Harper & Brothers will send either of the above works by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price.

[ SCIENCE FOR THE YOUNG.]

BY JACOB ABBOTT,

Author of “The Young Christian Series,” “Marco Paul Series,” “Rainbow and Lucky Series,” “Little Learner Series,” “Franconia Stories,” Illustrated Histories, &c., &c.

Few men enjoy a wider or better earned popularity as a writer for the young than Jacob Abbott. His series of histories, and stories illustrative of moral truths, have furnished amusement and instruction to thousands. He has the knack of piquing and gratifying curiosity. In the book before us he shows his happy faculty of imparting useful information through the medium of a pleasant narrative, keeping alive the interest of the young reader, and fixing in his memory valuable truths.—Mercury, New Bedford, Mass.

Jacob Abbott is almost the only writer in the English language who knows how to combine real amusement with real instruction in such a manner that the eager young readers are quite as much interested in the useful knowledge he imparts as in the story which he makes so pleasant a medium of instruction.—Buffalo Commercial Advertiser.

HEAT: Being Part I. of Science for the Young. By Jacob Abbott. Copiously Illustrated. 12mo, Illuminated Cloth, black and gilt, $1 50. Perhaps that eminent and ancient gentleman who told his young master that there was no royal road to science could admit that he was mistaken after examining one of the volumes of the series “Science for the Young,” which the Harpers are now bringing out. The first of these, “Heat,” by Jacob Abbott, while bringing two or three young travelers from a New York hotel across the ocean to Liverpool in a Cunarder, makes them acquainted with most of the leading scientific principles regarding heat. The idea of conveying scientific instruction in this manner is admirable, and the method in which the plan is carried out is excellent. While the youthful reader is skillfully entrapped into perusing what appears to be an interesting story, and which is really so, he devours the substance and principal facts of many learned treatises. Surely this is a royal road for our young sovereigns to travel over.—World, N. Y. It combines information with amusement, weaving in with a story or sketch of travel dry rules of mechanics or chemistry or philosophy. Mr. Abbott accomplishes this object very successfully. The story is a simple one, and the characters he introduces are natural and agreeable. Readers of the volume, young and old, will follow it with unabating interest, and it can not fail to have the intended effect.—Jewish Messenger. It is admirably done. * * * Having tried the book with children, and found it absolutely fascinating, even to a bright boy of eight, who has had no special preparation for it, we can speak with entire confidence of its value. The author has been careful in his statements of facts and of natural laws to follow the very best authorities; and on some points of importance his account is more accurate and more useful than that given in many works of considerable scientific pretensions written before the true character of heat as what Tyndall calls “a mode of motion” was fully recognized. * * * Mr. Abbott has, in his “Heat,” thrown a peculiar charm upon his pages, which makes them at once clear and delightful to children who can enjoy a fairy tale.—N. Y. Evening Post. * * * Mr. Abbott has avoided the errors so common with writers for popular effect, that of slurring over the difficulties of the subject through the desire of making it intelligible and attractive to unlearned readers. He never tampers with the truth of science, nor attempts to dodge the solution of a knotty problem behind a cloud of plausible illustrations. The numerous illustrations which accompany every chapter are of unquestionable value in the comprehension of the text, and come next to actual experiment as an aid to the reader.—N. Y. Tribune. LIGHT: Being Part II. of Science for the Young. By Jacob Abbott. Copiously Illustrated. 12mo, Illuminated Cloth, black and gilt, $1 50. Treats of the theory of “Light,” presenting in a popular form the latest conclusions of chemical and optical science on the subject, and elucidating its various points of interest with characteristic clearness and force. Its simplicity of language, and the beauty and appropriateness of its pictorial illustrations, make it a most attractive volume for young persons, while the fullness and accuracy of the information with which it overflows commends it to the attention of mature readers.—N. Y. Tribune. Like the previous volume, it is in all respects admirable. It is a mystery to us how Mr. Abbott can so simplify the most abstruse and difficult principles, in which optics especially abounds, as to bring them within the grasp of quite youthful readers; we can only be very grateful to him for the result. This book is up to our latest knowledge of the wonderful force of which it treats, and yet weaves all its astounding facts into pleasing and readable narrative form. There are few grown people, indeed, whose knowledge will not be vastly increased by a perusal of this capital book.—N. Y. Evening Mail. Perhaps there is no American author to whom our young people are under so great a debt of gratitude as to this writer. The book before us, like all its predecessors from the same pen, is lucid, simple, amusing, and instructive. It is well gotten up and finely illustrated, and should have a place in the library of every family where there are children.—N. Y. Star. It is the second volume of a delightful series started by Mr. Abbott under the title or “Science for the Young,” in which is detailed interesting conversations and experiments, narratives of travel, and adventures by the young in pursuit of knowledge. The science of optics is here so plainly and so untechnically unfolded that many of its most mysterious phenomena are rendered intelligible at once.—Cleveland Plain Dealer. It is complete, and intensely interesting. Such a series must be of great usefulness. It should be in every family library. The volume before us is thorough, and succeeds in popularizing the branch of science and natural history treated, and, we may add, there is nothing more varied in its phenomena or important in its effects than light.—Chicago Evening Journal. Any person, young or old, who wishes to inform himself in a pleasant way about the spectroscope, magic-lantern cameras, and other optical instruments, and about solar, electric, calcium, magnesium, and all other kinds of light, will find this book of Mr. Abbott both interesting and instructive.—Lutheran Observer.