the many titles to fame of the Humboldt, none is so highly so peculiar to himself, as that his labors on the Physical Hiseography of the Globe. In the s of this Review the teaching hy, as then understood and mongst us, was a dry and baredious to the teacher, distasteslender profit to the scholar. gues of easily forgotten names, auda nomina, as Pliny calls formed by science and scantily by history, formed the staple y. Nor was any part of edue defaced by the coarser mechbook-making. Errors of fact, f nomenclature, were perpetuone edition or compilation to ith little regard to original or to the changes going on in And even where some frag

ical Geography of the Sea. By Lieut. Navy. London and New York: 1856. orations in the Years 1853, 1854, and KANE, U. S. Navy. Philadelphia:

ms Générales sur l'Océan Atlantique. DE KERHALLET. Paris: 1853. -NO. III.

OF THE SEA.*

ment of history or physical science broke in upon the network of names, it was often of doubtful authenticity, or too partial and detached to give real knowledge or gain hold on the memory. This is not an exaggerated view of the manner in which geography was generally taught in England down to a recent period.*

The more exact study of history had already improved the methods and extended the sphere of geography, before

*The progress made in the last quarter of a cenwhere more perceptible than in the books of geotury in the philosophical study of the earth is nographical reference to which we have now ready access. At the head of these we have great pleasure in placing Messrs. Fullarton's "Gazetteer of the World," or, as it is more properly entitled, "Dictionary of Geographical Knowledge -a work which has recently been completed, and which combines to a remarkable extent comprehensive views of the physical geography of the globe, with a vast amount of political and statistical information, and all the minuteness and accuracy which is required in a dictionary of places. We know no book of equal excellence on these subjects in any other language. Not less meritorious, though more compendious, are Mr. Keith Johnston's contributions to geographical literature. The Gazetteer which bears his name is remarkable for its completeness; and his Atlas of the United States of America supplies a deficiency which has long been felt on both sides of the Atlantic.

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