4 APRIL 1874, Page 23

The Various Forces of Nature. By Michael Faraday. Edited by

William Crookes. (Matto and Windus.)—In this volume we have a series of six lectures delivered by Faraday at the Royal Institution, lectures which all who listened to them will remember with delight, and which, inexpressible as is the difference between the living voice and the printed page, it is well to have thus preserved. "No lecturer since the time of Sir Humphry Davy," says Mr. Crookes, "was ever listened to with more delight." Part of that delight was occasioned by the faultless precision with which the experiments were conducted, but something was due to the lucid simplicity of the language, and this 'charm in a measure survives. The subjects of the six lectures on "Forces" are "The Force of Gravitation," "Gravitation,—Cohesion," Cohesion,—Chemical Affinity," "Chemical Affinity,—Heat," "Mag- netism,-.-Electricity," "The Correlation of the Physical Forces." A lecture on "Lighthouse Blumination„—The Electric Light," delivered in 1860 at the Royal Institution, completes the volume. The editor has I

added some notes, which might, perhaps, have 'been advantageously made more numerous.