Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 24.djvu/432

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

we find it will not do to establish the maxim as obligatory, but that it must be made very often to yield in favor of euphony or considerations of grace in style. One of the most commendable features in the present edition is its complete and excellently arranged index.

Das Studium der Staatswissenschaften in Amerika (The Study of the Political Sciences in America). By Dr. E. J. James. Jena: Gustav Fischer. Pp. 26.

The substance of this publication was originally contributed by the author, a professor in the University of Pennsylvania, to the "Jahrbücher fur Nationalökonomie und Statistik." It comprises a clear review of the present condition of the teaching of political economy and other branches relating to public polity and administration in the colleges of the United States, with specific notices of the courses in those institutions in which more particular attention is given to it.

Twelfth Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. By F. V. Hayden. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Part I. Pp. 809, with 154 Plates. Part II. Pp. 503, with 80 Plates and 17 Maps.

These volumes and the accompanying portfolio constitute the final report of the Hayden Survey, and cover the work done in 1878 and until the close of the existence of the survey, June 30, 1879. The first part includes the reports of Dr. C. A. White on Geology and Paleontology, and of Professor A. S. Packard, Jr., and R. W. Schufeldt on Zoölogy. The second part relates to the Yellowstone National Park, and comprises the "Geology" of that region, by W. H. Holmes; "The Thermal Springs," by Dr. A. C. Peale; and the "Topography," by Henry Gannett, E. M.

Sea-Sickness: Its Cause, Nature, and Prevention without Medicine or Change in Diet. By William H. Hudson. Boston: S. E. Cassino. Pp. 147. Price, $1.25.

Sea-sickness is regarded in this treatise as the result of offenses against gravity, aggravated by attempts to resist them. The irregular motions of the ship are constantly displacing the center and the direction of gravity of the body and its parts, while the muscular efforts made to counteract those efforts produce other shocks. Consequently, the system becomes thoroughly disorganized. The remedy recommended is to submit to the conditions. Secure a complete relaxation of the muscles, and there will be, it is asserted, no trouble.

Cumulative Method for learning German. By Adolphe Dreyspring. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 253. $1.50.

The theory on which Mr. Dreyspring has worked is that of repetition. His aim is to teach the student German by the same kind of process as that by which a native learns it, and so to drill him that he shall know when a phrase is formed aright, not by having to go through the painful process of a grammatical analysis, but simply because it "sounds right." The method is then generally oral and conversational. The first stumbling-block the student in German has to meet is the "chaos," as the author well styles it, of genders. Mr. Dreyspring meets it by drilling the pupil in series of exercises on single words in connection with the articles and pronouns and some adjectives. By the time he has pronounced the word in a dozen or twenty recurrences with the adjectival terminations, er, e, or es, that may be appropriate to the so-called gender of the word marking as many adjectives, he will be very apt to have gained the power of detecting a wrong use at once by its sounding wrong. Drills governed by this idea are supplemented by exercises and reading-lessons, with a stock of words that is considered ample for the practical wants of every-day life and conversation; and when, the author believes, "by constant and ever-varying repetitions, these words are fully mastered, the student will possess a thorough knowledge of the practical framework of the language."

Questões Hygienicas (Hygienic Questions). By Dr. João Pires Farinha. Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Nacional. Pp. 54.

Dr. Farinha is physician to the houses of detention and correction in Rio de Janeiro. The pamphlet before us is a collec-