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 its progress landward—its growth—has been arrested the tendency of the incoherent mass is to travel back again by gravitation and the action of rain; accordingly it is not unusual to be fold that one of these coulées is gradually disappearing.

Among the more original and striking results of the expedition is the conclusive proof that "the conditions of the bottom of the sea to all depths are not only such as to admit of the existence of animal life, but are such as to allow of the unlimited extension of the distribution of animals high in the zoological series, and closely in relation with the characteristic fauna of shallower zones" (page 203, vol. I.) Our readers will scarcely need reminding that until within recent years the general belief was that beyond a certain very moderate depth in the ocean, organic life entirely ceased, and all was death and darkness.

The two volumes are illustrated by nearly 300 woodcuts of first-rate excellence, many of them we feel inclined to think unsurpassable. By the courtesy of Messrs. Macmillan and Co. we are enabled to

Fig. 4.

Fig. 5.

present our readers with three specimens of them, they are all forms of the new order "Challengerida," "the only new group," says Sir Wyville Thomson, "of higher than generic value which has come to light during the Challenger Expedition." Figure 3 represents the type genus Challengeria, magnified 400 times. Figures 4 and 5 represent forms of the Challengerida. This order has apparently hitherto escaped observation. These forms are extremely minute, although some of them are pearly the size of the smaller Radiolarians, which they approach in certain features, About thirty species have been met with during the Challenger Expedition. There are numbers of charts, showing the routes and observing stations, tables of temperature and other meteorological information, a contour map of the Atlantic, and an exquisite vignette portrait of Sir Wyville Thomson, engraved by Mr. C. H. Jeens. Author, Artists, and Publishers are to he congratulated on the results of their several labours, and we venture to think that the volumes will attain a deservedly wide and enduring popularity.E. W. B.