M'Culloch's Geographical Dictionary. New edition, carefully revised, with the statistical
information brought up to the latest returns. By Frederick Martin. 4 vols. (Longman.)—This new edition of Mr. M'Culloch's well known work cannot fail to command the attention of a generation that lives by statistics and puts its trust in an average. There is no doubt that, as an honest collector of facts, Mr. M'Cultoch was worthy of all praise ; his style may not always be admirable, or his Inferences indisputable, but his positive information is trustworthy, and the dictionary has long been recognized as an authority in all matters that come within the range of the statistician. A revision of his labours, then, undertaken by so competent a workman as the author of the Statesman's Year-Book, which involves taking stock of the world's progress during the last quarter of a century, and introduces all the
• latest returns relating to population, trade, and education, will be re- ceived with universal satisfaction. Mr. Martin seems to have dis- charged his duties with the conscientiousness that those acquainted with his writings would expect; he has not attempted to rewrite the work, but has confined himself strictly to a careful record of the changes that the lapse of time has brought about ; he has understood that what the world has hitherto sought An the publication has been facts, and he has made it his business to continue the supply of these up to the latest moment possible. The course of events last year was too rapid for him, but the alterations that took place concerned
• -rather the historian than the collector of statistics. The details of the 'trade and shipping of Hanover are interesting, whether they point to actual realization or future hope; and the comparison of the educational returns of Prussia and Austria will supply a moral which did not require the illustration of the campaign of 1866.
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