Forests and Moisture; or, Effects of Forests on Humidity of
Climate. Compiled by John Crounabie Brown, LL.D. (Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh.)—It would be impossible in these columns to do justice to this compilation," as Dr. Brown modestly calls it. It must suffice to direct the attention of those interested in its subject to an enormous mass of facts and figures, and so far as we can see, to a long series of impartial observations and deductions relating to a really important matter. We must, however, admit that we have found the perusal of this treatise a somewhat laborious affair, on account of Dr. Brown's extremely precise and formal method of stating his views, and his intricate style. The following sentence is a specimen of it, and one which seta forth the idea of the work :— " As the hue of a single hair, or a thread of span glass, may be imperceptible to many observers to whom the hue of a mass of the same hair or glass may be apparent at once, so the meteorological effect of a tiny leaf or a tiny moss, scarcely perceptible by a hurried glance, or those of a single tree, may be inappreciable, because infinitesimally small, but the effect produced by a forest, with its countless trees, boughs, and leaves, will be most manifest ; and then, with these effects known, we may with advantage proceed to a closer study of any of them, or of phenomena connected with them, in such of the less corn- - plicated vegetable structures as supply facilities for the study of these phenomena free from complications which are met with in such masses of vegetation as are met with in forests ; and by reasoning from the lesser to the greater, as well as from the greater to the less, we may attain to what are at once clearer and more comprehensive views of the truth on the subject."
This volume is one of a series, and is evidently a labour of love on tie part of the "compiler."
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