3 OCTOBER 1885, Page 22

In From Source to Sea (Charles Griffin and Co.), Mr.

Powell James, already known as the author of "Guesses at Purpose in Nature," has collected a variety of information as to rivers, what they are, what they have done, and what men have said and thought about them. In Chapter III. we were rather surprised to find no mention of the celebrated passage in the Fourth Georgic where Virgil shows us all the rivers of the world breaking from their subterranean home. Mr. Powell points out that a river forms a very unreliable frontier.; Tiberius thought as many as eight legions necessary for the defence of the Rhine. The chapters on the names of rivers are suggestive. The derivation of Thames is from" Theme," and" Isis" is shown to be more than doubtful. This volume strikes us as being, what the author says he wished to make it, an interesting supplement to one chapter of physical geography.