We have before us a little volume by Mr. Willich, the able Actuary of the University Life Assurance Society, entitled Popular Tables arranged in a new Form, giving Information at Sight for ascertaining, according to the Carlisle Table of Mortality, the Value of Lifehold, Leasehold, and Church Property, Renewal Fines, &c., the Public Funds, Annual Average Price and Interest on Consols from 1731 to 1851; also various interesting and useful Tables, equally adapted to the Office and the Library Table. Ample as is this title-page, it really gives but an imperfect notion of the varied contents of this useful library and writing-desk companion. For instance, Table VIII. of the Miscellaneous Tables gives the average price of Consols, with the average rate of interest, from 1731 to 1851; but this not only shows when Consols were highest and when lowest, but also what Administration was then in power, and the chief events of each year. We give this as one instance of the vast amount of curious information here combined; and we would point out to historical and geographical students the notices of Chinese Chronology in the preface, and the Tables of Ancient and Modern Itinerary Measures, as parts of the work especially deserving of their attention. In short, Mr. Willich's Popular Tables form one of those useful volumes in which masses of scattered information are concentrated in such a way as to render the book indispensable to all who have once tested its utility.
Mormonism, its History, Doctrines, and Practices, by the Rev. W. Sparrow Simpson, is a small pamphlet containing the substance of two lectures on this pestilent heresy, delivered by the author before the Kennington Branch of the Church of England Young Men's Society, and is worth the attention of those who wish to know something of this now wide-spread mania.
On the Custom of Borough-English in the County of Sussex, by George R. Corner, Esq. This well-considered paper on a very curious custom owes its origin, we believe, to a Query in our columns. We wish all questions agitated in "N. & Q." were as well illustrated as this has been by the learning and ingenuity of Mr. Corner.
A Narrative of Practical Experiments proving to Demonstration the Discovery of Water, Coals, and Minerals in the Earth by means of the Dowsing Fork or Divining Rod, &c., collected, reported, and edited by Francis Phippen. A curious little pamphlet on a fact in Natural Philosophy, which we believe no philosopher can either understand or account for.
Serials Received.—Murray's Railway Reading: History as a Condition of Social Progress, by Samuel Lucas. An able lecture on an interesting subject.—The Traveller's Library, No. 46.: Twenty Years in the Philippines, by De la Gironière. One of the best numbers of this valuable series.—Cyclopædia Bibliographica, Part XI., August. This eleventh Part of Mr. Darling's useful Catalogue extends from James Ibbetson to Bernard Lamy.—Archæologia Cambrensis, New Series, No. XV.: containing, among other papers of interest to the inhabitants of the principality, one on the arms of Owen Glendwr, by the accomplished antiquary to whom our readers were indebted for a paper on the same subject in our own columns.
BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES WANTED TO PURCHASE.
Sowerby's English Botany, with or without Supplementary Volumes.
Dugdale's England and Wales, Vol. VIII. London, L. Tallis.
Lingard's History of England. Second Edition, 1823, 9th and following Volumes, in Boards.