ultural Chemistry are evidently the work of writers
who appreciate the practical wants of the farmer, as well as understand
the aids which science can furnish him. Two divisions of the globe,
Africa and America, come within the scope of the present volume, and,
though the special reader will notice in the articles devoted to them
some omissions, and some statements which may require modification, they
bear the general marks of industry, vigilance, and research. The paper
on Anaesthetics is evidently by a writer who meant to be impartial, but
still injustice is done to the claims of Dr. Jackson, and we trust that
in the next edition some of the statements will be corrected, even if
the whole question of the discovery is not more thoroughly argued. It
seems curious that a discovery which destroys pain should be a constant
cause of pain to every person in any way connected with it. It may not
be within the province of a Cyclopaedia to undertake the decision of a
question still so vehemently controverted; but we think it might be so
stated as to include all the facts, harmonize portions at least of
the conflicting evidence, and put some people "out of pain." We must
attribute it to a careless reading of the proof-sheets that the editors
have allowed the concluding paragraph in the article "Adams" to intrude
village gossip into a work which should be an example to American
scholarship, and not a receptacle of newspaper scandal.

In conclusion, we think that the impression which an examination of the
present volume, considered as a whole, leaves on the mind is, that the
editors have generally succeeded in making it both comprehensive and
compact,--comprehensive without being superficial, and compact without
being dry and dull. As a book for the desultory reader, it will be found
full of interest and attractiveness, while it is abundantly capable of
bearing severer tests than any to which the desultory reader will be
likely to subject it. Minor faults can easily be detected, but we think
its great merits are much more obvious than its little defects. The
probability is, that, when completed, it will be found to contain
articles by almost every person of literary and scientific note in the
United States; for the wide and friendly relations which the editors
hold with American authors and _savans_, of all sects, parties, and
sections, will enable them to obtain valuable contributions, even if
the general interest in the success o