The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-16 00:00:00

FRANCE.

BOURSE, Jan. 15.—Two o'clock.—There is very
little business doing to-day, and quotations gene-
rally show a decline. Threes, for the Account, have
receded 7&c.--to 68f. 50c. Credit Mobilier Shares
are if. 25c. lower—at 785 f. Italian Fives show
some degree of firmness, and have recovered 71c.,
the price now being 62f. 60c. In the Railway De-
partment Lombards show a decline of 3f. 50c.
Comptoir d'Escompte Shares have improved 2f. 50c.
Three o'clock.—The market closed as follows::

41- per Cents 97 50
Do. end month —
3 per Cents.
Do. end month 6B 571
Credit Mobilier 780
Do. end month
Bank Shares 3640
Credit Fancier 1312 50
Italian Loan 62 30
Do. end month 62 50
xtAILWAYS.
Cash.

Roman
Ottoman Fives 4O
Mexican Loan —
Do. Bonds —
Russian -
Austrian
Spanish Threes
Homo Debt
Deferred

Orleans
Northern

Acct.
... ... 850
... ... 1115
... ... 853 75
... 551 25
560
530

411 2r,

- - ... 183 75
- - ... 218 75

--- -- ... 105 ---

-- --- ... 155 -

ILLUSTRATED GIFT BOOM.

(THIRD NOTICE.)

The World before the Deluge. Translated from
the French of Louis Figuier. Illustrated by Rion.
(Chapman and Hall.)—Never was there a more
astoundingly conclusive illustration of the accuracy
of the poetic dictum that " Truth is strange,
stranger than fiction," than that afforded by this
most impressive, wildly imaginative, and yet
strictly philosophical publication. In it the most
fantastic fables of ancient mythology arc sur-
passed. It carries us far beyond the comparatively
tranquil astonishment awakened by the figments of
Fairyland. Black Magic never conjured up among
its most daring illusions, spectacles in any
way comparable to those here presented to view, or
at any rate submitted to contemplation, either for
their stupendous horror, for their appalling scope,
or for their preternatural magnificence. Yet
everything here conjured up before the reader's
imagination is based upon the hardest fact, upon
the most solid, substantial reality. The " ser-
mons" preached (never tediously) by this poetic
man-of-science have been found by him lite-
rally in stones ! The leaves of this goodly " book"
he has thus contrived to write (equally for our en-
tertainment and our instruction) have been carried
down from remote epochs, for his gathering, not
merely upon the surface of " running brooks," but
upon the current of the giant rivers of the world,
upon the rolling waves of the mighty deep
itself ! And the moral he has drawn from it
all, is akin to that born from the philosophy
of Jacques—that there is " Good in Everything."
Whoever the translator of this noble and
impressive volume is (and he modestly conceals
his identity under the initials appended to L'Envoi,
" W. S. 0.," Kensington), he has entered fully into
the idea inspiring the whole scheme of this remark-
able work by M. Louis Figuier. His labour, as a
translator, has evidently been a labour of love
throughout. Upon its completion he inscribes it
respectfully to the author of " Siluria"—the work,
as he tells us, that first attracted his attention to
this class of subjects—Director-General of the
Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, Presi-
dent of the Royal Geological Society, that
learned Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, who,
besides being K.C.8., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., and
so forth, has become, since the Dedicatory Page
was written, a Baronet of the United Kingdom.
The outline of the work that has thus been penned
by M. Figuier, and translated into English by
W. S. 0., is, to say the least of it, sufficiently com-
prehensive. As the very title-page indicates, it is
descriptive of the history of the globe prior to the
epoch of its submergence under the waters of the
Deluge. The World Before the Flood ! This
Globe —as geological data demonstrates it to
have been—under several widely different
aspects 1 Conceiving, not unwisely, that the
youthful imagination may be awakened more
beneficially to admiration by the revelations of

science than by nursery fictions about " Puss
in Boots " and " Jack the Giant-Killer," M. Figuier
—and, through this English version, his translator
into our own vernacular—here undertakes to unfold
to view a narrative more enthralling in its interest,
more captivating to the thoughtful student's imagi-
nation, than any romance that was ever written—the
Miracle of the Creation !—the marvel of this
Planet's series of Transformations I ! Five Epochs
are here described—the Primary, the Tran-
sitional, the Secondary, the Tertiary, and the
Quaternary " General Considerations" lead
off the whole complexity of the disquisition—
the significance of which, in its suggestiveness, is
pointed by a brief but wonderfully striking and
even, it might be said, startling " Epilogue."
Reminding us that in the Primitive Epoch of
the World's History there was, first, the Mineral
Kingdom—in the Secondary, the Vegetable King-
dom—in the Tertiary, the Animal Kingdom—in
the Quaternary, the Human Kingdom—the Philo-
sophic Dreamer of Dreams who has penned
this Book here strikingly asks his reader at its
close—ls it in the future destinies of our planet
to receive yet another habitant ? In other
words—" After the four kingdoms which no'
occupy it, is there to be a New Kingdom created,
but which will differ from man in as great a degree
as man differs from animals, and plants from rocks ?"
A mighty Problem-41i,, ritauulun of which lics in the
depths of the Eternities, in the inscrutable womb of
Futurity, in the ineffable silentness of Infinitude.
Majestically in keeping with the " high argument,'
thus descanted upon by the eloquence of ‘lll. Louis
Figuier, are the embellishments scattered through
the volume from the designs of Riou. Several