other epileptic patient I have ever known, his fits were frequent and inordinately violent, but did not kill him till he was seventy-three: Lemuel, killed at the battle of Waterloo: Frances Mary, a married woman who died, ætat. 42, after giving birth to several children and Louisa, a spinster, who was born December 23, 1791, and still lives a very vigorous woman for one of her years.'

I am also indebted to Mr. Cordy Jeaffreson for a notice of the case of the father of the Rev. Thomas Hart Davies, chaplain at the Dockyard, Portsmouth, in 1800. This gentleman died at the supposed age of 116, but his age was afterwards investigated and found to be only 109.

Sir Henry Holland informs me that last summer he breakfasted on the St. Lawrence, in America, with a British officer, whose commission proved him to be 104 years of age. Sir Henry also has evidence of a case in which the age of 111 years was reached.

On à priori grounds we have seen no reason to believe that man should not have a higher longevity than 100 years as a monstrous and abnormal phenomenon, and on this consideration we may be not indisposed to accept statements as to ages as great as 110, or even 120 years being attained, even though such an occurrence were not absolutely demonstrated and proved.

The expenditure implied in distinction, and the generative expenditure implied in twenty-two children,

the offspring of a lady who certainly was alive in her 100th year, cannot be held to militate against the general law. These are isolated cases, where unusual vigour (i. e. abundant 'matter of life') has increased longevity and the other quantities simultaneously. There is not a sufficient number of trustworthy records of cases of high longevity to make an extended testing by them of the conclusions arrived at as to causes favouring longevity, likely to be of any real value.

In the course of what has been written, the exceedingly involved nature of the enquiry, and the absence of all but the fewest data as to comparative longevity, have been made sufficiently apparent. It is to this condition of the subject that we would gladly direct attention, as the cause of indefinite and speculative character in an essay treating of it. It is hoped that in indicating possible lines of productive enquiry, and in pointing to the more prominent and remediable gaps in information, some more practical result has been attained.

It would have been possible no doubt to carry mere speculation into greater detail than has been attempted here, as to the influences affecting longevity in man, but the facts, such as they are, seem fairly to admit of no more positive inferences than have been here given.

BY T. COMBE, M. A., E. B GARDNER, E. P. HALL, AND H. LATHAM, M.A.,

16, BEDFORD STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON.

MACMILLAN & Co.'s GENERAL

January, 1870.

CATALOGUE

of Works in the Departments of History,
Biography, Travels, Poetry, and Belles
Lettres. With some short Account or
Critical Notice concerning each Book.

SECTION I.

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, and TRAVELS. Baker (Sir Samuel W.).—THE NILE TRIBUTARIES OF ABYSSINIA, and the Sword Hunters of the Hamran Arabs. By SIR SAMUEL W. BAKER, M.A., F. R. G. S. Maps, and Illustrations. Third Edition, 8vo. 21s.

With Portraits,

Sir Samuel Baker here describes twelve months' exploration, during which he examined the rivers that are tributary to the Nile from Abyssinia, including the Atbara, Settite, Royan, Salaam, Angrab, Rahad, Dinder, and the Blue Nile. The interest attached to these portions of Africa differs entirely from that of the White Nile regions, as the whole of Upper Egypt and Abyssinia is capable of development, and is inhabited by races having some degree of civilization; while Central Africa is peopled by a race of savages, whose future is more problematical.

THE ALBERT N'YANZA Great Basin of the Nile, and Exploration of the Nile Sources. New and cheaper Edition, with Portraits, Maps, and Illustrations. Two vols. crown 8vo. 16s. "Bruce won the source of the Blue Nile; Speke and Grant won the Victoria source of the great White Nile; and I have been permitted to succeed in completing the Nile Sources by the discovery of the great reservoir of the equatorial waters, the Albert N'yanza, from which the river issues as the entire White Nile."-PREFACE.

NEW AND CHEAP EDITION OF THE ALBERT N'YANZA. I vol. crown 8vo. With Maps and Illustrations. 7s. 6d.

A

Baker (Sir Samuel W.) (continued)—

CAST UP BY THE SEA; or, The Adventures of NED Grey. By SIR SAMUEL W. BAKER, M.A., F.R.G.S. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth gilt, 7s. 6d.

6

A story of adventure by sea and land in the good old style. It appears to us to be the best book of the kind since Masterman Ready,' and it runs that established favourite very close.”—PALL MALl Gazette.

"No book written for boys has for a long time created so much interest, or been so successful. Every parent ought to provide his boy with a copy.” DAILY TELEGRAPH.

Barker (Lady).—STATION LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND. By LADY BArker. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.

"These letters are the exact account of a lady's experience of the brighter and less practical side of colonization. They record the expeditions, adventures, and emergencies diversifying the daily life of the wife of a New Zealand sheep-farmer; and, as each was written while the novelty and excitement of the scenes it describes were fresh upon her, they may succeed in giving here in England an adequate impression of the delight and freedom of an existence so far removed from our own highly-wrought civilization."-PREFACE.

Baxter (R. Dudley, M.A.).-THE TAXATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. By R. DUDLEY BAXTER, M. A. 8vo. cloth, 4s. 6d.

The First Part of this work, originally read before the Statistical Society of London, deals with the Amount of Taxation; the Second Part, which now constitutes the main portion of the work, is almost entirely new, and embraces the important questions of Rating, of the relative Taxation of Land, Personalty, and Industry, and of the direct effect of Taxes upon Prices. The author trusts that the body of facts here collected may be of permanent value as a record of the past progress and present condition of the population of the United Kingdom, independently of the transitory circumstances of its present Taxation.