19 DECEMBER 1891, Page 24

Perseverance Island, by Douglas Fro.= (Blackie and Son), appears in

a "new and cheaper edition." This is also a "Crusoe" story, the hero being a young man who, thrown ashore on an island without any possessions or appliances, is able to furnish himself with comforts of every kind. But his most astonishing achievement is in observing an eclipse of the moon when both sun and moon are above the horizon. In the author's simple astronomy, we are left to suppose, a lunar eclipse is caused by the sun getting between the earth and the moon, just as a solar eclipse is caused by the moon getting between the earth and the sun. The hero is so impatient, Mr. Frazar tells us, that "it seemed as if the moon and sun would never approach each other" (p. 184). More astonishing ignorance we have never seen in all our experience.