The Modern Seven Wonders of the World. By Charles Kent.
(Routledge and Sons.)—The " wonders " are of the material kind, but they are inventions rather than huge constructions, such as were the ancient " seven " of which we have all heard. They are the steam-engine, electric telegraph, photograph, sewing- machine, spectroscope, electric light, and the telephone, —this last, however, having to share its honour with the microphone and phonograph. One might doubt, perhaps, whether the sewing- machine ought not to have given place to the spinning-jenny. It has, however, the claim of being more recent, and its inclusion makes all the seven not only " modern," but even " nineteenth- century" wonders. Mr. Kent, however, does not fail, in his interesting account of these marvellous inventions, to do justice to those ingenious persons, born too soon for their own fame and fortune, who first struck out the ideas which others developed into effective inventions.
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