Jules Verne, in this chief of his works, has set himself to tell the story of all the most stirring adventure of which we have any written record-to give the history, "e;from the time of Hanno and Herodotus down to that of Livingstone and Stanley,"e; of those voyages of exploration and discovery which are among the most exciting episodes in the history of human enterprise. The wonderful journey of Marco Polo; the voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama; the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro; the old Arctic discoveries; the explorations of the Jesuit missionaries in North America-these exploits form a worthy subject for the most ambitious work of such a writer; and when he brings to the treatment of such material all the dash and vivid picluresqueness of his own creations, it may be imagined that he makes a book worth reading.