Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/723

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
LITERARY NOTICES.
705

mented by administrative reports from the heads of divisions, which give further details concerning the work of the year. The following papers also accompany the director's report: Quaternary History of Mono Valley, California, by Israel C. Russell; Geology of the Lassen Peak District, by J. S. Diller; The Fossil Butterflies of Florissant, by Samuel H. Scudder; The Trenton Limestone as a Source of Petroleum and Inflammable Gas in Ohio and Indiana, by Edward Orton; The Geographical Distribution of Fossil Plants, by Lester F. Ward; Summary of the Geology of the Quicksilver Deposits of the Pacific Slope, by George F. Becker; and The Geology of the Island of Mount Desert, Maine, by Nathaniel S. Shaler.

Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science. Eighth Series. Edited by Herbert B. Adams. Baltimore. Published monthly.

The first subject treated this year in these studies was The Beginnings of American Nationality, by Albion W. Small, of which Chapters I, II, and most of III are given, forming a double number. (Price, one dollar.) The scope of this inquiry comprises the constitutional relations between the Continental Congress and the colonies and States from 1774 to 1789. Chapter II tells the composition and organization, and the acts of the Congress of 1774, and the corresponding acts of the colonies; while Chapter III gives a similar history of the Congress of 1775. A ten-page paper on The Needs of Self-supporting Women, by Miss Clare de Graffenreid, is included in the same pamphlet.

Part III of the current series contains an essay on Local Government in Wisconsin, by David E. Spencer, together with a sketch of The Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, by Lewis H. Steiner. (Price, twentyfive cents.)

Spanish Colonization in the Southwest is treated in Part IV, by Frank W. Blackmar. (Price, fifty cents.) This is an account of the efforts of Spain, by military, religious, and civil means, to colonize and secure control of California and the territory north of Mexico. It embraces a sketch of the celebrated mission system employed to Christianize the Indians of Upper California.

A double number is devoted to The Study of History in Germany and France, by Paul Fréeéricq, being translations by Miss Henrietta Leonard of two papers by Prof. Frédéricq, of Ghent. (Price, one dollar.) In these papers the methods of the professors, the cources that they prescribe, and even their personal appearance and the habits of the students, are given in detail, and in a familiar and often amusing style. At one of the lectures in the University of Berlin, Prof. Frédéricq saw a listener using an eartrumpet, and he tells us all about the queer contrivance in a foot-note. Among the masters of historical teaching whom he heard lecture in Germany were Treitschke, Droysen, Curtius, Pauli, Waitz, and Von Sybel. He also called upon Von Ranke, who no longer lectured. In Paris he heard MM. Alfred Maury, Paul Meyer, Victor Duruy, Monod, and Lavisse. In the same pamphlet with these papers is included a sketch of Early Presbyterianism in Maryland, by Rev. J. William McIlvain.

National Health. Abridged from The Health of Nations. A Review of the Works of Sir Edwin Chadwick, K.C. R By Benjamin Ward Richardson, M. D., F. R. S. London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 1890. Pp. 320. Price, $1.50.

The demand for an inexpensive form of Sir Edwin Chadwick's writings led to the preparation of this volume. Selections have been made from the subject-matter of Health of Nations, omitting explanatory paragraphs, chapters relating to police regulation, poorlaw administration, and historical accounts of sanitary effort. The essays have been rearranged and well classified in four parts: health in the dwelling-house; health in the school; health in the community; and health in the future. Under the first head the construction and economy of sanitary dwellings is considered, and the best mode of drainage, ventilation, warming, and securing freedom from dampness. The value of soft water is urged, and roof-gardens are recommended for crowded districts. The benefit of healthful homes is shown in the establishment of improved dwellings for working people in London, where the death-rate has been reduced in some localities from forty-two to eighteen per thousand.

The half-time system in education, which