The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-07 00:00:00

LITERATURE,

A Wonderful Index,
Index Goographicus, Compiled Specially with
reference to littith Johnetn'a Royal Atlas. One

Vol., pp. 676. Wm, Blackwood-and Sons,

A 3 a mere matter of curiosity we should like un-
c(1"Ionly to know how long it could possibly have
taken to build up, as it were, pebble by pebble, this
mighty cairn of geographical information. We
should be disposed to conjecture, at a rough calcu-
lation, that within the c .mpass of these 676 double

columned pages there must be ranged together here
i❑ alphabetical order—from "Aa Most; Zealand,
_ _

Denmark, 55 deg. 35 min. N. latitude, 11 deg. 30
min. E. longitude," to " Zywiec or Saypusch ; Gal-
finis, Austria, 49 deg. 41 min. N. latitude, to 19
deg. 12 min. longitude"---upwards of one hun-
dred and twenty thousand pieces of just such

precise and valuable (alm3st, we might say, in

valuable, because direct and practical) information.
The Index Geographicus, it should be especially
noticed, is, as we have just slid, arranged in one
long streak (as the Yankees would term it) of names,

of localities, of Mountains, Rivers, Valleys, Straits,
Archipelagoes, Gulfs, Peninsulas, Slttlements,
Provinces, C yes, Forts, Harbours, Islands, Parishes,
Volcanoes, Glaciers, Counties, Promontories, In
lets, Canals, Bridges, Lakes, Villages, and what not
—alphabetically ! That is, in one consecutive chain
of names—alphabetically printed—from the top of
the first column in page 1 to the bottom of the
second column in page 674—comprising the body of

the work : otherwise from the beforementioned
inaugural Aa-moss to the final name (exclusive of
those in the single leaf of the addenda) i. e., Zwiec,
It is worthy of particular note, again, in regard to
this marvellous repertory of knowledge of a
purely geographical kind, that while each name
out of so vast a multitude of names as to have
been already computed by us as extending to a
total in round numbers of some 120,000 or there-

abouts—that while to each of these names there
is attached not only mention of the latitude and
longitude of the especial locality referred to, but,
in numerals and abbreviations, reference also to a
given map in the magnificent Royal Atlas (that
ne plus ultra among atlases) compiled by Mr.
Keith Johnston, and published by the Messrs
Blackwood and Sons, of London and Edinburgh—
the Index Geographicus is, notwithstanding this,
applicable, directly and instantaneously applicable,
to all modern atlases and maps whatsoever. In
point of fact, the work is announced by advertise-
ment to have aimed, in the first place, at rendering
itself as completely as possible an Index of easy re-
ferenc3 to the Royal Atlas of Mr. Keith Johnston
aforesaid: and, in the next place, at becoming, as fir

as might prove to be in every way compatible with
this primary object, available as an Index of easy
reference to all other 'geographical works—howso-
ever, or by whomsoever puolished, whether as
single maps or as atlases (other than the Royal),

whether published by the Messrs. Blackwood, or I
issued from other establishments than theirs, say, ,
for example, from tee establishments of either
Mr. James Wyld, or Mr. Edward Stanford, both
of Charing-cross. The work before us, as it has
now been completed, we may assert at once quite
confidently, realises both of these objects—
that is, the primary one and the subsidiary
one—and it does so in a manner in the
highest degree satisfactory. Nay it does more
than this—it has been so carried out as to
constitute itself what it indeed has acknowledged
its aspiring to do—it has oonstitued itself that
is to say, a direct and acceptable substitute for the
G szeteer. As a matter of course, in realising thus
the primary object with which this mammoth
Index Geographicus was undertaken, every in-
dividual name any where to be found in the Royal
Atlas has in this vast and comprehensive Index
been duly catalogued. In recording thus every-
one of those names, here, in alphabetical order,
the greatest care appears to have been taken, not
in a merely general sense, but in a very especial
sense indeed, to secure exactitude in the nomen-
clature. Meaning, when we say this, that
all the nearly countless aliases of localities have
been duly recorded and catalogued in like man-
ner. As, for example, in respect to names
occurring in the map of Hindostan—in the map of
that country to be found in the Royal Atlas and
equally also in every map of Hindostan whatever—
Pondicherry is recorded here in the Index Geogra-
phicus, and so also is Catch, but with Catch occurs
here likewise as more consonant with Eastern pro-
nunciation Kachh, and with Pondicherry for a like
reason, Puducheri. Ex uno disce onznes. And hence
the whole " Index," as an "Index," is really and
truly about the completest possible. Another ex-
traordinary facilitation of reference is secured by
the careful insertion of all namee having the prefix
Saint—under any and every of its modificeions, as
Sainte, Sin, Santa, Sao, Szent. The clue of clues
ter reference—to the Royal Atlas first of but
quite as well also to all other maps and
atlans—is to be found, the most naturally

as well as the most securely, in the minutely calcu-
lated meeting-point at every given locality of the
latitude and the longitude. It is this minute cai-
culation of each, that imparts to the work under
noti3e its conspicuous and most remarkable value.
As a Geographical Guide, and Gazateer, end Index,
all in one, the work is really nothing less than a
boon in this age of already vastly multiplied, and
still fast multiplying knowledge of all kinds.

On the Phenomena ofilybriclity in the Genus Homo.
By Dr. Paul Broca. Edited by C. Carter Blake.
One Vol., pp. 83, Longman and Company.
It is wonderful what solid and valuable informa-
tion has been here compacted togther—within less
than one hundred pages octavo. Another work of
very considerable value has thus been added to the
list of publications now commenced, with a Fro
specie let us hope, of fast moltiplying into a sub-
stantial library, under the auspices and, more than
that, under the careful supervision and at the direct
instance of the Society of our London Anthro-
pologists. The treatise here placed within reach of
the English reading public is obviously, of course,
in no degree comparab'e, in the comprehensiveness
of its survey, to its immediate predecessor, that
remarkable work from the hand of Dr. Weitz,
constituting about the aptest introduction to
►he science of Anthropology yet comriled,
penned, too, by one of the profoundest masters
of that science for the use of every student coming
to it purely and simply as a beginner—a work we
ourselves had the satisfaction nearly four months
ago of earnestly commending, through these
columns, to the consideration of scientific readers
generally, meaning the happily-chosen first volume
of the " Anthropologie der Nat ureolker." It is not,
in this instence, once more to a German master
that the Pale.iehing Committee of the Anthropo-
logical Society has directed its attention, with a
view to selecting some new work upon a specific
branch of the science (not upon the science
as a whole hut, let us repeat the worris, upon a
specific branch of it), it is not, we say, to a German
writer again that the Publishing Committee of our
Eogiish Anthropological Society has turned its
regard, but to a French anthropologist es profound
in his mastery of the science as. Dr. Broca. A
writer, moreover, upon this science WllOB9 merits
are sach, within the recognition of scientific Europe,
that his present editor, Mr. Blake, can deprecate
his own selection by the learned President
of the Anthropological Society as editor of
Dr. Paul Broca's treatise on Hybridity, thus
earnestly, and yet in no respect at all extravagantly :
namely, where he says in his Preface—" The
habitual methods of thought of Dr. Paul Broca are
so exact, his style [is ?] so terse, his knowledge of
the literature of anthropology so vast, and his power
of application and concentration of ideas [are] so
powerful, that a just preference might have selected
another Editor." Not so—at least so far as relates
to their appreciation of his selection as Editor of Dr.
Broca—not so will the readers of this English
version of this little work on Hybridity, by
the French philosopher, think when they have
come to read it, or even when they have
come to advance a little way in the reading of it:
though it is agreeable enough, in the midst of so
much intolerable self-assertion on the part of others,
to note a skilled and conscientious cultivator of the
science of anthropology, such as Mr. Carter Blake,
waiving ~hus any claim of his to the honour of
being in this manner singled out from among all
his colleagues by his President. A more judicious
selection, evidently, the learned President, Die
James Hunt, could hardly have made than he has
made in thus choosing the "other" Secretary of the
A'soci-ition to endito a treatise, within the narrow
compass of which so much of the exact thought, the
terse style, so much of the power of concentration
and the capacity for concentrated thought, so much
of that vast knowledge of anthropological literature,
noticeable in the writings of Dr. Broca, are com
pacted together. As a searching inquiry into the
complex subject of Human Hybridity, the work,
brief though it is, we believe to be as yet unrivalled,

Popular Edition of the Speeches and Addresses
of I 1 B.H. the Prince Consort. Oats Vol.
pp. 127. John Murray.
As a memorial of our beloved and lamented
Prince nothing could well be more beautiful in its
way than this popular edition of his Speeches, in a
little green volume issued from the great publishing
house in Albermarle-street, price One Shi:ling
The very colour of the brochure seems to U 3 aipros
priate—Lence, indeed, we neve just now mentioned
it—this same popular i sue of the Speeches
and Addresses of H.R.H. being in a very
especial manner O.IIOW-teed to " keep his memory
green" in the heists of that Great P- °plc
who had learnt so to lova him, and who
have had, during these last two years, such
bitter cause to lament what still appears to us his
premature disappearance. Popular—in the fullest
meaning of the phrase—the work is surely certain to
be : and it is earnestly to be hoped, both for the sake
of the departed Prince, and for that also of his
revered relict, for the sake of his Royal
Highness and of her Majesty, that it may be so.
And for this reason—that these Speeches and Ads
dresses, just exactly as they ere here faith-
fully recorded--these Speeches and Addresses,
just precisely as they fell from his lips
in life, verbatim et literatim, now that he
is dead, now that his lips can breathe no other
syllable, at once, to any one who reads them
thinkingly, explain and justify (both, to the
full) the Pripet) Consort's resplendent reputa-
tion. They explain and justify, completely
and signally, his reputation as a philosophic
thinker, as a keen-eyed statesman, as an appreciator
of art, as a scientific enquirer, and, above all that,
(and how much more!) as a practical philanthropist.
Nay, more than this, it should be said
in simple justice to the nature of the
Prince, that the little work here comme-
morative of so many of his gentler senti-
ments and aspirations, as a sympathiser
with his "kind" generally, but in a very
particular manner as a sympathiser with the
great multitude of the "workers" among his
fellow-creatures, indicates in the Prince's regard
far more even than his wisdom—his goodness.
It is so conspicuously thus with the whole
tenoar of these Speeches and Addresses that
they may be said in a manner to underline
and emphasise the epithet distinctively applied to
H.R.H. by the Poet Laureate in those exquisite
verses, which are
.perhaps the masterpiece of Alfred
Tennyson—that dedication of his "Idyls of the
King" to the memory of the Prince, in which
the Poet apostrophised him as " ALBERT THE
GOOD!" As a popular memorial calculated to
perpetuate the intimate appreciation of his nobler
qualities by the English people, the cheap re-issue
of a work hitherto published only in ft
costly form is beyond all the sculptured
monuments, the marble cenotaphs, the architectural
mausoleums, the porphyry sarcophagi that could
be constructed, as symbols of honour to his me-
mory, by the lavished love and grief and wealth of
a mourning nation. Tne tittle book is altogether
so perfect a memento of the Prince Consort, as one
who was "a Prince indeed" that it wou d by t
gratification to thiele the time may yet c tree anti
that speedily, when a copy of it may ba lying upoe
the parlour table of every cottage in the lend, eine
upon the scant book-shelf of every town mechanic.

THE QUEEN OP SPAIN has presented the Empress
of the French with two magnificent horses of the Aranjuez
race—a mixture of Arab and the Spanish breed.
A NOBLE VETERAN.—A movoment has been set
on foot for the purpose of erecting a memorial to the
honour of Field-Marshal Viscount Combermere, G.C.8.,
G.C.H., to commemorate his long and distinguished ser-
vices as a soldier. It is proposed to erect the memorial in
Cheshire, in which county Combermere Abbey is situate.
Lord Combermere, who has reached the age of 84, holds the
office of Constable of the Tower of London, and Custos
notulorum of the Tower Hamlets, to which he was ap-
pointed on the death of the late Duke of Wellington.
Russia gives hostages to the future fortune of
Denmark in the announcement of the heir to the
Czar's throne having proposed for the hand of Princess
Maria Dagmar, younger sister of the Princess of Wales.
The bridegroom comes of ago on the 20th next September,
being ;our yeLsr, above that o? his intended bride. The
Danish Princess is to visit Sr. P:;tersharg in the autumn,
and conform to the ortliodos Eastern Church, according to
the laws of the Empire.—Letter Roan Faris,

Ortnbir

HER MAJESTY.

4-

WTNDSOR CASTLE, April 6.
Eirl Granville arrived at the Costie yesterday.

The royal dinner party consisted of his M,jesty
the King of the Ball,,,ians, her Royal Highness
Princess Helena, her Royal Highness Princess
Augustus of Saxe Coburg, and her Serene Highness
Princes CNY:_ilde ; the Countess of Gainsborough,
Lady in Waiting to her Majesty ; Lady Caroline
Barrington, MAlle. de Thrsch, the Hon. Caroline
Cavendish, the Hon. Emma Lascelles, EariGrenville.
Lieu,.- General the Hon. C. Grey, Col. the Hon, Sir
(Marks Phipps, General Count de Moerkeike, and
Dr. K( edl, gentlemen in attendance on the King of
the Belgians ; Lord Rivers, Colonel F. Seymour,
C. 8., Major-General F. Seymour, Lieut.-Colonel
du Plat, Mr. Sahl, and the Master of the Household,
His M.jesty the Kseg of the Belgians;attended
by General Count de Moerkerke and Dr. Kiel)),
left the Cistle this af ernoon for Buckingham
Palace.

Royst Highness Princess Augustus of Saxe
Coburg, their Serene Highnesses Princess Clotilde,
Princess Ame 1-, and Prince Krdinand, attended
by Madlle. de Borsch, left the Castle this morning
for Claremont.