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
England, through parts of Turkish Arabia, Persia, Armenia, Russia, and
Germany." Now, there is attractive promise in the word "untrodden," and
it may be said to apply to the Asiatic tour of the author, or his first
volume, but is not appropriate to the second, which owes its main
interest to his interview with Skryznecki, the illustrious Pole.
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