Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/724

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

plete, for many chapters found in other copies are not contained in it. Of the translations, Dr. Samuel Birch's, made thirty years ago from the Turin papyrus, is literally correct, but nonsense. A more intelligible translation of it has been made by M. Pierret, and an exact and scholarly translation is in preparation by Dr. Le Page Renouf; while careful studies of it have been made by Lepsius, M. Edouard Naville, and M. Renouf. The translation of Mr. Davis is made, with that author's permission, from M. Pierret's version in Fi-ench, and is purposely rather exact than graceful; and it has been revised in the light of the additional knowledge that has been gained since Pierret's work was published, in 1882. Excellent and valuable preliminary chapters are given on The Mythology and Religion of Primitive Peoples; The Egyptian Pantheon, with illustrations of some of the more important deities; The Mythology of the Ancient Eygptians; and a historical and critical introduction to the book.

A Text-Book of Inorganic Chemistry. By G. S. Newth, F. I. C, F. C. S. London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 667.

The periodic classification has been taken as the basis for the arrangement of the matter in this fully detailed treatise. Definitions and principles are placed in the fore part of the book, but the student without a teacher (suggestions to teachers being delicately withheld) is advised to study only four of the fifteen chapters of such material before taking up the descriptions of the four typical elements—hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon—and their compounds, which constitute the second division of the work. The other elements are taken up by subdivisions of the periodic system, beginning with "Group VII, family B," and ending with the "transitional elements of the second and fourth long period." The four elements first named are taken up out of their order so as to bring well forward such subjects as water, the atmosphere, and combustion, to which the student should be introduced ^t an early stage. Only general descriptions of the rare elements and their compounds are given, and technological details of metallurgical processes are dispensed with. While the performance of experiments by the student is strongly urged, another book by the same author is referred to for the necessary directions.

Radiant Suns. A Sequel to Sun, Moon, and Stars. By Agnes Giberne, with a Preface by Mrs. Huggins. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 328. Price, $1.75.

In this work the author has tried to avoid treading in the same grooves, and to make a book entirely supplementary to Sun Moon, and Stars, in which subjects which could there be merely glanced at should be entered more closely into, and difficulties explained which could not there be dealt with, and which should give a large amount of fresh information. The book falls into three divisions—a history of astronomy, in which short outlines are given of the lives of the greater astronomers of the past; a discussion of spectrum analysis, what it means and what it teaches; and a view of the stellar universe as it is now known, with references to some great theories which may in future gradually take their places as proved truths. Mrs. Huggins finds value in this book and its predecessor, not only in their describing well the facts of astronomy, but also in their appealing constantly and wisely to the imagination in a way that can not fail to give mental training to their readers. "Indeed," she says, "there are few pages in the present work in which, beyond the scientific information directly given, there is not also enforced indirectly some lesson of high practical value."

The Life of Richard Owen. By his Grandson, the Rev. Richard Owen, M. A. Also an Essay on Owen's Position in the History of Anatomical Science, by the Right Hon. T. H. Huxley, F. R. S. With Portraits and Illustrations. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Two Volumes. Price, $7.50.

A life extending over all but the first four and last eight years of the present century, and devoted to biology in connection with several of the leading scientific institutions of Great Britain, could not fail to have strong features of interest. When sixteen years of age Richard Owen was apprenticed to a "surgeon and apothecary." Later he attended lectures at Edinburgh, whence he went to London and studied under Aber-