts of law were closed in Paris on account of the deaths. In 1580 entire Europe was filled with mourning and sorrow. In 1590, 6000 persons died in Rome alone. In 1729 more people died of it in London in one week, than in any equal period of time during the great plague of 1665; and at Vienna 10,000 persons were ill at once. In 1743, 1000 persons died of it in London in eight days. Occasionally its ravages have not been confined to men, but, as in 1728, 1732, and 1775, it has attacked both dogs and horses. It is a disease of extraordinary rapidity of progress, and on some occasions has passed from Asia to Russia, Germany, England, France, Italy, and America, in the course of a few months. As its diffusibility is great, so are its periods of recurrence frequent. Admitting that some of the recorded epidemics in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are wrongly referred to this disease, there is no doubt, from the experience of the last two centuries, that so long a period as ten years has seldom or never elapsed between