the quarto form, with engravings on steel, some of which are beautifully colored. It appears that the author has been engaged ten years in the preparation of his book. There is a large amount of experimental matter and new facts, the chief object being to explain how vegetable substances grow, under the influence of the light of the sun. It has been known for a long time that plants will only grow where they receive a supply of heat and light; but it is a late discovery that the substances of which they are composed, or built up, are exclusively formed by light. In the different chapters we are shown how this is brought about; that the sun's rays are absorbed, and give rise to the production of the green substance, which colors leaves; from this, or along with it, various compounds found in vegetable structures arise. The direct absorption of light is therefore the original cause of the organization of plants. The author is farther led into an investigation of the physical circumstances attending this absorption, which coincides very nearly with what takes place in photographic operations. Thus it appears that the changes which occur when a Daguerreotype portrait is taken are essentially the same as those which transpire during the growth of plants; so that the fixation of a shadow and the growth of a tree have much in common. The Appendix contains experimental evidence on these points, which is given in great detail. Several chapters of this it appears have already been published in the scientific journals of Great-Britain, and translated into French and German; so that the character of the work is widely known to scientific men. As a specimen of the manner in which the volume is written, we annex an extract:

'ONE of the most striking results of organic chemistry is the relationship which it discovers between animals and plants; the former constituting an apparatus for oxydation, the latter an apparatus for deoxydation. Compared together a relation of antagonism exists between them. Plants, from inorganic matter, construct their various tissues and parts; these are consumed by animals, and forced back into the inorganic state. It is therefore plain that the sun is the great formative agent. and animals are the destroyers. If we consider the successive races of organized beings, beginning from the lowest and passing to the highest tribes, it would seem that the general idea under which Nature has been acting is, that the more complex structures were evolved to emancipate them from the direct control of external physical forces. The vegetable kingdom, uuendowed with locomotive powers, deriving its existence directly from external agents, is completely under their control. If the summer is too brilliant, or rains do not fall, a plant withers and dies. In the same manner, the lower races of animals have their existence determined by the action of physical causes; if these be favorable, they flourish; if unfavorable, they must submit to an inevitable lot. To tribes that are higher, to a certain extent, the rigor of these laws is remitted, and a certain amount of independence secured; the African lion can retire to a shade in the middle of the day; yet still be is held in a state of subjection, and instinctively submits to the operation of an overruling power, and is kept to the sands of his desert from cool and temperate climates. The sunbeam is his chain. In mau alone the emancipation is complete; for into his hands nature has committed a control of the imponderable principles matters not whether it be in the torrid zone or in the frigid, he tempers the seasons by his intellectual power; he resorts to every artifice of clothing, or to the warmth of fire; he dissipates the natural darkness by artificial light. Developed by civilization, he is no longer a prey to natural accidents; if the harvests of his own countries have failed him, his hands have created commerce, which brings him an abundance from distant places. Unlike those races which are next below him, and which instinctively aim at the result he so perfectly accomplishes, he does not wait upon the gifts of Nature, but compels her to minister to him. When they are oppressed by hunger, whole tribes of fishes migrate in the sea, and innumerable flocks of birds direct their flight to distant countries; but civilized man, without calling into action his own locomotive powers, puts his arm across the globe, and satisfies his wants.'

It

There is another point of view in which this work commends itself strongly to the patronage of the American public. It is one of the very few original scientific treatises which have been published in our country. For a long time it has been a matter of reproach to us, the little that has been done among us for the advancement of pure science. We take this book as a symptom that more will hereafter be done; and we feel assured that our scientific men will have no cause to complain of a want of encouragement, if they commence in earnest to add to the stock of human knowledge. More especially if their labors, as in this case of Dr. DRAPER's, are directed to those great and practical questions in which the interests of millions are involved; the applications of science to such objects as agriculture and the arts. There seems to be an unfortunate impression among our scientific professors, that the road to fame and emolument is a short path; that all which is necessary is to reprint European books, ' American editions, revised and improved. This is not

as it should be; it is not the work in which professors of science ought almost exclusively to be engaged. American science is in their custody, and they should not neglect it. In foreign countries there seems to be no indisposition to give us full credit for whatever is done. Thus in the case of Dr. DRAPER, when some two years ago a question arose as to who first obtained portraits by the Daguerreotype, the Edinburgh Review came frankly forward, and gave him full credit for it; and here is a scientific application, supposed impossible by Mr. DAGUERRE, which now gives bread to a number of industrious artists in both worlds; a discovery which we are proud to attribute to a professor in the New-York University. The book before us is full of evidence of the same kind; whole chapters having been reprinted in England, Germany, France, and Italy, and duly credited to their proper

source.

THE LIFE OF FRANCIS MARION. BY W. GILMORE SIMMS. In one volume. pp. 347.
York: HENRY G. LANGLEY, Astor-House.

New

THIS is an attempt, generally conceded a successful one, to collect and arrange in a convenient and readable form the facts in the life of FRANCIS MARION, the brave South-Carolina General, who served his country so effectually in the wars of the Revolution. We are given to understand in the author's preface, that beside the delightful work of WEEMS, which every American boy, at all conversant with our historical literature, must remember with pleasure, there have been consulted, in the preparation of the narrative before us, numerous volumes, some private manuscripts, much unpublished correspondence, and various histories of South-Carolina and Georgia, while many minor facts have been gathered from the lips of living witnesses. Mr. WILLIS remarks, in a notice of the Life of MARION' in the Evening Mirror' daily journal, that Mr. SIMMS' style, always heavy, is especially so in his attempts at historical writing;' and he cites an involved and clumsy passage in illustration of the historian's manner; but we do not altogether coincide with this opinion. We confess that we like Mr. SIMMS as a historian much better than as a romancer; and we heartily share the gratification which has been generally expressed, that his pen has sought a new field. His style in the narration of actual events is less wordy and diffuse; and he is not called upon, from mere voluminousness of what CHARLES LAMB calls 'pen-and-ink-work,' to be constantly repeating himself, alike in forced episodical reflection, and descriptions of character or scene. We have space but for a single passage, one which has been told elsewhere, in connection with the life of MARION, but which, owing to the forcible corollary deducible from the affecting incident which it records, is well worthy of being repeated and perpetuated:

'SNIPES was a Carolinian of remarkable strength and courage. He was equally distinguished for his vindictive hatred of the Tories. He had suffered some domestic injuries at their hands, and he was one who never permitted himself to forgive. His temper was sanguinary in the extreme, and led him, in his treatment of the loyalists, to such ferocities as subjected him, on more than one occasion, to the harshest rebuke of his commander. It is not certain at what period in the war the following occurrence took place, but it was on one of those occasions when the partisan militia claimed a sort of periodical privilege of abandoning their general to look after their families and domestic interests. Availing himself of this privilege. Snipes pursued his way to his plantation. His route was a circuitous one, but it is probable that he pursued it with little caution. He was more distinguished for audacity than prudence. The Tories fell upon his trail, which they followed with the keen avidity of the sleuth-hound. Snipes reached his plantation in safety, unconscious of pursuit. Having examined the homestead and received an account of all things done in his absence, from a faithful driver, and lulled into security by the seeming quiet and silence of the neighborhood, he retired to rest, and, after the fatigues of the day, soon fell into a profound sleep. From this he was awakened by the abrupt entrance and cries of his driver. The faithful negro apprised him, in terror, of the approach of the Tories. They were already on the plantation. His vigilance alone prevented them from taking his master in bed. Snipes starting up, proposed to take shelter in the barn, but the driver pointed to the flames already bursting from that building. He had barely time to leave the house, covered only by his night-shirt, and, by the counsel of the negro, to fly to the cover of a thick copse of briars and brambles, within fifty yards of the dwelling, when the Tories surrounded it. The very task of penetrating this copse, so as to screen himself from sight, effectually removed the thin garment which concealed his nakedness. The shirt was torn from his back by the briars, and the skin shared in its injuries. But, once there, he lay effectually concealed from sight. Ordinary conjecture would scarcely have supposed that any animal larger than a rabbit would have sought or found shelter

in such a region. The Tories immediately seized upon the negro and demanded his master, at the peril of his life. Knowing and fearing the courage and the arm of Snipes, they did not enter the dwelling, but adopted the less valorous mode of setting it on fire, and, with pointed muskets, surrounded it, in waiting for the moment when their victim should emerge. He, within a few steps of them, heard their threats and expectations, and beheld all their proceedings. The house was consumed, and the intense heat of the fire subjected our partizan, in his place of retreat, to such torture as none but the most dogged hardihood could have endured without complaint. The skin was peeled from his body in many places, and the blisters were shown long after, to persons who are still living. But Snipes too well knew his enemies, and what he had to expect at their hands, to make any confession. He bore patiently the torture, which was terribly increased, when, finding themselves at fault, the Tories brought forward the faithful negro who had thus far saved his master, and determined to extort from him, in the halter, the secret of his hiding-place. But the courage and fidelity of the negro proved superior to the terrors of death. Thrice was he run up the tree, and choked nearly to strangulation, but in vain. His capability to endure proved superior to the will of the Tories to inflict, and he was at length let down, half dead, as in truth ignorant of the secret which they desired to extort. What were the terrors of Snipes in all this trial? What his feelings of equal gratitude and apprehension? How noble was the fidelity of the slave; based upon what gentle and affectionate relationship between himself and master; probably from boyhood! Yet this is but one of a thousand of such attachments, all equally pure and elevated.'

This life of MARION derives additional attraction from numerous illustrations, engraved on wood, and scattered throughout the work; which, although somewhat crude when closely examined, are yet sufficiently expressive, and aid not a little the imagination of the reader.

AFLOAT AND ASHORE: OR THE ADVENTURES OF MILES WALLINGFORD. By the Author of 'The Pilot,' Red Rover,' etc. Volumes Three and Four. pp. 428. Published for the Author. NewYork: BURGESS, STRINGER AND COMPANY.

We have read no one of the later works of our only distinguished American novelist, properly so designated, with half the interest that MILES WALLINGFORD's narrative awakened at the beginning, and has sustained to the end of the four volumes in which it is embraced. There are scenes and passages in the history of his adventures which will not suffer by comparison with the most vivid of those sketches, whether of sea or land, which have made our author so widely known in both hemispheres. We scarcely know which the most to admire, the life and spirit with which Mr. COOPER has invested those scenes and events of his narrative which are peculiar to his favorite element, the ocean, or the charming pictures of country life and country manners, which, together with certain scenes in 'The Pioneers,' will render 'Clawbonny,' and the region round about, immortal. This may perhaps seem extravagant praise: but it is undeniable, that authors possessed of high creative powers distinguish the place of their nativity instead of being distinguished by it. They do not receive, they give birth to the place of their residence, and vivify the region around them. The art of the novelist, in the conduct of the story proper, strikes us as transcendant: curiosity is admirably stimulated and felicitously kept unsatisfied, so far as the matrimonial dénouement of the hero and heroine are concerned, to the very last. We say hero and heroine,' but we should correct the expression. The interest of the reader in the subordinate characters of the story is scarcely less exciting than that felt for those who were no doubt intended to be the principal personages of the novel. MARBLE, the mate, and NEB, the black seaman, will be remembered as long as MILES WALLINGFORD OF LUCY HARDINGE. We have a word to say of Mr. COOPER's sea-style, if we may employ such an expression. It possesses to our eye the distinctness of a painting. We do not so much allude to the prominent sea-pictures which are scattered through these volumes, as to the merely incidental descriptions of a passing ocean-scene, which occur in the progress of the narrative. Let us illustrate our meaning by two brief passages. The first occurs in the description of a ship that has just weathered the south-west spit, and with a fair wind is putting past Sandy-Hook and out at sea:

'GLAD was I to see the head of the Dawn pointing in the right direction, with her yards nearly square, and a fore-top-mast studding-sail set. The pilot was all activity, and Marble, cool, clearheaded in his duty, and instinctively acquainted with every thing belonging to a vessel, was just the man to carry out his views to his heart's content. The ship went, rising and falling on the swells of

the ocean, that now began to make themselves felt, past the light and the low point of the Hook, within a few minutes after we had squared away, and, once more, the open ocean lay before us. I could not avoid smiling at Neb. just as we opened the broad waste of waters, and got an unbroken view of the roiling ocean to the southward. The fellow was on the main-top-sail yard, having just run out, and lashed the heel of a top-gallant-studding-sail boom. in order to set the sail. Before he lay into the mast, he raised his Herculean frame, and took a look to windward. His eyes opened, his nostrils dilated, and I fancied he resembled a hound that scented game in the gale, as he snuffed the sea-air which came fanning his glistening face, filled with the salts and peculiar flavors of the ocean.'

Here is an incident in a gale at sea, near the chops of the Irish channel. Have you never dreamed, reader, of seeing a vessel go down, or of being in one that went down, like the ill-fated ship mentioned below?

'A WILD Scene lay around us, at the return of light. The Atlantic resembled a chaos of waters, the portions of the rolling sheet that were not white with foam, looking green and angry. The clouds hid the sun, and the gale seemed to be fast coming to its height. At ten, we drove past an American, with nothing standing but his foremast. Like us, he was running off, though we went three feet to his two. Half an hour later, we had the awful sight before our eyes of witnessing the sudden disappearance of an English brig. She was lying-to, directly on our course, and I was looking at her from the windlass, trying to form some opinion as to the expediency of our luffing-to, in order to hold our own. Of a sudden, this brig gave a plunge, and she went down like a porpoise diving. What caused this disaster I never knew; but, in five minutes we passed as near as possible over the spot, and not a trace of her was to be seen. I could not discover so much as a handspike floating, though I looked with intense anxiety, in the hope of picking up some fellow-creature clinging to a spar. As for stopping to examine, one who did not understand the language might as well hope to read the German character on a mile-stone, while flying past it in a rail-road car.'

Our copy of 'Afloat and Ashore' is full of pencil-marks and dog's-ears; but for the attractive passages which they indicate, we have in this closing number of a volume of our Magazine no adequate space. We can but counsel all who have not already done so, at once to secure the volumes; relying, if need be, upon our reiterated assurance, that they will awaken and sustain the interest of the reader unabated to the end.

ANASTASIS OR THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY RATIONALLY AND SCRIPTURALLY CONSIDERED. BY GEORGE BUSH, Professor of Hebrew, New-York University. In one Volume. pp 396. New-York and London: WILEY AND PUTNAM.

WHILE standing by a newly-opened vault of the dead in Wall-street, the other day, as mentioned in the 'Gossip' of our last number, and surveying the mere handful of dust which was all that remained of perhaps fifty human bodies, wasted, marrow, bones and all,' we could not help asking ourselves, 'Is it possible that the belief in which we have been educated can be true? Will the material body' rise again from the grave, and stand before its MAKER on the last great day? The volume before us, from the pen of a clergyman of the Presbyterian church, and one of the most profound biblical scholars of this or any other country, answers these questions with arguments that we think defy refutation. The work will create a profound sensation. It is hard to combat opinions which have strengthened with the lapse of years; which have been reiterated in religious discourses, and chanted in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs for centuries of years. How many lips, cold and still forever in the grave, have pronounced the lines:

' AND must this body die?

This mortal frame decay?

And must these active limbs of mine
Lie mouldering in the clay?

'Corruption, earth and worms
Will but refine this flesh,
Till my triumphant spirit comes
To put it on afresh.

'GOD my REDEEMER lives,

And often from the skies
Looks down and watches all my dust,
Till HE shall bid it rise.

Then, wrapt in glorious grace,

Shall these vile bodies shine,
And every shape and every face
Look heavenly and divine.'

Under an oppressive load of conscious, solemn responsibility, Dr. BUSH contends, and we think clearly proves, that the resurrection of the body is not a doctrine of revelation. This view of the subject presents the grand future under an entirely new aspect, and is calcula

ted to give a rude shock to the settled preconceptions of a great portion of Christendom. Our author has arrived at his sincere convictions from the progressive development of Scriptural truth. There is nothing, he contends, that is destructive in the bearings of his theory. He has advanced nothing that is intrinsically calculated to weaken the force of the great moral sanctions of the Bible. He leaves the sublime announcements of the resurrection, the judgment, etc., clothed with all their essential practical potency, as doctrines of revelation, though placed upon their true foundation, and eliminated from the mixtures of long-adhering error. We shall take another occasion to advert more particularly to the arguments in detail of the work under notice. In the mean time we cannot resist the inclination to present a passage or two from the chapter devoted to the argument from reason.' The following paragraph involves grave difficulties to be overcome by those who believe in the resurrection of the material body:

'No fact in physiological science is better ascertained, than that the human body, in regard to its constituent particles, is in a state of constant flux. It is perpetually undergoing a process of waste and reparation. Strictly speaking, no man has the same body now that he had seven years ago, as it is in about this period that a complete change is held to take place in the bodily structure, by which we may be said to be corporeally renovated. This is a fact established by physiology, and the proof of it, we believe, is entirely beyond question, and must form an indispensable element in any judg ment which we pronounce upon the subject. The phrase, the body, does not actually represent the object intended, if the idea conveyed by it be restricted to the body as existing at any one moment. The idea of existence in continuity is indispensable to it. The question then again recurs, what body is to be raised? A person who dies at the age of seventy has had ten different bodies. Which of these is to be the body of the resurrection? Is it the body of infancy, of childhood, of youth, of manhood, or of old age? Or is it the aggregate of all these? If we go back to the days of the Antediluvians and apportion the number of the bodies of Methusaleh, for instance, to the length of his life, and then suppose the whole to be collected into one vast corporeity, we should indeed be reminded that, as there were giants in those days,' so there will be giants in the day of the resurrection! It is obvious that a very grave difficulty from this source pertains to the prevalent theory of the resurrection of the body, and one which we discover no mode of obviating on that theory.'

We remember a theory of ghosts, based upon a kindred postulate with the above. It was contended that apparitions were the shadowy bodies which from time to time disappeared from the new person, like the concentric rings peeled from an onion! Our author goes on to establish that the resurrection-body is to be a spiritual and not a material body. A material body is a body of flesh and blood; but flesh and blood,' saith the Scriptures, 'cannot inherit the kingdom of GOD.' Dr. BUSH continues his illustrations of the endless cycles of change which the human body may undergo:

"THE doctrine of the resurrection of the same body, in any sense whatever, encounters difficulties in our view absolutely insuperable, arising from the changes and new combinations which the parti cles of the dead body undergo in the interval between death and the resurrection. Who does not know that the luxuriant vigor aud verdure of the wheat-crops waving over the field of Waterloo are owing to a source of fertility which the Belgic husbandman never conveyed to the soil?

'Rich harvests wave where mighty Troy once stood,
Birth of a soil made fat with Phrygian blood.'

"The putrescent relics of the goodly structure which once enshrined a human soul are resolved into the dust of the earth. The dust springs up in the varied forms of vegetable life. The beasts of the field crop the grasses and the herbs which derive their succulence from the constituent material of the bodies of buried men. Out of these eaters comes forth sweetness, and the flesh which was fed by the flesh of the fathers goes to the sustenance of the flesh of the sons. To whom shall these particles belong in the day of their final recall from these varied compositions? Will it not require the whole vegetable and animal world to be decomposed in order to extricate the assimilated portions and give to each his due? And how can the matter ever be adjusted? The particles that now belong to one body have previously belonged to some other; whose shall they be in the resurrection? as the Sadducees asked respecting the wife of seven husbands. And what shall we say of the case of those who have fallen victims to the barbarous rage and horrid hankerings of cannibals? Who shall be the rightful claimants in the day of adjudication, when specific particles have been incorporated by perfect assimilation into two different bodies?'

The argument from Scripture is treated at great length, and enforced by the text of the original Hebrew, which is copiously quoted and rendered, in illustration of the various reasonings of the learned author. We commend the volume to the understandings of all denominations of men.