logist, the mode in which these various remains have been imbedded,the cause of the wonderful aggregation, not merely of individuals but of species, and not merely of species that may be presumed to have co-existed, but of many that must have succeeded one another at very remote periods of time,—and the past condition of the part of the Eastern Continent in which they present themselves, are problems of the highest interest, towards the elucidation of which we have reason to believe that the authors will be enabled to contribute a vast amount of novel and important information, from the varied stores which they have collected during their laborious and protracted inquiries.

The authors further tell us, that "they have been induced to undertake the work by the belief that the scientific reputation of this country and the credit of the Indian service are concerned in bringing to light researches embracing so many new facts, and bearing so importantly on the past physical history of the vast possessions of the British Empire in India. They are not insensible to the difficulty and extent of the subject, but they hope that they are in some measure prepared for it, by previous investigations extending through several years."

In this truly modest spirit do they allude to a series of researches, carried on, we have reason to know, under almost every possible disad

vantage, with the most indomitable perseverance. At a distance of many

hundreds of miles from those sources of information which the metropolis of Anglo-India might afford, with no copy of the 'Ossemens Fossiles' to guide their identifications, by the light which Cuvier had struck out, with no Museum, such as that of the Jardin des Plantes, or of our own College, to which to have continual recourse for the comprehension of the nature of their fast-accumulating treasures, they were thrown upon the book of nature, and upon the living museums of the neighbouring woods and plains, for the determination of these fossils, by the aid of their existing congeners; and their own guns, whilst providing daily food for their corporeal wants, supplied also their intellectual provender,—namely, the dry bones, which to all else, save the fierce hyæna, were valueless, but which to them were in place of books and plates and professors skilled in the lore of comparative anatomy. We rejoice to learn that the British Government and the Directors of the East India Company have thought fit to accord such an amount of aid in limine, as will ensure the successful progress of this truly national undertaking; and we also rejoice in the hope that the two hundred chests of Sewalik fossils, which have been presented by Capt. Cautley to the British Museum, will be speedily arranged there by Dr. Falconer, and made fully accessible to the public.

The style in which the work is produced, and the exceeding beauty of the illustrations, do great credit to the enterprising publisher, and to the artists who have been employed upon them. The lithographs will bear the closest inspection, and challenge comparison with any that have proceeded from continental presses, distinguished as the latter have always been for correctness of drawing and beauty of finish.

·

Following the order of the Ossemens Fossiles,' the group of proboscidea is first brought under review; and its selection is the more appropriate, as it most signally displays the numerical richness of forms, which

XLII.-XXI,

.13

characterizes the fossil fauna of India; whilst the materials collected by the authors are most valuable, as tending to settle many points which have hitherto been subjects of grave discussion. Paleontology made its first great advance in the exact determination of the mammoth of Siberia, and of the mastodon of North America, which we owe to Cuvier, and the new forms which have been discovered since that time, have been the subjects of attentive examination by Owen, Blainville, and other eminent anatomists.

"But notwithstanding the vast amount of observation on the subject during late years, a great difference of opinion has prevailed among comparative anatomists and paleontologists, down even to the period when we now write, in regard to the degree of affinity and the generic relations of the different species of mastodon and elephant. The majority of late authorities, including Cuvier and Owen, have regarded them as constituting two distinct and well-marked, though closely-allied, genera; others have gone the length of breaking up mastodon into two genera: while M. de Blainville has reverted to the opinion of some of the earlier observers, that the so-called mastodons and elephants are but modifications of one common type, differing so little from each other that all the species may, with propriety, be included within the limits of a single genus. A still greater and vastly more important difference of opinion has prevailed, regarding the number and characters of the species; for, while the conflicting views respecting the generic distinctions concern little more than the principles of systematic classification, the accurate determination of the fossil species affects the value of facts, which implicate the accuracy of some of the most weighty arguments in the geology of the later tertiary strata, more especially such as relate to the changes of climate which are supposed to have accompanied their deposition, and the extension of the species through a wide range of time and space." (p. 3.)

Thus Cuvier regarded all the fossil-elephant remains of the Old and New World as belonging to one and the same species, the elephas primigenius or mammoth, and Professor Owen has been of the same opinion. By M. de Blainville it has even been urged that the mammoth cannot be shown to be specifically distinct from the existing Indian elephant. Other palæontologists, on the contrary, have constructed no fewer than ten species out of the single species of Cuvier; founding the distinctive characters upon the differences presented by the molar teeth. So in regard to the mastodons, some would restrict the number of species (known previously to those now described) to four or five, whilst others would raise the number to twenty. This great diversity of opinion, almost unequalled in any other section of mammalian paleontology, has, in a great measure, arisen from the isolated and defective nature of the materials relating to this tribe, as they ordinarily come before the paleontologist, and especially from the peculiarities which characterize the dentition of the proboscideans, and which cause the teeth of the same species to present very different aspects at different periods. It is only, therefore, as our authors justly observe, from the comparison of an extensive series of specimens, embracing every period of life, and the range of individual sexual varieties through which the species runs, that any safe conclusions can be drawn regarding the distinctive characters of any one form. In this respect they have been peculiarly fortunate, owing to the surprising number of

forms belonging to this family embraced in the fossil fauna of India, and the immense abundance in which their remains have been met with. The results of their researches lead them to differ on certain points from all palæontologists who have treated of this family. As the subject is only commenced, however, in the present Part, we shall not now enter upon it, but shall present our readers with a general summary of our author's views, and of the grounds of them, when they shall have been completely developed.

ART. XIV.

MR. CHURCHILL'S MANUALS.

1. A Manual of Physiology, including Physiological Anatomy; for the use of the Medical Student. By WILLIAM B. CARPENTER, M.D., F.R.S., &c.

2. A System of Practical Surgery. By WILLIAM FERGUSSON, Esq., F.R.S.E., Professor of Surgery in King's College, London, &c. Second Edition.-London, 1846. pp. 668.

3. A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence. By ALFRED S. TAYLOR, F.R.S. Second Edition.-London, 1846. 8vo, pp. 704.

*

Ir has been our misfortune to have to turn the light of our critical countenance from so many books bearing the well-known sign and superscription of JOHN CHURCHILL, that we can afford to praise our worthy publisher, when he deserves it, without any danger of being accused of partiality. And, assuredly, when we look at the three splendid volumes now before us, and the others previously published on precisely the same plan, which, under the humble name of MANUAL, comprise the most elaborate and complete treatises on their respective subjects-when we inspect their beautiful typography and incomparable woodcuts-and compare their extremely moderate price with what we know must have been the very large outlay requisite to bring them to such a state of perfection, we must honestly admit that the obligations are mutual between the bibliopolist of Princes street and the members of the medical profession. If by their patronage he has waxed rich and portly, they, in their turn, are benefited by, and thus become sharers in, his prosperity. Nothing but a large capital could bring into the market works of this very expensive sort, and so rapidly one after another; and nothing but a most extensive sale could make the outlay of that capital remunerative, under the low price at which the volumes are sold. No doubt our good friend knows what he is about. We do not accuse him of any superhuman regard for the poverty of the medical exchequer. If he is liberal to his writers and liberal to his customers, it is a very possible case that he has found out that such liberality has no deteriorating effect on the treasury of Princes street. But be that as it may, we have so much reason to be satisfied with the result, as far as it concerns us, that we here give him public thanks for

A Manual of Chemistry, by George Fownes, F.R.S.; The Anatomist's Vade Mecum, by Erasmus Wilson, F.R.S.; Elements of Natural Philosophy, by Golding Bird, M.D., F.R.S.

the positive benefit conferred on the medical profession by the series of beautiful and cheap Manuals which bear his imprint, and of the last published of which we now proceed to give an account.

I. DR. CARPENTER'S PHYSIOLOGY.

The multiplication of general treatises on physiology, especially of those intended for the medical student, is a cheering indication of the increased attention which is being paid to this department of medical science—a department whose importance is now coming to be acknowledged as universally as it was formerly overlooked. This little volume, we are informed by the author, owes its origin to a desire on the part of Mr. Churchill to add an elementary treatise on physiology to the series of student's manuals which he had previously issued; and the success of Dr. Carpenter's larger works naturally led him to press the execution of the task upon that gentleman, who would otherwise, he assures us in his preface, have been better pleased to devote his leisure time to the prosecution of original researches in his favorite department of study.

We are led by the preface to expect some degree of novelty in the plan of his treatise, that should render it something else than a mere abridgment of the author's larger works, which it must have otherwise almost necessarily become; and a glance over its pages will show in what this novelty consists. Ever anxious to impress his readers with the principles of the science he is expounding, and desirous to elucidate these by all the light to be derived from recent discoveries, Dr. Carpenter has devoted a large proportion of the early part of the volume to an account of the elementary parts of the human body-in other words, the primary tissuesincluding their structure, chemical composition, mode of growth and development, and their actions in the general economy. The following extract will show the conformity of his plan to that which would be adopted in any parallel case, and will also indicate that he has prosecuted it in accordance with the most advanced views of the present remarkable era in physiology-that in which the independent life of cells and their functional instrumentality have come to be recognised as the great fundamental facts in the vital actions of animals, as they have long been known to be in that of plants.

"In the investigation of the operations of a complex piece of mechanism, and in the study of the forces which combine to produce the general result, experience shows the advantage of first examining the component parts of the machine-its springs, wheels, levers, cords, pulleys, &c.-determining the properties of their materials, and ascertaining their individual actions. When these have been completely mastered, then attention may be directed to their combined actions; and the bearing of these combinations upon each other, so as to produce the general result, would be the last object of study. This seems to be the plan which the student of physiology may most advantageously pursue in the difficult task of making himself acquainted with the operations of the living fabric, and with the mode in which they concur in the maintenance of life. We should first examine the properties of the component materials of the structure in their simplest form; these he will find in its nutrient fluids. He may next proceed to the simplest forms of organized tissue, which result from the mere solidification of these materials, and whose properties are chiefly of a mechanical nature. From these he will pass to the consideration of the structure and vital actions of those tissues that consist

chiefly of cells, and will investigate the share they take in the various operations of the economy. Next his attention will be engaged by the tissues produced y the transformation of cells; of which some are destined chiefly for affording mechanical support to the fabric, and others for peculiar vital operations. And he will then be prepared to understand the part which these elementary tissues severally perform in the more complex organs. A due knowledge of these elementary parts, and of their physical, chemical, and vital operations, is essential to every one who aims at a scientific knowledge of physiology. True it is that we may study the results of their operations without acquaintance with them; but we should know nothing more of the working of the machine than we should know of a cotton mill, into which we saw cotton wool entering, and from which we saw woven fabrics issuing forth; or of a paper-making machine, which we saw fed at one end with rags, and discharging hot-pressed paper, cut into sheets, at the other. The study of these results affords, of course, a very important part of the knowledge we have to acquire respecting the operations of the machine; but we could learn from them very little of the nature of the separate processes effected by it; still less should be prepared, by any disorder or irregularity in the general results, to seek for and rectify the cause of the disturbance in the working of the machine, by which the abnormal result was occasioned." (p. 94.)

It is a great advantage of the general view of the elementary operations of the animal economy, which is thus presented, that the author is thereby enabled to carry forward his description of the several functions (which occupies the second part of the book) in what we cannot help regarding as their natural order; namely, commencing with the ingestion of food, tracing its gradual conversion into the fabric of the body, and its final disintegration; then proceeding with the reproductive operations; and closing with the functions of animal life, the maintenance of which is so completely the final cause or purpose of the preceding. The objection felt by the author to the adoption of this course in his human physiologynamely, the intervention of the nervous system in almost every one of the organic functions-is obviated by the previous explanation of the general operations of the nervous apparatus, which is contained in the first part.

Among the novelties in this volume, which indicate the progress of the author's general views, we may advert to his description of the ultimate composition of the muscular fibrilla, in which he seems to us to have advanced considerably both upon Mr. Bowman and upon Mr. Erasmus Wilson. He describes and figures the fibrilla as composed of a series of short cylindrical cells, laid end to end, the cavities of which, being dark, (probably in consequence of containing some highly-refractive material,) give rise to the series of equidistant dark spots in the fibril; whilst the intervening light spaces are made up by the contiguous walls of each pair of cells, which are separated by a distinct transverse line, equidistant between the dark spots. The white portion of the fibril is stated by Dr. Carpenter to present itself, not merely between, but also around the dark spots; which seems almost conclusive as to its being the cell wall. The figure given by Dr. Carpenter closely resembles one given by Dr. Goodfellow in the short-lived Physiological Journal; but his explanation is altogether different, and to our minds much simpler. According to Dr. Goodfellow, the dark points are the "sarcous elements" of Mr. Bowman, imbedded in a tube of sarcolemma, which possesses transverse septa at intervals; whilst by Mr. Erasmus Wilson, in his 'Vade Mecum of Anatomy,' the