CURRENT LITE RAT URE.
Astronomical Geometry. By R. G. M. Browne. (Bentley.)—The author of this volume considers that sufficient attention has not been paid to the attraction exercised by the sun and moon upon the ocean. He thinks that large masses of water are thus held in suspense, and that the tides are produced, not by the movement of the seas, but by that of the coasts, which, through the earth's daily motion, change their position relatively to these masses, and that in the same way, through the irregularity of the earth's motion indicated in the precession of the equinoxes, those alterations of level have arisen by which the sea and land gradually change places. This theory is the novel feature in the book, which also goes over a good deal of old ground with regard to the gradual refrigeration of the earth, and winds up with a reference to the Mosaic narrative, with which it professes to be in accordance.
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