10 SEPTEMBER 1870, Page 21

The Bottom of the Sea. By L. Sourel. Translated and

edited by Elihu Rich. (Sampson Low, Son, and Marston.)—This is one of the books about nature, partly scientific, partly popular, and not without a dash of romance, which French savans produce in such abundance, and for which there has lately sprung up such a demand in England. What Englishman would, or indeed could, produce a sentence in this style?— " The bottom of the sea is an enchanted country; the animals, its inhabitants, are self-luminous ; they thunder upon their enemies from a distance ; they harden themselves into stone." Yet the book, without making any great pretension, is apparently of some value ; an effort has been made to bring up the information which it supplies to a recent date, and it is certainly readable.