masterly pamphlet has already attracted the attention of thousands of readers in our country. We wish it might be read by as many millions. It is alike valuable in its theological and political relations. It does not hesitate to view the civil institutions of the Hebrew people as in great part conceded to their previous customs, and the moral culture in which they were found, when their polity was fixed. It destroys, by the only argument which it is possible to apply, the pretense that God has sanctioned slavery as a perpetual institution by permitting and regulating it as a local custom, a prevailing usage, a relic of barbarism that could be modified and mollified, but not eradicated and destroyed. We could wish that the London Committee of the Evangelical Alliance would ship a few thousand copies by the blockade runners that are to carry the solicited consignment of Bibles to the Confederates, who are "perishing for lack of vision." It would be a good plan for our government to send a few packages across the lines, or, at least, to distribute them freely within the lines, when our bayonets can open the way for their distribution. We fear the argument would be thrown away upon the wooden-headed theologians and the copper-head politicians of the Free North.

DR. HARWOOD'S SERMON ON CANAAN, SHEM, AND JAPHETH.* -This timely and able sermon is in part an argument to show that the interpretation of the curse on Canaan in Gen. ix., 25, 26, 27, which finds its fulfillment in the slavery of the African race, is entirely unsupported by any evidence whatever. In fact it is a brief but forcible and eloquent exhibition of the fulfillment of the entire passage in the subsequent fortunes of the descendants of the three sons of Noah. In connection with the first part of the discourse, the author, who is well known as an able Biblical critic and scholar, has exhibited in a note the opinions of Josephus, Augustine, Chrysostom, Bochart, Bayle, Bp. Patrick, Dr. Turner, Tuch, Knobel, on the side of his view, and those of Bp. Newton, Keil, and Bush in support of the view which he rejects. In the second part, he portrays with much force and eloquence the places which the descendants of these sons have occupied in history, and from a review of all the centuries, carries back a striking and strong

* Canaan, Shem, and Japheth. A Sermon, preached in Trinity Church, New Haven, Sunday, October 25, 1863. By EDWIN HARWOOD, D. D. [New Haven: Thomas H. Pease, 1863. 8vo. pp. 28. Price 20 cents; six copies for $1.]

confirmation of the sober truth and the divine inspiration of the original declaration. We have reason to thank the author for his excellent discourse, as well as for the boldness with which he does not shun to declare the truths suited to these times.

SCIENTIFIC.

RITTER'S GEOGRAPHICAL STUDIES.*-The translator and editor of this volume was a friend and pupil of the great and the good Carl Ritter. We say, emphatically, the great and the good, for no person who had the happiness to know him would fail to accord to him both these titles of veneration and love. No one who has followed him in his lecture-room day after day, and listened to the simple yet profound principles which he so quietly evolved, and to the amazing store of facts with which he illustrated and enforced his principles, or traced the wide-reaching yet exalted applications he was constantly making of both principles and facts to the illustration of human history and development, could hesitate to call him not only great, but one of the greatest men of the present century. He was the creator of a new science--the science of Philosophical Geography, or geography considered in its most comprehensive and elevated relations, viz.: its relations to the development and history of man. By the suggestion of a few master principles, he made its otherwise multitudinous and uninteresting details to marshal themselves in beautiful symmetry around central points of interest, and to group themselves into a well-ordered system. He united Geography with History by showing that the arrangement of man's dwelling place on the earth has had much to do in determining the entire course of his development. For example, the coast line of a continent must necessarily affect the entire life of the people who inhabit it, as it incites or forbids commercial and social communication within and without. In a similar way the presence or absence of long rivers through the interior, with their attendant valleys, the lifting of the surface into abrupt and lofty mountains, the breaking it up into diversified and checkered

Geographical Studies. By the late Professor CARL RITTER of Berlin. Translated from the original German, by WILLIAM LEONHARD GAGE, translator and editor of Prof. Heinrich Steffens' "Story of My Career." Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1863. 12mo. pp. 356. [New Haven: T. H. Pease. Price $1.25.]

slopes, the expansion of it into elevated table lands, or its depression into marshy flats, must determine the pursuits, the wealth, the manners, the civilization, the art, and the literature of the population, so far as its own independent life is concerned. Such influences can be set aside or overcome by no near contiguity or intimate intercourse with more favored regions. These physical arrangements for man's development, with their necessary results, were regarded by Ritter from a still higher stand-point, in their discerned adaptation to the highest purposes and the most comprehensive designs of the Divine mind. In this way Geography was by him connected with Theology, and the study of the physical arrangements of the earth's surface was made to cast a clear and strong light on the history of man's recovery through the conduct of Human History by Divine Providence, and the interruption, or, rather, the transfiguration of it by supernatural inter

ventions.

This was the science of which Ritter was the creator. These were the grand principles which he suggested and applied. In the service of these views he gathered his vast stores of facts, and gave them to the world in that encyclopædia of geographical knowledge: the Erdkünde, consisting of nineteen solid octavo volumes.

It is natural to compare Ritter with Humboldt, from the similarity of their pursuits, the proximity of their residence for many years, and the slight difference in the age and the date of the death of each. Both were great. Whether Ritter was not the greater in the highest attributes of the intellect, may well be doubted. He did not occupy so large a space in the world's attention as Humboldt, because his field of scientific observation was not so wide, and because geographical researches are by no means so brilliant as the more adventurous flights of the astronomer. But though his observations were not so wide, it may be questioned whether, on the whole, his knowledge of facts was not as wonderful, and whether the firm grasp which he held of this infinitude of minutia was not quite as surprising as the similar mastery of Humboldt over the facts which he gathered from more numerous fields. But the accumulation of facts is neither the sign nor the test of the highest style of intellectual greatness, especially when the greatness is tried in the field of science. Ritter,

as the discoverer and creator, was, in our view, greater and more grand than Humboldt, the recorder and methodizer.

In all moral traits, whether the more superficial or the more profound, he was immeasurably the superior of his illustrious compeer, thereby illustrating the power of the Christian faith by its ethical results, when tested in men extraordinarily alike in original genius, tastes, culture, age, and fame. Ritter was simple, serene, warmly benevolent, patient, and humble. Humboldt was conscious, pettish, courtly, uneasy, and vain, notwithstanding a native kindliness of heart and a thorough schooling in the experience of life. The impression derived from personal interviews with the two men revealed striking differences in these and other characteristics, which could be accounted for by no explanation so satisfactory as the manifest presence and recognition of Christian truth in the soul of Ritter. On the morning of Christmas, 1853, it chanced to the writer to be present in the Dom Church of Berlin, in a crowd of four thousand people, all excited by the associations of joy and worship which are responded to so fervently by every devout German, on this their hallowed day. The whole assembly were chanting together an animated Christmas hymn. Among the mass Ritter was conspicuous not merely for his kingly height, his gigantic breadth, and the noble simplicity of his port, but for the yet humbler ardor which shone forth from "his face as if it had been the face of an angel."

This being our estimate of Ritter as a philosopher and a man, we need not say that we welcome any contribution to our literature which is fitted to introduce to our countrymen a more exact knowledge of Ritter as a philosopher and a more just appreciation of him as a man. Dr. Guyot has done us a great service in expounding to us, in his "Earth and Man," the principles which he learned from the great master whom he delights to honor, and we hope that others will follow in his footsteps. The present volume consists of a Sketch of the Life of Ritter by the translator; of an Account of Ritter's Geographical Labors, by Dr. Bögekamp, of Berlin; of the following Papers by Ritter himself: An Introductory Essay to General Comparative Geography; General Observations on the Fixed Forms of the Earth's Surface; The Geographical Position and Horizontal Extension of the Continents; Remarks on Form and Numbers as Auxiliary in Representing the Relations of Geographical Spaces; The Historical Element in

Geographical Science; Nature and History as the Factors of Natural History; or, Remarks on the Resources of the Earth; The External Features of the Earth in their Influence on the Course of History. These papers exhibit the principles of Ritter, and bring them within the reach and comprehension of the careful reader. It is to be regretted that they are presented and discussed in so abstract a form, and are enlivened with so few illustrations. The style of Ritter, as the translator pertinently observes, presents extraordinary difficulties. With all these drawbacks, the volume is very valuable and interesting.

HEAT CONSIDERED AS A MODE OF MOTION.*-This volume ⚫ contains twelve lectures, delivered in 1862, before the Royal Institution of Great Britain; and furnishes a popular exposition of the most important principles which have been established respecting heat. These lectures abound in experiments which are very ingenious and satisfactory, and which were performed in such a manner as to be distinctly witnessed by a large audience. Many of the effects of heat are so minute that in the ordinary mode of experimenting they can only be witnessed by one or two persons at a time. But Prof. Tyndall is able to show to a large audience that mercury is heated by pouring it from one glass vessel to another; he can show the cold produced by the expansion of a small quantity of air; that a drop of water resting upon a hot metallic surface does not actually touch the surface of the metal; and a multitude of other experiments which most lecturers do not attempt. to perform in public on account of the difficulty of making them visible to a large number of persons at the same time. Prof. Tyndall's usual mode of performing such delicate experiments, is by the use of a thermo-electric pile, which gives motion to the needle of a small galvanometer; and inasmuch as the movements of this needle are often very slight, and could not be directly witnessed by a large audience, he illumines the needle by a brilliant voltaic light, and by means of a convex line, forms a magnified image of the needle upon the ceiling of his lecture room. Thus the heat radiated from the hand of the lecturer, even at a great distance, is rendered visible to every spectator in a large hall.

*Heat considered as a mode of Motion. By JOHN TYNDALL, F. R. S., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution of Great Britain. D. Appleton & Co. New York, 1863. 12mo. pp. 480. [New Haven: Peck, White, & Peck. Price $2.]