Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/732

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

have been made to it, along with matter that has become obsolete, some subjects appertaining to domestic hygiene have been omitted, or rather transferred to a supplementary work. After the definitions and the historical introduction, the subject is considered under the general headings of "Food"; "Air, its Impurities, and their Effects on Public Health"; "Ventilation and Warming"; "Water"; "Water Analysis"; "Impure Water, and its Effects on Public Health"; "Dwellings"; "Hospitals"; "Removal of Sewage"; "Purification and Utilization of Sewage"; "Soils and Localities—their Influence on Public Health"; "Infectious Diseases—their Mode of Propagation and Prevention"; "Disinfectants and Disinfection"; "Vital Statistics"; and the "Duties of Medical Officers of Health." In addition to what was contained in former editions, there have been given in the section on the examination of food, brief descriptions of diseases which render the flesh of animals unfit to be eaten; new matter on water analysis and the analysis of sewage and effluents; the chapter on soils and localities and their influence on health is new; the chapter on infectious diseases has been remodeled; and subjects relating to disinfection are treated more fully.

The Student's Hand-Cook of Historical Geology. By A. J. Jukes-Browne. London: George Bell and Sons; New York: Scribner & Welford. Pp. 597.

Dr. Jukes-Browne, having already published a volume on physical and structural geology, the present treatise, on paleonto logical and historical geology, is given to complete the student's curriculum. It preeminently concerns British geology, and is intended to present the history of the rocks of the British Islands, while Continental geology is drawn upon, in a supplementary way, only so much as is necessary to fill up the gaps in the British records and complete the outline of the history. Prominence has been given to such stratigraphical facts as throw light on the physical and geographical conditions under which each group or system of rocks has been accumulated; but in this department, where so much room is left for the imagination to work and there is so much temptation to give it freedom, the author has endeavored to confine himself to such inferences as might reasonably be deduced from a study of the facts. Illustrations are given representing typical fossils and sections of country, and they are clearly engraved.

The Buchholz Family. By Julius Stinde. Translated by Dora Schmitz. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 262.

This series of "Sketches of Berlin Life" is one of the most popular and one of the most amusing books ever published in Germany; a fact which is partly indicated by the mention in the title-page that the translation is made from the forty-ninth edition of the German original, while the story is only two years old. The heroine, Frau Buchholz, tells her own story of the troubles she got into by her intermeddling and jealousy, revealing in every incident how that she is the blunderer and to blame for all that is disagreeable, yet always totally unconscious that her conduct has not been marked by strict propriety and perfect tact. As a picture of German middle-class vanity and the weaknesses that attend it, the story has rarely been excelled; yet it is all told in perfect good-humor, with the most evident fidelity to nature, without exaggeration or malice. The translation is usually done with grace and spirit.

A Manual of Lithology. By Edward H. Williams, Jr. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Pp. 135. Price, $1.25.

The author is Professor of Mining Engineering and Geology in Lehigh University. In the classes, after thorough grounding in crystallography and mineralogy, the student begins the study of rock-formation. The theory and definitions are first acquired, and afterward a practical knowledge of the rocks is obtained by the examination of specimens. The object being to enable the student to classify at sight the more common species, only the macroscopic peculiarities are given. Mr. Williams has sought in this manual to combine a thorough knowledge of the elementary portion of the subject, with a brief account of the principal rocks, and a ready method for their determination.