The examples in this book are the most quotable portion, but the
majority of them would be new to few readers: who, for instance, is
unacquainted with the feats of Topham, the strong man, or the Invisible
Girl. The explanations are not so easily transferable, since they are
generally accompanied by illustrations.

By the way, how many of these wonders are recorded in the early volumes
of the Philosophical Transactions, with all the gravity of the FF.R.S.
whose zeal, industry, and emulation rendered the early years of the
Society peculiarly brilliant. The very titles of some of the early
papers would make a "wonderful museum;" as Four Suns observed in
France--Worms that eat Stones and Mortar--which are almost as marvellous
as one of Sir David Brewster's lines--a coach and four filled with
skeletons. The Royal Society has now existed a century and
three-quarters: in their early Transactions are inquiries relative to
the tides--observations on the darting threads of spiders--"experiments
about respiration"--"of red snow seen at Genoa," &c.; yet scores of
philosophers, at the present moment, are controverting these very
subjects.)

* * * * *


PILGRIMAGE THROUGH KHUZISTAN AND PERSIA.


(This is not just so good a work as its full title-page may lead the
reader to expect. It runs thus "Fifteen Months' Pilgrimage through
untrodden tracts of Khuzistan and Persia, in a journey from India to