Causeries Scientifiques. FOR this admirable record we have again to thank our American friends. The volume now extends to some 900 pages, and each year brings improvement as well as enlargement of its contents. Unfortunately so many subjects are now embraced within the scope of this annual record, that the space devoted to each subject is necessarily curtailed. This, we think, is a misfortune. If feasible, we would venture to suggest a division of the record into two parts, inasmuch as pure, applied and very homely science are here in close and curious juxtaposition. Thus we find “tables of elliptic integrals,” the “computation of the areas of irregular figures,” or the “dissipation of energy,” followed by “beautiful ornament for rooms,” “renewing wrinkled silk,” and “improved modes of closing barrel hoops.” It is true the editor has most carefully and laboriously classified the whole, so that we are gradually let down from elliptic integrals at the beginning to barrel hoops at the end. Doubtless the editor considered that by these things men would learn “beer and skittles” was an integral part of the scientific as well as the popular need. The first half of the work, which gives a general summary of scientific and industrial progress for the past year, is more carefully edited than the brief notices of papers which form the second half. For example, turning to general physics, we find paragraphs on Mr. Crookes' experiments scattered about in several places; the same is true of Dr. Guthrie's researches on cryohydrates and of several others we might name. Again, in the index, which is extremely minute, the same name is put under different headings ; thus, Mr., Mr. Frederick, and Prof. Guthrie are the same person, though separately referred to. But in spite of these criticisms, the book is a useful one and contains a vast mass of information. Sketchy as it is, nevertheless it is undoubtedly the best annual record of science—in fact the only one in the English language ; and hence we are glad to observe that a suggestion we made in noticing the preceding volume, namely, having a London as well as a New York publisher, has now been carried out. The scientific bibliography of the year and the references to periodicals, giving the fullest reviews of the books themselves, is an excellent and valuable feature of this Record. THIS little book gives a brief and popular account of some of the principal discoveries and inventions of the past year. It is written in a lively, simple style, and doubtless has done something in France to extend an interest in science and to spread a knowledge, though but a superficial one, of the more striking results of experimental research. The absence of technical terms brings the volume before us within the comprehension of those who have had no scientific education. How is it we are so behind our neighbours in books of this kind? It would, however, have been well if the editor of this volume had paid a little more attention to the spelling of English names, and exercised closer supervision throughout, as we notice several misprints in its pages. Annual Record of Science and Industry for 1875. Spencer F. Baird Edited by, with the assistance of eminent men of science. (London: Trübner and Co. 1876.)