Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. by Various

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Mr. Story is a person of very remarkable endowments. An accomplished
musician and poet, (we ought to have said before how remarkably good the
translations in these volumes are,) a skilful draughtsman, the author of
reputable law-books, he would seem to have been in danger of verifying
the old saw, had he not proved himself so eminently a master in
sculpture. We think the country is deeply indebted to Mr. Story for
having won so complete a triumph at the London World's Fair with his
Cleopatra and Libyan Sibyl, at a time when English statesmen and
newspapers were assuring the world that America was relapsing into
barbarism. Those statues, if we may trust the unvarying witness of
judicious persons, are conceived and executed in a style altogether
above the stone-cutting level of the day, and give proof of real
imaginative power. Mr. Story's genius and culture, with the fresh spur
of so marked a success, will, we are sure, produce other works to his
own honor and that of his country. For we feel that we have a country
still,--feel it the more deeply for our suffering, and our hope
deferred,--and out of the darkness of to-day we have still faith to see
a fairer America rising, a higher ideal of freedom, to warm the soul of
the artist and nerve the arm of the soldier.

_Hand-Book of Universal Literature._ From the Latest and Best
Authorities. By MRS. ANNE C.L. BOTTA. A New Edition. 12mo. Boston:
Ticknor and Fields. 1862.

A thing once done assumes a magical simplicity. No matter what may have
been the previous difficulty, or how much work may be involved in
the result, yet, when the work is done, the problem solved, all the
difficulty and labor promptly disappear from view, as if in dread of
being led captive in triumphal procession after the Caesar who has
mastered them. Thus, it does not seem at all strange that we should have
a book professing to guide us through all the intricacies of general
literature; indeed, now that the work is put into our hands, it seems so
easy of accomplishment that the only marvel would appear to be that we
have had none hitherto. Yet the conditions necessary to such a work are
of the rarest to be found; not so rare, indeed, when each is considered
separately, but rarely to be met with in combination.

In order even to attempt a work of this nature, its utility must first
be fully appreciated; but, unfortunately, those whose need is the
greatest, as being immediately present, would on that very account be
incompetent to supply the need, while those who by dint of patient study
have brought themselves up to the point of competency for the task no
longer realize the want,--just as men who have become rich by industry
forget the necessities of poverty, which were the earliest spurs upon
their energy.

The great majority of readers, therefore, have good reason to thank
Mrs. Botta, that, after having met a great educational need in her own
experience, she has benevolently set about supplying the same need in
the experience of others. The same motive which has led her to do
this has also made her work, from the peculiar manner in which it is
conducted, an important contribution toward a more perfect educational
system than generally prevails; though we would not do her the injustice
to imply that what she has done claims merit on this account alone or
chiefly. It _does_ claim merit in this way, and of a very high order,
because it avoids a prominent fault that vitiates most works intended to
promote the general diffusion of knowledge. The fault referred to is the
same which De Quincey, in a note to his "Political Economy," has called
the greatest vice of teaching,--namely, that the teacher does not
readily enter into, as an inheritance, the difficulties of the pupil.
Merely to have corrected this fault, to have met the popular mind
half-way and upon its own ground, was to furnish an important condition
hitherto lacking in the field chosen.

The extent of the work--embracing, as it does, the whole field of
literature--imposes other and more difficult conditions. Originality,
in any primary sense, was of course an impossibility; a single lifetime
would not suffice even for the most cursory examination of original
materials on so grand a scale. It was necessary, therefore, to select
and make use of the best authorities, critical and historical, those
whose researches have been most valuable and comprehensive, in each
particular department of the field. These authorities were to be found,
not in a single language, but in several; and even after they were
found, and the various results of their investigations put at their just
estimate, the important work of selection had then only just
commenced. Here were the master-critics and antiquaries,--the Muellers,
Champollions, and all. Some use must be made of each; but the compass,
no less than the design, of the work demanded the exclusion of all
secondary and unimportant matter, yet in such a manner that the ideal
unity should not be at all disturbed. Here was required, not merely tact
and discrimination, but a high degree of philosophical analysis; and
since this was valueless except as it was followed by comprehensive
synthesis, the power of artistic combination was no less requisite to
the complete result.

From the foregoing remarks it must not be supposed that there has been
throughout a remodelling of all the material used. On the contrary,
it is one of the most important of the features which give value and
interest to the work, that in frequent instances the material has been
presented precisely as it came to hand; a felicitous or humorous turn
of a sentence, a pointed antithesis, a happy grouping of historic
incidents, or a vigorous clinching of manifold thoughts in a single
expression, has been happily preserved where by others it might have
been ejected, or marred in the changing, for the sake of giving to the
work a factitious claim to an originality which, in such a field, is
plainly the least desirable characteristic. Our most hearty thanks are
due to Mrs. Botta that she has been willing to sacrifice what at the
best would have been a spurious claim to the purely legitimate one,
of having conquered almost insuperable difficulties, and, by the most
conscientious fidelity, elaborated a really valuable treatise, where
before there existed none at all.

So great as has been the need of this work, so great will be the
appreciation of it at the hands of the reading public. A whole has been
given where hitherto only parts had existed, and those for the most part
inaccessible to the general reader.

We have no space to enlarge upon the many particular excellences of the
book. It is vivacious in style, having none of the tedium belonging to
most works of this description. There is very much concerning ancient
religion, and concerning the classification of languages, as well
as respecting the peculiarities of each, that has never before been
presented in a popular form. We have rarely, indeed, seen so much that
was valuable, and so well digested, compressed within such limited
bounds.

_The New American Cyclopaedia_; a Popular Dictionary of General
Knowledge. Edited by GEORGE RIPLEY and CHARLES A. DANA. 16 vols. royal
8vo. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

The sixteenth and concluding volume of the "New American Cyclopaedia"
brings Messrs. Ripley and Dana to the end of one of the most laborious
and important literary works ever undertaken in this country; and
the voice of the public, we are sure, will be all but unanimous in
congratulating them upon the generally satisfactory manner in which they
have performed their task. The cost of the work, according to a New-York
journal, has been over four hundred thousand dollars. Six years have
been spent in its execution, and nearly five hundred writers have been
employed to contribute to it. Naturally, the articles are of very
unequal merit; but it is fair to remark that a high standard of
scholarship and literary polish has evidently been aimed at, from the
first volume to the last, and there is scarcely any point upon which the
"New American Cyclopaedia" may not safely challenge comparison with any
work of similar pretensions in the English language.

Practically, none of the cyclopaedia previously accessible in our
language has now much value. Such works as "Rees's," the "Edinburgh,"
the "London," and the "Penny" Cyclopaedias, the "Encyclopaedia
Metropolitana," and the excellent, though rather brief, "Encyclopedia
Americana" of Dr. Francis Lieber, the only one, except the "New
American," ever written in this country, however good in their day, have
long been entirely out of date. The "English Cyclopaedia" of Charles
Knight, and the eighth edition of the famous "Encyclopaedia Britannica,"
were completed while the work of Messrs. Ripley and Dana was yet in
progress; but they are so different from the latter in their scope and
execution, and so much more costly, that they can hardly be said
to rival it. The first-named is a revised issue of the old "Penny
Cyclopaedia" of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,
and retains some of the best features of that excellent work. Its
arrangement seems to us peculiarly inconvenient; but its most
glaring defect is the lack of American subjects, and the slipshod,
unsatisfactory, and inaccurate manner in which the few that are found in
it have been treated. The "Encyclopaedia Britannica" is open to the same
objection. The first edition of this great work appeared over ninety
years ago. It contained neither historical, biographical, nor
geographical articles, and was rather a collection of treatises on the
principal arts and sciences than a cyclopaedia in the common acceptation
of the term. It has since been five times almost remodelled, arranged
alphabetically, and greatly enlarged; but it still preserves its old
distinguishing feature of treating great scientific and historical
subjects exhaustively under a single head: for instance, there are two
elaborate historical articles on "Britain" and "England," but none
on Charles I. or Charles II.; long articles on "Animal Kingdom" and
"Mammalia,"--so long, in fact, that it is almost impossible to find
anything in them without an index,--but none on the separate animals.
For the scholar, this plan, perhaps, has its advantages; but, for the
unlearned reader, who turns to his cyclopaedia to find an intelligible
account of the habits of some particular creature, without caring
greatly what its precise place may be in the zooelogical kingdom, or
looks for a name without knowing whether it belongs to a fish or a
river, no book that professes to be a manual of reference could well be
arranged on a more inconvenient principle. One of the chief duties of
a cyclopaedia is to save trouble,--to put one on the high-road to
knowledge, without unnecessary delay in finding the guide-boards. But
send a half-educated man to look for a scrap of learning in an article
of a hundred pages, and one might as well at once turn him loose into
a library. And what is worse, the unwieldy dimensions of these great
articles are out of all proportion to the information they contain. We
venture to assert that the ponderous "Encyclopaedia Britannica," with
its twenty-two quarto volumes, will tell less, for instance, about the
Horse, or about Louis XIV., than the much smaller work of Messrs. Ripley
and Dana. In the "New American Cyclopaedia" there are few articles
over twenty pages long. The leading subjects in the sciences, such as
"Anatomy," "Botany," "Physiology," etc., have from three to ten pages
each,--enough to give an outline of the principles and history of the
science. The great geographical and political divisions of the globe are
treated at somewhat greater length. Every important plant, beast, bird,
and fish, every large town, river, lake, province, and mountain, every
notable monarch, and every great battle, (not forgetting "Bull Run" and
the "Chickahominy Campaign,") is the subject of a separate article.

Next to this very convenient subdivision of topics, the most striking
merit of the new cyclopaedia is, perhaps, comprehensiveness. Among its
faults, very few faults of omission can fairly be charged; and, indeed,
it seems to us rather to err in giving too many articles, especially on
American second-rate preachers, politicians, and literary men, all of
whom are no doubt ticketed for immortality by a select circle of friends
and admirers, but in whom the public at large take the faintest possible
interest. On the other hand, the space given to such heroes is small;
and so long as they do not exclude more valuable matter, but only add a
little to the bulk of the volumes, they do no great harm, and may chance
to be useful. In the department of natural history this work is much
fuller than any other general dictionary. It is also especially complete
in technology and law, (the latter department having been under the
care of Professor Theophilus Parsons,) and sufficiently so in medicine,
theology, and other branches of science.

Among the articles upon which its success and reputation will chiefly
rest are those relating to technology. With scarcely an exception, they
are plain, practical, and full of common sense. Those on "Cotton" and
"Wool" and their manufactures, the various metals and the ways of
working them, (the article on "Zinc" is the best we have ever seen on
that subject,) "Gas," "Ship," "Railroad," "Telegraph," "Sewing-Machine,"
"Steam," and "Sugar," are compact summaries of valuable knowledge, and
will go far to commend the work to a class of persons who, except in
our own country, are not much given to reading or book-buying. They
vindicate the claims of the Cyclopaedia to be a popular dictionary, not
intended solely for the scholar's library, but directed to the wants of
the artisan and man of business. It is not too much to say of many of
them,--of "Ship," for instance, and "Telegraph,"--that, apart from
their value as records of industrial progress and invention, they are
interesting enough to furnish a very pleasant hour's occupation to the
desultory reader.

The other scientific articles are mostly written in a clear,
unpretending style, with a sparing use of technical expressions; and
so far as we have discovered, they do ample justice to all recent
discoveries. The articles by Professor Bache on the "Tides," Professor
Dalton on "Embryology," Professor J.D. Dana on "Crystallography,"
Dr. W.H. Draper on the "Nervous System," Professor James Hall on
"Palaeontology," Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution,
on "Magnetism" and "Meteorology," James T. Hodge on "Earth" and
"Electricity," Frank H. Storer on "Chemistry" and kindred subjects, Dr.
Reuben on "Heat," "Light," "Vision," "Winds," etc., and the philological
contributions of Dr. Kraitsir and Professor Whitney, do the highest
credit to the work in which they appear. The forbidding appearance of
Dr. Kraitsir's articles will get more notice than their deep
learning. We cannot but regret that such valuable papers as those on
"Hieroglyphics," "Cuneiform Inscriptions," "Indian Languages," and we
may add, though belonging to another class of subjects, "Brahma" and
"Buddha," by the same author, should not have been dressed with a little
more taste, and the naked deformity of barbarous paradigms covered
with some of the ornaments of a readable style. It is the more a pity,
because the articles are well worth any care that could be spent upon
them.

The biographical articles are sufficiently numerous, and, though rigidly
condensed, are full enough for all ordinary purposes. There are few such
elaborate biographies as those contributed by Macaulay, De Quincey, and
others, to the "Encyclopaedia Britannica"; but Mr. Bancroft's "Jonathan
Edwards," Mr. Everett's "Hallam," "Washington," and "Daniel Webster,"
President Felton's "Agassiz," Professor Lowell's "Dante," Professor
Schaff's "Luther" and "Melancthon," Mr. Seward's "DeWitt Clinton," A.
W. Thayer's "Beethoven," "Handel," "Haydn," and "Mozart," Richard Grant
White's "Shakespeare," and the articles on "Patrick Henry," "Washington
Irving," "Milton," "Southey," "Schiller," "Swift," and many others we
might name, are admirable specimens of literary composition. Among
miscellaneous articles that deserve particular praise are a well-written
and elaborate history of the Jewish people and literature under the
title "Hebrews"; a picturesque account of "London"; a summary of all
that is known about "Japan"; excellent histories of "Newspapers" and
"Periodical Literature"; a brilliant article on "Athens" by the
late President Felton; a review of "Arctic Discovery"; valuable and
exceedingly interesting papers on "Army," "Artillery," "Infantry," and
"Cavalry," with one on "Gunnery" by Commodore Charles Henry Davis;
"Painting"; "Sculpture"; "Serfs"; "Slavery"; "Hungary"; and the best
published account of the "Mormons." The article on the "United States"
fills one hundred and twenty pages, including thirty-three pages of
fresh statistical tables, and gives an admirable summary of our history
down to last September; it closes with a comprehensive survey of
American literature. The supplement gives a biography of nearly every
general in the Union and Rebel armies.

The promises of the editors on the score of impartiality have been well
kept. It would be too much to expect them to satisfy everybody, or
never to be caught tripping; but in the great questions of religion and
politics, they seem to have preserved a happy mean between the outspoken
freedom of the partisan and the halting timidity of the man who never
commits himself because he never has an opinion. Their contributors
represent nearly every Christian creed, every shade of politics, and
every part of the English-speaking world, from Salt Lake City to London,
and from Mobile to Montreal.

We have only to add that the Cyclopaedia does fuller justice to our own
country than she has ever received from such a book before; that the
historical and statistical articles present the latest accessible
information; and that, so far as our opportunities of examination
permit us to judge, the book, though of course not free from errors, is
accurate to a more than ordinary degree. The labor of the editors has
been careful and conscientious; and they have produced a work which must
long endure as a valuable contribution to American literature and a
credit to American scholarship.

_Manual of Geology:_ treating of the Principles of the Science with
Special Reference to American Geological History, etc. By JAMES D. DANA.
8vo. Philadelphia: Theodore Bliss & Co. London: Trabner & Co.

No work on any science has yet been published in our language more
exhaustive of facts, more clear in statement, or more philosophical
in general character and arrangement, than Dana's "Mineralogy," as
presented in its last and revised edition.

Of course, the announcement of a "Manual of Geology" by the same author
could not fail to excite hopes that a long-felt want on the part of the
American public was to be met, a void in our scientific literature to be
filled. Nor are we disappointed in our expectations, now that the work
has appeared and time has been given for its careful perusal. On the
contrary, we feel a degree of satisfaction that might perhaps express
itself too strongly in praise, if we were not withheld by the
supposition that a proper notice of the contents of the volume would do
more for its appreciation by the reader than any language of eulogy.

What, then, is the distinctive character of the work, and wherein do the
contents so differ from previous publications as to claim our especial
notice?

In the first place, we would state, that, while it is a manual of
general geological knowledge concerning the history of the earth and of
life on its surface, and full of information concerning the strata and
geological phenomena of all parts of our globe, it is yet peculiar,
inasmuch as it treats of the principles of the science with special
reference to American Geological History. In this will be found its
great value to American students; for who of them has not had his
patience tried, and his enthusiasm often chilled, in vain attempts to
solve the questions which have sometimes arisen in his mind concerning
American geology, and has not sought their solution in the only way
open to him,--a consultation of innumerable State Reports, and other
publications, not half of which were accessible when required?

Another distinctive feature of the work is the prominence given to
Historical Geology, or that portion which treats of the successive
formation of the strata of the different periods, and of the development
and characteristics of the life upon the surface. The whole treatment of
this exhibits in a marked degree the extended research and philosophical
ability of the author.

GENERAL CONTEXTS AND DIVISIONS OF THE WORK.

_Physiographic Geology_.--This embraces a general survey of the earth's
features: its continents, oceans, lakes, river-systems, oceanic and
atmospheric currents, climates, distribution of forest-regions, deserts,
etc.

_Lithological Geology_.--This treats of the rocks, and of their
arrangement: the first embracing an account of all the important
chemical elements that enter into their constitution, the minerals and
organic materials that occur in their composition, and the kinds and
distinguishing characteristics of those that make up the earth's
surface; the second presenting the arrangement of rocks, stratified and
unstratified,--the structure due to deposition and other agencies,--the
dislocations of strata, and the consequent faults and distortions of
fossils contained in them,--together with considerations upon the age
and chronological division of all the strata of the earth's surface.

_Historical Geology_.--This third part of the volume, and that which
peculiarly characterizes the work, opens with some general remarks upon
the divisions in Geological History, and the announcement of certain
important principles to be kept in view while considering the subject.
The progress of life is then described as the basis of subdivision into
Geological Ages; and the subdivisions of geological time are presented
as follows:--

I. Azoic Time or Age.

II. Palaeozoic Time.
1. The Age of Mollusks, or Silurian.
2. The Age of Fishes, or Devonian.
3. The Age of Coal Plants, or Carboniferous.

III. Mesozoic Time.
4. The Age of Reptiles.

IV. Cenozoic Time.
5. The Age of Mammals.

V. Era of Mind.
6. The Age of Man.

And in connection with this is given a table of the further subdivision
of this history into Geological Periods, and a map showing the
distribution of the rocks of each of these periods over the surface of
the United States.

The great divisions above given are, as stated, essentially the same as
proposed by Professor Agassiz, who, however, made the era of Fishes to
embrace the first and second ages of Palaeozoic Time, the Silurian and
the Devonian, instead of restricting it, as now done, to the latter, and
calling the former the Age of Mollusks.

Following these general considerations, each great division of geologic
time is successively taken up, commencing with the Azoic. Each period
of the several divisions is treated of in order; and the rocks of
each epoch and their distribution described, first, as they exhibit
themselves in America,--then, more briefly, as they appear in Europe.
A full account of the life that manifested itself in each epoch, both
vegetable and animal, is likewise given in the same order. The igneous
and other disturbing agencies are then considered, and general remarks
added upon the geography, the character of the surface, and various
phenomena of the period.

The whole of this portion of the work is abundantly illustrated with
well-executed figures of all the characteristic species that distinguish
the several periods, mostly drawn from American examples.

_Dynamical Geology_.--This particular branch of the subject is made
less prominent than usual in geological works, but it will not be found
lacking in any point.

The subject is presented in the following order:--

1. Life as an agent in protecting, destroying, and making rocks.

2. Cohesive Attraction.

3. The Atmosphere as a mechanical agent.

4. Water as a mechanical agent.

5. Heat as an agent in volcanic phenomena, igneous eruptions,
metamorphism, veins, etc.

6. Movements of the earth's crust, plication of strata, origin of
mountains, earthquakes, etc.

7. Chemistry of Rocks.

Under the first head, we have much interesting matter concerning peat
and coral formations, coral reefs and their origin, illustrated with
figures.

Under the head of Water as an Agent, some plates are given, new to the
general reader, of the remarkable _canons_ of the Colorado, which so
well illustrate the powerful agency of this element in wearing away
for itself deep channels in the strata. Under the same head is an
interesting essay upon Glaciers, with figures, one of which is a reduced
copy of a sketch in Agassiz's great work, representing the Glacier of
Zermatt, in the Monte-Rosa region.

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