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

ILLUSTRATED GIFT BOOKS.

(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 are 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 githering, 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.,aD.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 I 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 I—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
oven, 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 now
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—the solution of which lies 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 M. Louis
Figuier, are the embellishments scattered through
the volume from the designs of Riou. Several
among these are of Miltonic or Martinesque subli-
mity—more particularly the very last of all, the
engraving delineative of the Asiatic Deluge, a pie--_
ture presenting to view a spectacle of appalling
magnificence.

Warne's Picture Book—with upwards of Five
Hundred Illustrations (Frederick Warne and Co.)
—is a very El Dorado or Tom Tiddler's ground of
amusement for childhood A glorious treasury of
pictorial fun, frolic, grace, and grotesquerie !
whole library of illustrations in a single volume
the opening of which, at any moment, anywhere,
haphazard, is for the little-ones like the sitting cross-
legged upon the famous Turkish carpet. For, Hey I,
Presto !—they are away—upon the wings of the wind
—into the true realms of fairy-land, the fields of the
imagination ! As the title-page of this handsome
five shilling volume says quite accurately—there are
here collected together between cover and cover
upwards of FIVE HUNDRED Illustrations by every
Artist of Eminence within the Last Twenty Years !
Enough, that surely in all conscience, for the most
insatiable of juveniles hungering and thirsting after
the pleasures of the eye in the shape of comical and
capital illustrations of every imaginable kind.
Another delightful addition to the Nursery Library
is provided by Routledge's New Toy Books, printed
in colours. Old friends, such as Cinderella, and
the Five Little Pigs, and the Three Kittens, and
Nursery Rhymes, and new ones such as the Cats'
Tea Party, and Tom Thumb's Alphabet, and the
Alphabet of Trades, are here presented to us,
all of them glowing and gorgeous in colour-
ing, and some of them singularly grotesque
in character. Some of the illustrations to
Tom Thumb's Alphabet, by M'Connell, are exqui-
sitely humorous and ridiculous. Of a kindred
spirit is the amazing collection of Great Fun, pub-
lished by Sampson Low, which gives us the veracious
history of Hop-Skip-and-Jump, Phemie and the
Fern Fairy, Dolly Dowsey, and the Live Rock-
ing-horse, the Cherry-Coloured Cat, and 'Abell
equally marvellous in conception, and all of them
most brilliant in colouring.

THE SURGEON CHARGED WITH FRAUD ON INSUR'"
ANCE COMPANIES.--Mr. T. Walley, the surgeon who
was found guilty at the Leeds Assizes on Tuesday of ob-
taining an insurance policy by false pretences, was indicted
on Saturday at the same assizes for a similar fraud on the
British Prudential Assurance Company, the person whose
life was insured in this case being a young woman named
Hepworth. The deceased was suffering at the time of the
insurance from an incurable cancer, and the prisoner, who
professionally knew her state, represented her life to be e
good one to the insurance company, managing at the same
time to secure for himself the prospective benefit in the
ca.so of death. Tho papers relative to the insurance acci-
dentally fell from his pocket in the public road, and being
shown to the friends of the young woman—who were en-
tirely ignorant of the proceedings of the prisoner—led to
the discovery of the fraud. The prisoner pleaded Guilty,
and was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment—to com-
mence on the termination of his previous sentence of
months.

We cordially recommend all who are in any rrag
interested in the subject of insurance to procure a copy Of
the Royal Assurance Company's Book-Almanac for 1866,
which can be obtained on application at the head offices or
from any of the company's agents. Besides explaining
candidly the principles upon which the vast business of
the "Royal " is so successfully conducted, and giving the
rules which must be observed to insure stability in insur"
anco transactions, the pamphlet contains other matter of
interest to the general reader, independently of the prinef"
pal topics to which it is devoted. It appears from the
latest statistics that the "Royal" is now very nearly the
largest insurance office in the world, a distinction of en-
hanced value when considered as the result of 20 years'
operations only. In the fire branch the premiums during
1864 alone amounted to over £406,000 ; and in the salris
year the new life assurances completed exceeded one in"-
lion sterling, notwithstanding the largo number of pro
posals rejected on the score of ineligibility,