23 JULY 1864, Page 22

Elements of Modern Geography for the Use of Junior Classes.

By the Rev. Alexander Mackay. (W. Blackwood and Sons.)—The best geo- graphy we have ever met with. In describing a country it takes each river-basin separately and describes its affluents and the towns on its banks in the order in which they would occur to a person travelling up the river. So the towns on the sea are taken in the order in which a person sailing along the coast would see them. This is the natu- ral order, for the cities are the resting-places of the traffic of a country, and the course of traffic is determined by the course of the rivers. Thinking thus highly of the work, it is with regret wo note very many careless errors, such as that Frederick William IV. is King of Prussia, and that his nephew and heir presumptive married the Princess Royal, which is no longer true,—that the States of Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky seceded from the Union, which was never true.