like ordinary paint. The process has been patented, and the article itself is now a well-known marketable commodity. The exact composition of the paint is not known; but we may feel certain that it consists mainly of either the sulphides of calcium or barium, and that its great luminosity is due to some peculiarity in its preparation. Its original form is a powder, which can be mixed, according to the purpose for which it is intended, with water, varnish, or oil; or for solids, with papier-mâché, artificial ivory, and other compounds which are commonly used for fancy articles and decorative purposes.

Its proposed applications are of the most varied descriptions; and we have seen many of these as specimens of what can be done, which promise valuable results. The names of streets painted in luminous characters would indeed be a boon to the belated traveller in one of our dimly-lighted towns, who in vain tries to find his way to a friend's abode. Such notices as Lodgings to let," Apartments," etc., would also be the better for being visible after dusk. Inscriptions such as these are prepared and shown by the patentees. Match-boxes with luminous sides will also be found desirable by those who by fractious infancy or by other causes are often led to exclaim, Where on earth are the matches?"

These are but trivial applications of the invention. Among its more important projected uses are the following: It has already been tried with success for the interior of railway carriages, to obviate the use of lamps during daylight, but which are at present indispensable on lines which run through tunnels. In gunpowder magazines, or in spirit vaults, where the use of ordinary lamps is risky, the luminous paint will be found most useful. It may be urged that as the new illuminant requires initial exposure to light, its use in such situations would be often rendered abortive. But this diffi

culty is obviated by movable screens covered with the phosphorescent material, which can be either exposed to the rays of the sun or to the actinic light of burning magnesium wire. Such screens are aptly called Aladdin's lamps. Its use on shipboard in this manner has already been tested by the Admiralty authorities; with what success we do not know. A still more useful application of the invention is to buoys, and more especially to those life-buoys, or rings of cork, always carried by ships, on the sight of which on a dark night a man's life often depends. A buoy rendered luminous by the paint would afford quite a brilliant object on the dark water, and a swimmer would have no difficulty in finding his way to it. In the same way it would act as a guide to his friends in his ultimate rescue. On fixed buoys for the guidance of ships and boats at the entrance of a river or harbor, its use would also be invaluable. One more use for it in maritime concerns is as a covering for the ordinary diver's dress. In this particular work it has been tried in deep water, the diver asserting that by its aid he could easily see objects which without its aid would have been quite invisible. As a rule, the diver in deep water has to trust to feeling more than to his eyesight; and benumbed fingers in cold water must occasionally lead him astray in his conjectures as to the condition of things it is his duty to examine. The luminous paint will therefore prove of signal service to him. In the case in question the diver descended into twentyseven feet of dull water, and could distinguish the mussels and bolt-heads on a ship's bottom with great ease.

So far as experience at present goes, the new paint seems as durable as it is effective--a question of great importance where, in the case of diving operations and of buoys, it is likely to be exposed to all weathers and to constant exposure to water.-Chambers' Journal.

AN ANECDOTAL HISTORY OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT FROM THE EARLIEST PERIODS

ΤΟ THE PRESENT TIME, with Notices of Eminent Parliamentary Men and Examples of their Oratory. Compiled from Authentic Sources by George Henry Jennings. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Mr. Jennings' book is a somewhat heterogeneous but highly appetizing mixture of political history and personal biography. It contains a vast deal of interesting and useful information about the origin and growth of the Parliamentary system, and the history of the

British Parliament; it explains and illustrates the leading features of what are known as Parliamentary usages; it furnishes many specific and accurate details about elections, bribery, privilege, the publication of debates, the exclusion of strangers, and the like; and it abounds in personal anecdotes of eminent Parliamentary men, to which are added numerous specimens of their oratory. The materials which it presents are not new-are quite familiar, in fact, to students of history and politics; what Mr. Jennings has done is to bring together into compendious and convenient form what has hitherto

been scattered through bulky and obscure volumes inaccessible and almost unknown to the general reader.

The first section of the volume sketches the

Rise and Progress of Parliamentary Institutions" from the time of King John to the general election of 1880. The second (and longest) section consists of " Personal Anecdotes" of nearly a hundred of the most distinguished British statesmen, beginning with Sir Thomas More and ending with the Marquis of Hartington. The third section comprises a number of 'Miscellaneous Anecdotes," about various matters connected with the constitution and customs of the two Houses; and in an Appendix there are lists of all the Parliaments of England and of the United Kingdom, of the Speakers of the House of Commons, and of the Prime Ministers, Lord Chancellors, and Secretaries of State from 1715 to 1880. Finally, an admirable Index opens an easy avenue of approach to the copious and varied store of good things that the book contains.

Considering the general dullness of political annals and political biography, the" Anecdotai History" is quite surprisingly entertaining and readable. As a worthy member of the House of Commons once remarked, it "loves good sense and joking ;" and the element of humor pervades the book to an extent that could hardly have been anticipated. No doubt Mr. Jennings has been much more keenly on the alert for such anecdotes as would enliven his pages than for mere statements of historical fact; but, whatever may be the cause, it can. not be denied that the result justifies his statement that "nowhere have more good things been said than in Parliament."

So amusing is the book, indeed, that it would be easy for the reader to overlook the fact that a great deal of laborious research must have been expended upon its preparation.

Any one who has ever undertaken to trace to its source the traditional" saying" of some public man, or to get at the precise details of some long past minor event, will find it easy to believe Mr. Jennings when he declares (borrow ing the language of the elder Disraeli) that "there are articles in the present work, occu pying but a few pages, which could never have been produced had not more time been allotted to the researches they contain than some would allow to a small volume." Not only has he had recourse to the voluminous pages of "Hansard" and the similar records, such as they are, of former days; but he has read many scores of volumes in general biography, and has explored with patient industry those deeper depths of ancient newspaper files, where so much lies entombed besides the wit and eloquence of statesmen.

SCOTCH SERMONS. 1880. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Since the appearance of the famous Essays and Reviews," there has been no more striking contribution to theological literature than is contained in this volume of sermons. For up-/ ward of a hundred years Scotch Presbyterianism has been regarded as the very bulwark and citadel of orthodoxy; and it is somewhat more than surprising-it is positively startling--to find that some of the leading members of that communion are prepared to go farther than even the broadest of Broad Churchmen toward re-adjusting the creeds to the new condition of things brought about by scientific discoveries and philosophical speculation. Rationalism itself has hardly demanded larger concessions from the defenders of the faith than are here cheerfully and unqualifiedly granted by such men as Principal Caird, Professor Knight, the Rev. John Cunningham, D.D., the Rev. D. J. Ferguson, the Rev. William Mackintosh, D.D., the Rev. William Leckie M'Farlan, the Rev. Allan Menzies, the Rev. James Nicoll, the Rev. Thomas Rain, the Rev. Adam Semple, the Rev. Patrick Stevenson, and the Rev. Robert Herbert Story, D.D.; and we should be inclined to say that there is hardly a sermon in the volume in which a rigidly orthodox scrutiny would not find at least a dozen propositions that savor of heresy. The validity of dogma, the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, the authenticity of the miracles, the doctrines of vicarious atonement and of eternal punishment, and the finality of such creeds as have hitherto been accepted, are all repudiated with more or less explicitness; and the purport of nearly all the discourses is to "vindicate the claims of the individual reason to supreme authority over all the beliefs of the individual."

What makes the volume more significant than if it were merely the expression of individual views is the fact that, as the editor states, it originated in the wish to gather together a few specimens of the style of teaching that increasingly prevails" among the clergy of the Church of Scotland. It does not claim," he says, "to represent either the full extent of that teaching, or the range of subjects on which in their public ministrations its authors are in the habit of discoursing. may, however, serve to indicate a growing tendency, and to show the direction in which thought is moving. It is the work of those whose hope for the future lies, not in alterations of ecclesiastical organization, but in a profounder apprehension of the essential truths of Christianity; and especially in the growth, within the Church, of such a method of presenting them as shall show that they are equally adapted to the needs of humanity, and

It

in harmony with the results of critical and scientific research."

A few of the Sermons were written expressly for this collection; but the majority, so we are assured by the editor, are printed exactly as they were preached, or have been expanded somewhat after having been delivered from the pulpit, so that as a whole they may be regarded as tolerably fair samples of popular religious teaching. They discuss nearly all the vital questions concerning man's life here and his destiny hereafter; and there can be no doubt that, if their teachings come to be generally accepted, a long step will have been taken toward "that reconciliation of faith with science, the conscious or suspected lack of which is the specific danger of our age, the source of its universal unrest, and of its all but universal scepticism."

SANSKRIT AND ITS KINDRED LITERATURES.

Studies in Comparative Mythology. By Laura Elizabeth Poor. Boston: Roberts Bros.

In substance, though not now in form, the contents of this volume are a series of lectures, delivered recently in Boston by the author, and said to have been received with much enthusiasm by the audiences that heard them. This fact explains some of their qualities, which it would be difficult to account for if we regarded the book as primarily a written treatise. To be rendered interesting to an audience of average intelligence, such themes as the author here deals with-the origin of literature, Brahmanism and the Maha Bharata, Buddhism and the Ramayana, Sanskrit philosophy, fable, and drama, the Persian literature, comparative mythology of the Greek poetry and drama, Greek philosophy and literature, comparative mythology of the Latin and Keltic literatures, comparative mythology of the Teutonic literature, comparative mythology of the mediæval ballads, and of Slavonic literature-such themes as these must be treated in very cursory and "popular," not to say superficial, style; and the very fact that they were successful as lectures almost precludes the idea that they can possess any serious value as literature.

And, indeed, it may be said frankly that the author has attempted nothing in the way of original thought or independent criticism. What she has dene-and done fairly well-is to construct a rapid and “telling" summary of the results of the more recent researches and discoveries in comparative philology and comparative mythology-especially in the study of Sanskrit and kindred languages; and to direct attention to the light which these studies and researches throw upon the origin and growth of literature. To those who are entirely unacquainted with the new discoveries," Miss

Without exaggeration this book may be said to be invaluable to students of American politics, while to almost any one who is interested either in the history of past times or in the current questions of the day, it will prove very convenient to have at hand for frequent reference. It brings together in the most compact possible shape the results of years of research and the substance of a whole library of costly and little-known books; and there is hardly a single fact of real importance in the history of American political parties, or of the Government, upon which the reader who has become familiar with its arrangement cannot at once place his finger.

The most distinctive feature of the work, perhaps, is a series of colored charts in which the history of the country is told pictorially, as it were. In one of these charts, giving “a birds'-eye view of parties,” each political party that has appeared in our history from colonial times to the present is represented by a colored band which exhibits its origin, fortunes, and end, its relation to other party organizations, and its periods of ascendancy and depression; while marginal notes indicate the issues which it advocated, and the circumstances under which it won or lost. A "Map of Politics" exhibits the political complexion of every Congressional district - the Republican districts being colored red and the Democratic yellow; and a similar one shows the relative strength of parties in the several State legislatures. A colored diagram of the "United States Debt, Revenue, and Expenditures," delineates "the course of the public debt by years from 1789 to 1880, together with the proportion of the total receipts from each principal source of revenue, and the total proportion of the expenditures for each principal department of the public service." And still another colored map indicates the several cessions or acquisitions of territory by which the United States has at different times been enlarged.

The letter-press comprises numerous summary paragraphs, in which the leading events in the history of each administration are described, together with all the platforms adopted by the various parties since the formation of