SOME BOO KS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not been reserved for review an other forme.]
the hundred and thirty-six pages, and are, with a few exceptions, of Greek origin. Among these, the chief group is that which begins with " photo." Of these there are two hundred and forty, all but six being connected with photography. Of the six the earliest is photosphere (Henry More, the Platonist, 1664), now, as Dr. Murray says, "annexed by the astronomers." (More uses it of the radiance surrounding the glorified body of Christ.) Of modern examples of the " ph " class we have philatelic, the invention of M. Ilerpin, a collector of postage-stamps. The derivation is cpa—arexis, " free of charge," the stamp franking.that to which it is affixed. The invention is not of the most felicitous. Phlogiston is interesting as a survival of an extinct philosophical theory. It was an imaginary "principle of inflammability." Things burnt because they contained phlogiston. Among colloquialisms pile may be mentioned. It has a respectable antiquity. Shakespeare uses it, but in the plural. In the singular, the earliest occurrence is in Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac :—
" Poor mortals, are you take a wife, Contrive your pile to last for life."
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