Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/871

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LITERARY NOTICES.
851

omits and partly to what it takes in. The author says in his preface: "Most of the ground has, I am aware, been already covered, especially as regards so-called surgical anatomy. But the entire range of anatomy has not hitherto, I think, been treated from the point of view of the senior student, who, having quitted the dissecting-room, is in need of a volume which shall supply him with such anatomical information, free of wearying detail, as is essential for his successful and intelligent work in the medical and surgical wards and in the special departments of his hospital." He also says: "Having always found it impracticable to draw a hard-and-fast line between facts which bear upon the science of medicine and those which chiefly concern the practical surgeon, I, a surgeon, have presumed in this Manual boldly to trespass upon the domains of the physician, as well as of the specialist." This fact makes the book better calculated to be of use to American students than it otherwise would be, for the medical profession and the public in this country have likewise found it "impracticable to draw a hard-and-fast line" between physicians and surgeons such as exists in England. Accordingly, there is less minute description of parts than in manuals for the dissecting-room, while malformations and disorders, and the operations which these call for, are described more fully than is usual except in the most complete treatises. The style of the book is clear and concise, the text is liberally illustrated, and the mechanical work of the volume is excellent.

Heat as a Form of Energy. By Prof. Robert H. Thurston. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 261. Price, $1.25.

Prof. Thurston has produced a book for the general reader rather than a text-book for the student. It traces the development of the science of heat from the speculations of the ancient philosophers down to the results of the latest experiments. After stating the ideas of the philosophers in regard to heat, the author gives an outline of the modern science of thermodynamics. In the next chapter he shows how the transfer of heat in various ways is an essential feature in many of the world's important industries, and in many great operations of nature. Most of the latter half of the volume is devoted to the development of heat-engines—machines for transforming heat into mechanical energy. The author is evidently in a favorite field when describing the development of the steam-engine, for he devotes considerable space to this topic, and illustrates the account with pictures of several successive forms of engines. The book is the third of the Riverside Science Series.

The explorations by the United States Fish Commission steamer Albatross during the year 1889 covered a considerable extent of mainland and inland coast waters from California south of Point Conception to Washington. The new discoveries of fishes along the shores of California, Oregon, and Washington were almost wholly from greater depths than fifty fathoms. Of the sixty species of fishes obtained from the Revillagigedos Islands, only about a dozen had been previously recorded there; not more than half were yet known from the mainland; and the other half included new forms and shapes from the islands of the western Pacific and from the Galapagos. The collections from the Gulf of California were obtained mainly along the shores and in the shallower waters of its northern portion. The deeper waters of the Gulf have a bottom of blue mud singularly barren of life. The Preliminary Report of Mr. Charles H. Gilbert on the fishes collected by the steamer contains descriptions of ninety-two species—all new. The New Fishes collected off the Coast of Alaska and the Adjacent Region to the Southward is the subject of a paper by Mr. Tarleton H. Bean. Eight of the genera are among the common forms of the Atlantic, and four of them are apparently new to science. Other papers to which the scientific results of the explorations of the Albatross have given rise are a Catalogue of Fishes collected at Port Castine, St. Lucia, by David Starr Jordan, and a Catalogue of Skeletons of Birds collected at points along the South American coast, by Frederic A. Lucas. All are published by the United States National Museum.

A description of Etheostoma tippecanoe, a New Species of Fish from Tippecanoe River, Indiana, is described by David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren Evermann, and figured