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Show 4 LEA & BLANCHARD'S NEW PUBLICATIONS. JOHNSTON'S PHYSICAL ATLAS.-( Continued.) to an extent, and with an effect, hitherto never contemplated. The contents of the many volumes, formerly the sole depositories of information regarding the different ltingdoms of nature, have been condensed and reproduced with a conciseness, precision, completeness, and promptitude of application altogether unattainable by any other agency. The elegant substitute of linear delineation registers the most complicated results in the most perspicuous form, affords inexhaustible facilities for recording the continued advance of science, and "renders its progress visible." The Physical Atlas is the result of many years' labor, and in its construction not only have the writings and researches of the philosophers and travelers of all nations been made use of, but many of the most eminent men of the age, in the different departments of science, have contributed directly to its pages. The letter-press gives a condensed description of each subject treated of, with constant reference to the elucidation of the maps, and the colors and signs employed are uniformly explained by notes on the plates. But while endeavoring to make available to every one the rieh stores of knowledge otherwise nearly inaccessible, it has ever been borne in mind that, in such a work, accuracy and truth are the first requisites, in order that it may be a guide to the naturalist in investigating the more philosophical departments of science, and to the inquirer in showing what has already been done, and what remains to be accomplished, in perhaps the most universaJly interesting and attractive branch of human knowledge. From among a vast number of recommendatory notices, the publishers submit the following:- We have thus rapidly run through the contents of the Atlas to show its comprehensiveness and phtlosophic arrangement. Of its execution, no praise would be in excess. The maps are from the origmal plates, and these are beautifully finished, and the coloring has been laid on with the utmost nicety and care. The size is an imperial quarto, and the accompanying text embraces a vast amount of details that the imagination is called on to fasten and associate with the maps. The enterprise and fine taste of the American publishers will, we hope, be rewarded by an extensive sale of this most admirable work. No school-room and no family should be without the Physical Atlas. In the hands of a judicious teacher, or head of a family, information of the most varied nature in all departments of science and natural history can be introduced and commented on, in reference to its geographical bearing, while the materials of the text and the Atlas may be commented on to any desired extent. Such works give attractiveness to knowledge, and stimulate to energy the mind of the young; while in the beauty, harmony, and intermediate reactions of nature thus exhtbited, the facilities of imagination and judgment find room for equal exercise and renewed delight. It is the lively picture and representation of our planet.-New York Literary World, March 9, 1850. The book before us is, in short, a graphic encyclopmdia of the sciences-an atlas of human knowledge done into maps. It exemplifies the truth which it expressesthat he who runs may read. The Thermal Laws of Leslie it enunciates by a bent line running across a map of Europe; the abstract researches of Gauss it embodies in a few parallel curves winding over a section of the globe; a formula of Laplace it melts down to a little path of mezzotint shadow; a problem of the transcendental analysis, which covers pages with definite integrals, it makes plain to the eye by a little stippling and hatching on a given degree of longitude! All possible relations of time and space, heat and cold, wet and dry, frost and snow, volcano and storm, current and tide, plant and beast, race and religion, attraction and repulsion, glacier and avalanche, fossil and mammoth, river and mountain, mine and forest, air and cloud, and sea and sky-nil in the earth, and under the earth, and on the earth, and above the earth, that tne heart of man has conceived or his head understood-are brought together by a marvellous microcosm, and planted on these little sheets of paper-thus making themselves clear to every eye. In short, we have a summary of all the crossquestions of Nature for twenty centuries-and all the answers of Nature herself set down and speaking to us voluminous system dans un mot. . . . . Mr. Johnston is well known as a geographer of great accuracy and research; and it is certain that this work will add to his reputation; for it is beautifully engraved, and accompanied with e:QJlanatory and tabular letterJ1reas of great value.-London il.thenaum. |