IT sometimes happens that the leading words in the title of a book give a very inadequate impression of its contents. Such, to an English reader at least, might be the case as regards the work before us. We should have rather anticipated a discussion of the relation of our globe to the surrounding universe, or at any rate its position as a member of the great family dependent on the same central source of light and warmth. A compatriot of the writer, it is but fair to suppose, would have formed a juster anticipation of what the title-page expresses and the contents explain, that we have here a description of the earth as an isolated globe. The first section sets before us its form, dimensions, density, seasons, magnetism in its several aspects, and auroral illumination. The following one discusses the various conditions of our atmosphere with regard to temperature, pressure, humidity, rainfall, winds, cyclones, and all that English people express by the brief and usually not complimentary phrase, “the weather.” The third section relates to the “hydrosphere,” or fluid envelope, comprising its extent, colour, saltness, temperature, currents, waves, and tides. This programme is carried out not only with a great deal of industry, and care, and judgment, but with a clearness and facility of expression which are not always remarkable in scientific treatises. We are very favourably impressed by it as a whole, and look upon it as a very valuable addition to the branch of science which it undertakes to elucidate. At the same time there are a few respects in which improvement might be desirable. We should have preferred, for instance, some explanation of the comparative imperfection of the longitude-measures obtained from Jupiter's satellites, as well as from lunar distances; the aëronautic details might have borne expansion with advantage; and we are a little disappointed in the very scanty notice of atmospheric electricity. Of this it may indeed be said that its investigation is peculiarly difficult, and that many of its modifications hitherto defy explanation; but it would have been, we venture to think, a preferable course, especially as so much pains have been taken with magnetism, if more explicit reference had been made to an influence of so powerful, yet so occult and mysterious a nature.