7 SEPTEMBER 1867, Page 22

CURRENT LITERATURE.

Astronomy without Mathematics. By Edmund Beckett Denison, LL.D., Q.C., F.R.A.S. Third edition. (Society for Promoting Chris-

tian Knowledge.)—We used hardly describe or criticize a work of which 3,000 copies have been sold in little more than a year. Such a speedy sale is a proof that the book was needed, and that its characteristic merits have been speedily recognized. Still, we should like to add our tribute to that recognition, and to thank Mr. Denison for a pleasant chat with science. It may seem to severer readers that he sometimes popularizes his subject a little too much, as, for instance, when after saying that Saturn is as light as deal, the other throe great planets and the sun as heavy as coal, and Mars and the moon as heavy as diamonds, he states that a man on the sun would be squeezed flat by his own weight. Is it not a little disrespectful to Oxford to proclaim it as the last place in the West of England which kept different time from all other parts, and has not yet given up its separate time at the cathedral ? And it is rather painful to learn that when Mr. Adams discovered the planet Neptune, the Astronomer Royal, instead of looking for the planet or taking any steps to proclaim Mr. Adams's discovery, set him a sum, and that England lost the undivided credit of "the greatest astronomi- cal discovery since Newton " by the delay which resulted from this competitive examination.