13 FEBRUARY 1892, Page 24

CURRENT LITERATURE.

Geodesy. By J. Howard Gore. (W. Heinemann.)—This is one of " Heinemann's Scientific Handbooks," and the most interesting of the series. Geodesy must be added to the long list of things that ought before now to have been popularly treated. Mr. Gore, however, has done much to remove this reproach, and has given us a most readable little volume, in which the unscientific reader can follow the whole story of geodesy from the earliest attempts of the Assyrians, Arabians, and Greeks to determine degrees and the circumference of the earth, down to the work which has been performed in all parts of the globe by different civilised peoples. It is decidedly worth reading.