Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/439

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LITERARY NOTICES.
425

to be helpful, then joins her, contributing at the rate of $350 a year to the expenses of the household, and the next quarter's account shows a balance of $63, which is increased to $139 for six months. The story is not a visionary one. The author states that it is "an actual portrayal, step by step, of her own experience, her own wonderful success in carrying out a long-cherished theory of comfortable economy. The every-day life described is not a poetically imagined affair, but one that she has absolutely lived and gloried in."

A second edition of the Chemical Lecture Notes of Prof. C. O. Curtman has been issued, and now includes notes on the metals. The volume is edited and published by Prof. H. M. Whelpley (St. Louis, $1.50), who has extended some of the lecturer's memoranda, and supplied a hundred cuts. Most of the cuts are in the division of chemical physics, which occupies about one third of the book. The chemistry proper is a course in general chemistry, and, although arranged for students in pharmacy and medicine, is quite full, more so than is generally given to these classes of students. Prof. Curtman's notes on organic chemistry are not included in this volume.

Mr. W. H. P. Phyfe, author of "How should I pronounce?" has now issued The School Pronouncer, based on Webster's unabridged dictionary (Putnam, $1.25). Mastering the 366 pages of this little text-book implies an amount of phonetic drill which should give the pupil a better command of English pronunciation than the average person generally has. The book is divided into three parts, in the first of which the sounds of the English language and the diacritical marks used to represent them are set forth, and extended exercises are given on the two hundred and thirty symbols, consisting of one or more letters, by which these sounds are represented in English spelling; also on the various ways, ranging from two to eighteen, of representing each one of the simple sounds. The lessons in this part are in catechetic form. The author enumerates forty-two sounds in the language, but the distinctions which he makes between e in ermine and u in urge, and between o in odd and o in dog, will be regarded by many as useless refinements. The second part comprises drills on the elementary sounds, and seventy-seven graded lists of twenty words each for phonetic analysis. Part third consists of twenty-four hundred words often mispronounced, arranged alphabetically, each word, both here and in part second, being respelled phonetically. Many names of persons and places are included in this list. Two appendixes treat of diacritics met with in other books, and eight sounds found in French and German words, but not in English. The volume is printed with large and clear type throughout, and there is no crowding of matter on its pages.

H. C. G. Brandt's First Book in German (Alleyn & Bacon, Boston, $1) is a selection from the same author's "Grammar," containing Part I, or the accidence and syntax, with new indexes, and Lodeman's exercises and the complete English vocabulary. These portions of the larger work have been put together for use in secondary schools, in place of some of the short grammars. The distinguishing feature of the part of the grammar here presented is the complete separation of inflection and syntax. The exercises for translating into German, by Prof. A. Lodeman, are intended for the double purpose of furnishing material for translation and of assisting in the analysis and translation of the more difficult illustrations in the "Grammar." They are framed upon the theory that examples from the German classics are the proper kind of illustrations for a text-book of this order.


PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

"American Chemical Society, Journal." Monthly. New York: John Polhemus. Pp. 24. $5 a year.

American Institute of Architects. Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Convention, 1885. Pp. 124.

Besant, Walter. The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies, with a Portrait. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 854. $2.

Brinton, Daniel G., Media, Pa. The Language of Paleolithic Man. Pp. 16.

Cheritree, Olive E., Catskill, N. Y. Evolution. Pp. 32.

Chester, John, M. D, D. D. Ruth, the Christian Scientist. Boston: H. U. Carter & Karrick. Pp. 343.

Clarke, J. M., State Hall, Albany, N. Y. Report on Bones of Mastodon or Elephas, found in Association with Human Relics in Attica, N. Y. Pp. 8.

Comstock. John Henry, Ithaca, N. Y. An Introduction to Entomology. Part I. Pp. 234. $2.

Cowles Electric Furnace Company, Lockport, N. Y. The Alloys of Aluminum and Silicon. Pp. 69.