Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/140

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132
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

be thought of. The problem was solved by making thorough examinations of single mounds and single groups, selecting such as were most typical, over the whole area; so that, by a careful examination of these typical structures in the various districts, the end, it was thought, might be secured of collecting the data necessary to an understanding of the more general and more important problems relating to the mounds and the mound-builders. The exhaustive examination of many single groups and the study of local problems are left to the future. Accurate and full descriptions and measurements are given of all the mounds and groups examined. The collections made include pottery of most of the known varieties, and some that are new, showing most of the known types of textile impressions and some that are unusual; polished and pecked celts from mounds; stone pipes, which so supplement others that the whole evolution of forms may be traced from the earliest known; copper articles, including two new types, "decidedly the most important yet discovered"; engraved shells; specimens of textile fabrics and mattings; and chipped flint implements, stone axes, discoidal stones, gorget, etc. (Published at the Government Printing Office, Washington.)

In the preparation of his Elements of Mechanical Drawing the author, Gardner C. Anthony,has aimed, as in the other numbers of his Technical Drawing Series, to provide a text-book rather than a copybook, a treatise in which principles should be established and methods suggested, but freedom permitted in their application. It is intended that the student should first thoroughly master the principles, and then, unaided, apply them to the solution of the problems, receiving such instruction as his special case may demand. The system has been successfully applied by the author and others in teaching various classes. The present work concerns geometrical problems, conic sections, projection, the development of surfaces, the intersection of surfaces, screw threads and bolt heads, bolts, and isometric and oblique projection. (Published by D. C. Heath & Co., Boston. Price, $1.50.)

In The Natural History of Hell, a discussion of some of the relations of the Christian plan of salvation to modern science, including a chapter on miracles and a scientific examination of the theory of endless punishment, John Phillipson undertakes a scientific demonstration of the natural necessity of endless punishment for wrongdoing, inevitable unless arrested by some agency outside of Nature. The argument is based upon the conception of the never-ending endurance and transmission of the picture and the consequences of every action. Under this view there is a necessity for some plan of salvation outside of natural law. Here science stops. (Published by the Industrial Publication Company, New York. Price, 25 cents.)

Expositions of Buddhism have come to us in two works. Of The Gospel of Buddha, according to the old records, by Dr. Paul Carus (Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago), the bulk of the contents is derived from the old Buddhist canon. Many passages, including the most important ones, are literally copied from translations of the original texts, rendered rather freely in some cases to make them intelligible to the present generation; others have been rearranged; and still others are abbreviated. The few original additions embody ideas for which prototypes may be found somewhere among the traditions of Buddhism, and are given as elucidations of the main principles of the doctrine. For those who want to trace the Buddhism of the book to its foundation a table of references is appended, directing to the sources of the various chapters and pointing out parallelisms with western thought.

A Buddhist Catechism (G. P. Putnam's Sons) is an introduction to the teachings of the Buddha Gotamo, compiled from the holy writings of the southern Buddhists, with explanatory notes for the use of Europeans, by Subhadra Bhikshu. It is a concise representation of Buddhism, according to the Ceylonese Pali manuscripts of the Tipitakam, which are regarded as the oldest and most authentic sources. It contains the fundamental outlines of the doctrine, with the omission of the legendary, mystic, and occult accessories with which Buddha's teachings have been adorned or encumbered in the course of centuries.

The third part of the Elementary Treatise on Theoretical Mechanics of Alexander Ziwet (Macmillan & Co., $2.25) is on kinetics. About half of the volume is devoted to the