Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/521

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LITERARY NOTICES.
505

Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for the Year 1876. Government Printing-Office, Washington. Pp. 488.

In addition to the report of the secretary, on the operations, expenditures, and conditions of the Institution, this volume contains the following elaborate and important papers. "Eulogy on Gay-Lussac," by M. Arago; "Biographical Sketch of Dom Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil," by Anpriso Fialho; "Kinetic Theories of Gravitation," by Wm. B. Taylor; "The Revolutions of the Crust of the Earth," by Prof. George Pilar; "Ethnology," by Otis T. Mason.

The Religious Feeling, a Study for Faith. By Newman Smyth. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. Pp. 171. Price, $1.25.

This is an earnest, and intended to be a philosophic and liberal, discussion of the modern problems of religious thought in relation to science, positivism, and Darwinian and Spencerian doctrines. It is too brief to have finished up the inquiry; but its issue is thus stated by the author: "The problem of problems, upon which the thought of our time labors, may be reduced in the last analysis to the simple alternative: is man, through whatever intermediate forms he may have descended, the son of God, or is he the unintended product of molecular forces?" It is hardly necessary to say that the writer accepts the former alternative, and vigorously belabors the school of thinkers which he charges with holding the latter opinion.

Sanitary Condition of City and Country Houses. By G. E. Waring, Jr. Pp. 145. Magnetism of Iron Vessels. By F. Rogers. New York: Van Nostrand. Pp. 126. Price, 50 cents each.

The first of these little volumes contains two papers read by Mr. Waring at meetings of the American Health Association, together with the rather voluminous correspondence occasioned by their publication in the American Architect. In this correspondence some of the author's facts and conclusions are criticised by other sanitarians. Mr. Waring's replies to these strictures form a very valuable appendix to the original papers. Of the other volume named above, we need only say that it was originally prepared for a manual designed to be published by the Navy Department. The publication of the manual having been abandoned, the treatise was incorporated into Van Nostrand's "Science Series."

How to use the Microscope. By John Phin. New York: Industrial Publication Co. Pp. 181. Price, 75 cents.

Two years ago we noticed the first edition of this little manual for beginners with the microscope, and now we have to record the appearance of a second edition, fully illustrated and greatly enlarged. Its essential character as an elementary treatise is, however, still rigidly preserved.

Anales del Museo Nacional de México. México: Imprenta de C. Ramiro. Vol. I., Part I. Pp. 40. . With Plate.

This initial number of the "Anales" is devoted mainly to Mexican archæology. The principal paper is a description, by Don Manual Orozco y Berra, of a curious cylindrical monument of stone, the Cuauhxicalli of Tizoc, supposed to be a sacrificial stone employed in human sacrifices. This monument is elaborately engraved with human figures. The second paper is by Dr. G. Mendoza, and describes an Aztec idol of Chinese type, found in a tumulus in the State of Puebla. The third and last paper is a general introduction to the "Paleontology of Mexico," by Mariano Báreena.


PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Why we Trade and How we Trade, pp. 67; The Silver Question, pp. 47, both by D. A. Wells; The Tariff Question by H. White, pp. 30. New York: Putnam's Sons. 26 cents each.

Rotation of the Earth. By W. L. Walker. New York: S. W. Green. Pp. 64.

The Kabbala, or True Science of Light. By Dr. S. Pancoast. Philadelphia: J. M. Stoddart & Co. Pp. 312. $2.

Transcendentalism. By J. Cook. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. Pp. 305. $1.50.

Manual of Heating and Ventilation. By F. Schumann, C. E. New York: Van Nostrand. Pp. 89. $1.50.

Daily Bulletin of the Signal Service, United States Army, for September, 1874.

What was He? or, Jesus in the Light of the Nineteenth Century. By W. Denton. Wellesley, Mass.: The author. Pp. 259. Paper, $1: cloth, $1.25.

The Spiritual Aspect Nature presents. By J. Wilmshurst. Boston: Colby & Rich. Pp. 151. 35 cents.

The Silver Country of the Southwest. By A.