This work meets an acknowledged want; it combines in one convenient
volume most of the desirable features of the larger atlases, being full
enough in detail for all ordinary purposes, without being cumbersome and
costly. It is prefaced by a clear and well-digested statement of the
laws of Physical Geography, "based," as the publishers say, "upon the
excellent treatise on the same subject found in the Atlas of Milner and
Petermann, recently published in London." The maps are one hundred and
sixteen in number, admirably engraved, and, what especially enhances
their value, they are draughted on easily-convertible scales,--one inch
always representing ten, twenty-five, fifty, one hundred, or other
number of miles readily comparable. They include the results of the
latest explorations of travellers, and the newest settlements made by
the English and Americans.

The descriptions are full and accurate, and the statistics of
population, trade, public and private institutions, etc., are convenient
for reference. This department is illustrated by over six hundred
wood-cuts.

This Atlas may, therefore, fairly claim rank as a Cyclopaedia of
Geography, and for the household and school it is one of the most useful
publications of our time. The attention now everywhere excited by
proposed or impending changes in the boundary-lines of European States,
by the inroads of Western civilization in the East, by the settlement of
the Pacific Islands, and by the growth of empire on the western coast of
our own country, renders the publication of a compendious work like this
very timely.