Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel: Central Amerka, the West
Indies, and South America. Edited by H. W. Bates. (E. Stanford.)—This volume, like that dealing with Africa, which we noticed some months ago, is based upon Hellwald's "Die' Erde mid Ihke
Volker." The task of "editing and extending has been eutrueted to a geographer who is probably as well qualified for the task as any that %mid be named. It is hardly possible indeed for one man to be per- sonally acquainted with the whole of so vast a region, but Mr. Bates certainly knows what is, perhaps, the most important part of it, the great river system of the Amazon, and it may be, more besides. We cannot help feeling that what is called "useful information" pre- dominate(' over more attractive matter. The absolutely necessary things which have to be said about a whole quarter of the globe leave little space to be otherwise expended, even in a volume of between five and six hundred pages. Still the difficult task of compression and re- trenchment has been, on the whole, well managed. Mr. Bates is not very'hopeful about the Central-American States, and those which occupy the north of the southern continent. About Chili he is more sanguine, as also about BraziL
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