Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/533

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LITERARY NOTICES.
517

otherwise classified, on which the statements contained in the tables are based. The condensed statements, arranged after a uniform manner, give at one view, in each table or succession of tables, the phenomena of all orders which each society presents—constitute an account of its morphology, its physiology, and (if a society having a known history) its development. On the other hand, the collected extracts, serving as authorities for the statements in the tables, are (or, rather, will be, when the work is complete) classified primarily according to the kinds of phenomena to which they refer, and secondarily according to the societies exhibiting these phenomena; so that each kind of phenomenon, as it is displayed in all societies, may be separately studied with convenience. The three divisions, each thus constituted, comprehend three groups of societies: 1. Uncivilized Societies; 2. Civilized Societies—Extinct or Decayed; 3. Civilized Societies—Recent or still Flourishing. Several sample tables have been sent us, and as a specimen of the classifactory headings under which the immense array of facts are grouped, we shall give those belonging to Table IX. of Division I. ("Uncivilized Races"), the Sandwich-Islanders, one of the Malayo-Polynesian Races. First are given their Inorganic Environment (Climate, Surface); Organic Environment (Vegetal, Animal); Sociological Environment (adjacent tribes), Physical, Emotional, and Intellectual Characters. Then follow the tables, divided into Structural and Functional, each of which is subdivided into Operative and Regulative. The Structural Operative is again subdivided into Operative and Regulative; the Structural Regulative is subdivided into Political (Civil [Domestic (Marital, Filial), Public], Military), Ecclesiastical, and Ceremonial (Mutilations, Funeral Rites, Laws of Intercourse, Habits, and Customs). Under Functional, the Regulative is subdivided into Sentiments (Æsthetic, Moral), Ideas (Superstitions, Knowledge), and Language; the Operative into Processes (Distribution, Exchange, Production, Arts, Rearing, etc.), and Products (Land - Works, Habitations, etc., Food, Clothing, Implements, Weapons, Æsthetic Products). Under each final subdivision ample details are given. The value of such a work to all students of sociology, and of mankind generally, will be inestimable.—Nature.

Introduction to Chemical Physics, designed fob the Use of Academies, High-Schools, and Colleges. By T. R. Pynchon, M. A., Professor of Chemistry and the Natural Sciences in Trinity College, Hartford. New York: D. Van Nostrand.

The principle of subdivision of labor, upon which our civilization rests, is nowhere more marked than in education. As knowledge extends, and greater thoroughness of study is demanded, science inevitably becomes specialized. A few years ago, two or three introductory chapters on the physics of the subject were prefixed to the treatises on chemistry: now an independent volume is required for the purpose. Miller's "Chemical Physics" is part of his encyclopaedic work upon chemical science; but Prof. Pynchon's book is a complete treatise upon the subject, independently presented. The author considers the intimate bearings of heat, light, and electricity, upon the production of chemical phenomena, and his exposition is so full that it not only meets the wants of the higher educational institutions, but will prove equally useful as a guide for manufacturers and practical men. We are glad to see that this work is well appreciated abroad. The London Mining Journal, in a very commendatory review, epitomizes its contents as follows: "The history of chemistry is briefly sketched, and reference is made to the fundamental principles of the science, to the apparatus used, to the constitution of some of the most important chemical compounds, to the chemical agents—heat, light, and electricity—and why they are called imponderables, and to other similar elementary matters, a knowledge of which is required for the more profitable study of the succeeding chapters. The chapter on the first chemical agent—heat—is as complete a treatise on the subject as is found in the best college text-books devoted to the subject, and, although concise, the style is by no means uninteresting; the diffusion of heat-expansion, liquefaction, ebullition, evaporation, specific heat, sources of heat, nature of heat, are each treated of, the explanations being rendered particularly clear by the ad-