The Boy's Book of the Sea. By W. H. Simmonds.
(S. W. Partridge and Co. 3o. 6d.)—Mr. Simmonds begins with some "wonders of the deep," pearls, cuttlefish, the sea-serpent,--he is prudently neutral about this creature, who, after all, is not more intrinsically marvellous than a whale. From the sea itself we go to the even more interesting record of the deeds that have been done upon it, -voyages, discoveries, battles, and shipwrecks. Crusoes are not forgotten. We see that the point is raised whether Defoe's island was not Tobago ; but the original of Robinson Crusoe, Alexander Selkirk, certainly lived on Juan Fernandez, and had two successors there. As to the battles, Mr. Simmonds had plenty of material to choose from, and has not failed to make an interesting chapter. The Salamis story ought never to be told without mention of the consummate craft of Themistocles in compelling the Greeks to fight. It is quite true that "when day broke, the Greeks saw the enemy's ships facing them all along the narrow strait," he., but the reader ought to be told how it came to pass. The "Polar Seas" chapter we did not expect to find quite up to date, for we know when " Christmas " books have to be prepared; but when Mr. Simmonds wrote Captain Cagnrs 86° 33' of 1900 was surely not the furthest North.
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