Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/295

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
LITERARY NOTICES.
283

Economics of Mankind" we seem to hear the voice of a Pennsylvania official rather than the scientific master of economical principles. But, notwithstanding its faults, the work is original, helpful, and invigorating, and those who are concerned to note the drifts of modern inquiry will be sure to find it serviceable.

The Microscope and its Revelations. By William B. Carpenter, M. D., F. R. S. Sixth edition. Illustrated by Twenty-six Plates and Five Hundred Wood-Engravings. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston & Co. 1881. Pp. 882. Price, $5.50.

The admirers of the veteran physiologist Dr. William B. Carpenter will be gratified to learn that his surrender of the registrarship of the University of London, to which he had given nearly a quarter of a century of his life, was not the signal of retirement from scientific labor. On the contrary, liberation in one field has only led to greater activity in another. His elaborate work on the microscope has long been a standard for practical students, and has well kept up with microscopical improvement and progress. In preparing the fifth edition the pressure of official duties upon his time made it necessary to call in assistance in getting ready certain parts of the work. But, being recently more at liberty, he has rewritten those parts, and has devoted himself to the task of thoroughly revising and much extending the whole treatise in this sixth edition. We have spoken of former editions of the book in terms of strong commendation, and an examination of the present has only served to heighten our estimate of its excellence. It is encyclopedic in scope, and profusely and elegantly illustrated. The ease and clearness of Dr. Carpenter's style are well known, and no book that he has written better illustrates these qualities than "The Microscope." There is another feature of the work that adds greatly to its popular value—the large amount of interesting information in each department of natural history, which is made a subject of microscopical study. While 266 pages are devoted strictly to the construction, forms, properties, and manipulation of the instrument, more than 600 pages are given to its applications in the living world. This greatly enhances the interest of the work, and gives it a completeness possessed by no other microscopical manual. Every who has a microscope will need also Dr. Carpenter's book to get the most out of his instrument; and every one who has the book will be certain to want a microscope.


PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

The Mechanic's Slide Rule and how to use it. By Frederick T. Hodgson. New York Industrial Publication Co. 1881. Pp. 29. 25 cents.

The New Botany. A Lecture on the Best Method of Teaching. By W. J. Beal, Ph. D., Professor of Botany in the Agricultural College, Lansing, Michigan. Pp. 15.

The New Ethics. An Essay on the Moral Law of Use. By Frank Sewall. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1881. Pp. 61. 75 cents.

Quarterly Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics for the Three Months ended June 30, 1881. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 107.

Contributions to the Study of the Toxicology of Cardiac Depressants. I. Carbolic Acid. A Summary of Fifty-six Cases of Poisoning, with a Study of its Physiological Action. By Edward T. Reichert, M. D. Pp. 25.

Thirty-ninth Missouri University Catalogue, 1880-'81 Including Report to the Governor, Pp. 176.

Tertiary Lake Basin of Florissant, Colorado. By Samuel H. Scudder. Washington. 1881. Pp. 22. With Map.

Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club, Transactions No. 2. Ottawa, Canada. 1881. Pp. 44.

On some Mammalia of the Lowest Miocene Beds of New Mexico. By E. D. Cope. 1881. Pp. 12.

On the Origin of the Iron-Ores of the Marquette District, Lake Superior, pp. 10; and Ou the Age of the Copper-bearing Rocks of Lake Superior, pp. 2. By M. E. Wadsworth. Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Hessian Fly. Its Ravages. Habits, Enemies, and Means of preventing its Increase. By A. S. Packard, Jr. . M. D. Washington: Government Printing-Office. 1880. Pp. 43.

General Index and Supplement to the Nine Reports on the Insects of Missouri. By Professor C. V. Riley. Washington: Government Printing-Office. 1881. Pp. 177.

On the Conidæ of the Loan Fork Epoch, pp. 4: and Review of the Rodentia of the Miocene Period of North America, pp. 26. By E. D. Cope. Washington. 1881.

Osteology of Lanius Ludovicianvs Excubitorides, pp. 9; and Osteology of the North American Tetraonidæ, pp. 4. With Nine Plates. By Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, U. S. A. Washington. 1881.

The President's Report to the Board of Resents of the University of Michigan, for the Tear ending June 80, 1880. Ann Arbor. 1880. Pp. 76.

Annotated List of the Birds of Nevada. By W. J. Hoffman. M. D. Extracted from the Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey. Washington. 1881. Pp. 54. With Map.

Astronomical Papers. Vol. I. Part 5. On Gauss's Method of computing Secular Perturbations. Washington. 1881. Pp. 44.

"American Journal of Mathematics." Vol. III, No. 4. Cambridge: University Press. December, 1880.