Adrift in the Pacific. By Jules Verne. (Sampson Low and
Co.) —This tale calls, as may be supposed, for something more than the •
cursory notice which we gave it in the magazine volume in which it first appeared. A number of boys who are preparing for a holiday trip in a yacht, are cut adrift by the foolish act of one of their number, and are driven by storms to an island in the Pacific. On this they manage to land, and here they spend a Crusoe existence for some two years. The author places the scene of his story somewhere off the coast of Chili. Hanover Island is the precise spot, and we are not prepared to say that it does not correspond to the description of the boys' island home. We feel, however, pretty sure that it does not contain a lake out of which ran "many streams." Is there such a lake in the world? M. Verne's climatology, too, is at fault, for once. Hanover Island is in S. lat. 51°, and may have the rigorous winter which is described. But a winter of five months is certainly not known in New Zealand, which does not reach further south than 450. The story is very brisk, and even exciting. The party have many adven- tures. They have even something like a civil war, which, however, is soon happily brought to a close. And then they have war in earnest with some mutineers. Finally, they all return home in safety, and find, it is to be hoped, that their places have not been filled up during their two years' absence.
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