tangible for any but the scientific inquirer. Still, in the same
Magazine, there may be papers of practical and directly useful
character, and of ready application to the arts and interests of life
and society. A person wishing to possess these popular papers must
therefore purchase with them a quantity of matter which to him would
be unintelligible, and the value of which could only be appreciated
by direct study, a task of no small import in these days of cheap
literature. That the plan has succeeded, and that its intention has
been fully recognised, is borne out by the testimony of a score of our
contemporaries. Of their praise we have no disposition to make an idle
boast; and our only object in the present notice is to do for ourselves
what we could not perhaps expect a weekly or monthly critic to do for
us, viz. to quote the subjects of a few of the valuable papers in the
present volume, and then leave the reader to form his own conclusions
of its intrinsic value.

In _Mechanical Science_ there are 100 closely-printed pages, or 90
articles. Among these are papers on novel applications of the gigantic
power of _Steam_ in Navigation and Agriculture, and especially in
Railway Carriages; the grand invention of the Air Engine; improvements
in Printing; machinery in manufactures; and contributions to
experimental as well as practical mechanics.

In _Chemical Science_ there are upwards of 60 New Facts. Among these is
a valuable paper on Arsenic, by Dr. Christison, (from the _Philosophical
Magazine_;) a method of ascertaining the vegeto-alkali in Bark; the
influence of the Aurora Borealis on the Magnetic Needle; Lieut.
Drummond's Plan for illuminating Light Houses by a ball of lime, (from
the _Philosophical Transactions_); Laws of electrical accumulation, and
the decomposition of water by atmospheric and ordinary electricity;