A HANDY CYCLOPEDIA.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14278, 19 August 1910, Page 2

A HANDY CYCLOPEDIA.

American publishers have turned out a good many books of cyclopedic character because they found that there is a ready market for books to which reference can be made for just the little bit of information that may serve in an emergency. The English ''.Enquire Within upon Everything" of fifty years ago may have been the examine" that has; been followed, and improved upon, on the other side of the Atlantic. Home of the compilations are generally or specifically technical, some of them deal with commerce and trade, and so on. The book most like the English prototype above-mentioned, that we have seen, is "Scammell's Cyclopedia, of Valuable Receipts,'' which is now being sold in Timaru. It follows the example in its wide comprehensiveness and simplicity of language, and these two characters make it a book for the million; but the idea lias been developed, and the descendant has immensely outgrown its ancestor, ''ScamniellV being a volume oi" 1200 pages, profusely illustrated. It is. as the preface says, a compilation : the compiler had no fads to ail". he , selected his material wherever he could find it. in earlier publications, scientific, books and papers, etc. Some of the material is therefore old, some new; to the best of his knowledge and belief, and in trust in his sources, it is all good, whether old or new. One section, that dealing with the diseases of farm stock, has been commended by a New Zealand veterinarian, and as this section is a critical sample, that opinion is calculated to give one confidence in the rest of the work. It deals with the chemistry of the home, the culinary arts and furnishing, the preservation 'of health and comeliness; with farm interests of all kinds, garden and orchard, even with fish culture; with mechanical'arts and trades, its forty pages on building construction appear to be done with very great care, and directions are well illustrated: then there comes a chapter on pastimes, from parlour games and dancing to yachtuig; and finullv e j lor a little book of sundry receipts collected too late, it is to be supposed to be put in their class places in the body or the book, and now are to be sought by the alphabetic initial of their subject title. Of course a good deal or the material is specially American hot many of the '.'Yankee notions'' found useful ,„ Iw Zealand. ''Scim mel's ' has bad a big ra ] a j„ the j& ™ Island, and a, leaflet of favourable opinions Iron, people who havefo id it S';/?htbo*,>, stl ' Ollg ~i!