he triumphal Chariot of Friction: or a familiar elucidation of the
origin of magnetic attraction, &c. &c. By William Pope.[604] London,
1829, 4to.

Part of this work is on a dipping-needle of the author's construction. It
must have been under the impression that a book of naval magnetism was
proposed, that a great many officers, the Royal Naval Club, etc. lent their
names to the subscription list. How must they have been surprised to find,
right opposite to the list of subscribers, the plate presenting "the three
emphatic letters, J. A. O." And how much more when they saw it set forth
that if a square be inscribed in a circle, a circle within that, then a
square again, &c., it is impossible to have more than fourteen circles, let
the first circle be as large as you please. From this the seven attributes
of God are unfolded; and further, that all matter was _moral_, until
Lucifer _churned_ it into _physical_ "as far as the third circle in Deity":
this Lucifer, called Leviathan in Job, being thus the moving cause of {278}
chaos. I shall say no more, except that the friction of the air is the
cause of magnetism.

Remarks on the Architecture, Sculpture, and Zodiac of Palmyra; with a
Key to the Inscriptions. By B. Prescot.[605] London, 1830, 8vo.

Mr. Prescot gives the signs of the zodiac a Hebrew origin.

THE JACOTOT METHOD.

Epitome de mathematiques. Par F. Jacotot,[606] Avocat. 3ieme edition,
Paris, 1830, 8vo. (pp. 18).

Methode Jacotot. Choix de propositions mathematiques. Par P. Y.
Sepres.[607] 2nde edition. Paris, 1830, 8vo. (pp. 82).

Of Jacotot's method, which had some vogue in Paris, the principle was _Tout
est dans tout_,[608] and the process _Apprendre quelque chose, et a y
rapporter tout le reste_.[609] The first tract has a proposition in conic
sections and its preliminaries: the second has twenty exercises, of which
the first is finding the greatest common measure of two numbers, and the
last is the motion of a point on a surface, acted on by given forces. This
is topped up with the problem of sound in a tube, and a slice of Laplace's
theory of the tides. All to be studied until known by heart, and all the
rest will come, or at least join on easily when it comes. There is much
truth in the assertion that new knowledge {279} hooks on easily to a little
of the old, thoroughly mastered. The day is coming when it will be found
out that crammed erudition, got up for exam