Light Railways. By C. B. Salwey. (E. and. F. N.
Spon.)—Mr. Salwey, who is a practical engineer, shows how and at what cost light railways may be made for exploring and military purposes. The precise point at which it will pay to construct a railway of this kind cannot be determined, except by a knowledge of' particular circumstances ; but there can be little doubt that this method of locomotion has not been utilised as extensively as it might have been. Mr. Salwey estimates the cost at an average ranging between -21,200 and 41,000 per mile, and calculates that 400 miles might be made in a year. How vast would be the benefit if, by aid of this means of travelling, we could dispense with the precarious system of porters in Africa !
The now volume of "The Carisbrooke Library," edited by Pro- fessor H. Morley (Routledgo and Sons), contains the Memoirs of Gibbon, written by himself. Professor Morley has added a. selection from Gibbon's letters, and "Notes and Narrative by Lord Sheffield," and prefixed an introduction of some thirty pages, in which ho sketches the great historian's life and work.—In "The Adventure Series," published by Mr. T. Fisher"Unwin; We have The Buccaneers and Marooners of America. It was written originally in Dutch, by one John Esquemoling, late in the seventeenth cen- tury, translated into Spanish, and then translated into English. Various additions have been made from time to time. The whole, with various omissions, now appears under the editorial care of Mr. Howard Pyle-_A further volume is The Adventures of Thomas Pellow, of Fermin, Mariner, Three-and-Twenty Years in CeTtivity among the. Moors. This has been edited, with an introduction, fuil of curious and interesting matter, by Dr. Robert Brown.
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