Popular Science Monthly/Volume 45/September 1894/Literary Notices
Factors in American Civilization. Popular Lectures and Discussions before the Brooklyn Ethical Association. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 417. Price, $2.
This volume, the third in the series issued by the Brooklyn Ethical Association, certainly does not fall below its predecessors in interest or the range of its topics. Five of the addresses relate to national life; two lectures are devoted respectively to commerce, the status of woman, and the labor question; while the subjects considered in the remaining three papers are sufficiently diverse—penal methods, charitable work, and the drink habit.
Beginning with the idea of the nation. Dr. De Garmo finds it to be the ultimate unit in civilization. We advance by helping each nation to unhampered development upon its own lines, not by breaking down national barriers. The discussion discloses that Mr. Spencer's idea of government is often misapprehended, especially when drawn from old editions of Social Statics. Our American civilization is, however, the product of numerous factors. The first of these in time, those furnished by Nature, are described by Rev. John Kimball, who agrees with Prof. Shaler that even the boundaries of the civil war may have been determined by the distribution of the Cretacean limestone.
What America owes to the Old World is epitomized by Mr. Palmer as everything except itself. From England we inherit our language, literature, trial by jury, and various institutions; from the Netherlands, our cherished ideas of religious tolerance, popular education, and the freedom of the press. The written ballot is due to the same source, the town meeting is (Germanic in its origin; while to Spain, France, and continental Europe we are indebted in other matters.
Dr. Janes shows what the military habit costs us, contrasts the warlike and industrial type, and leads us to question whether the cultivation of the militant spirit pays. Mr. Robert Taylor discourses upon the evolution of railways and illustrates the great progress made in transportation. To move the freight of the United States in 1892 would have required five times the working force of the world one thousand years ago. Foreign commerce is ably handled by Mr. Coombs, and is followed by the inevitable discussion between the advocates of free trade and protection.
An eloquent plea for the political equality of woman is made by Rev. Mr. Chadwick, who remarks that if the objections to woman suffrage could be shut up together by themselves they would dispose of each other. Interesting statistics and suggestions in regard to the economic position of woman are also given by Caroline B. Le Row. Those interested in charities will find a comprehensive paper on the subject by Dr. Warner. Elsewhere in the volume, in an essay upon labor, Mr. Sullivan demands justice instead of charity. From another standpoint Mr. Gilman deals very fairly with the labor question, and without "preaching profit-sharing as a panacea for industrial woes" still recommends it as an improvement upon the wages system. A review of penal methods and institutions is contributed by Mr. McKeen, and an investigation of the drink habit by Dr. Crothers. Finally, philosophizing upon history, Mr. Powell concludes the book.
The discussions following the lectures and the lists of collateral readings suggested contribute much to the value of the work.
The Yachts and Yachtsmen of America: A Standard Work of Reference. Henry A. Mott, Editor. New York: International Yacht Publishing Company. Vol. I. Pp. 692, with Eighty-nine Plates. Price, $15.
This sumptuous work is further defined on the title-page as A History of Yachting and of Yacht Clubs, as well as of the Various Yachts, with Biographies of the Founders and Members of the Different Clubs of the United States and Canada. Yachtsmen of all clubs have long desired to have a work for ready reference, which, besides reliable information relative to the yachts belonging to members of their respective clubs, would give facts relative to the yachts and yachtsmen of other clubs. The purpose of this book is to supply such information, and in addition to furnish portraits and biographical sketches of persons who have been and are prominently connected with yachting, and of those who have been instrumental in promoting the best interests of yachting, as well as illustrations of the various yachts, with descriptions of the same, their dimensions, capacities, and records. A history is given of each yacht club separately, with a statement of what has been done by its members in promoting the sport of yachting. In the first chapter the evolution of the yacht is described from the beginning with the first presumed attempt of the stone-age savage to propel himself upon a log, through the stages of the catamaran, the hollowed log, the dugout, the birch-bark canoe, the more elaborate canoes of the South Seas and the Indian Ocean, Egyptian, classical, and Viking ships, and the stages of modern shipbuilding to the elaboration of the pleasure boat or yacht of to-day. The history of yachting is next given. Leaving out the ships of Amnon in Jacob's time and the Argonauts' ship Argo, which were business vessels, the first yachts proper on record appear to have been those of Ptolemy Philopater of Egypt and Hiero King of Syracuse. After twelve of the broad quarto pages of the book on the history in general, twenty similar pages are devoted to yachting in the United States. Then follow chapters on the Cost of Yachting and Yacht Decorations; Type of Yacht; Centerboard; Rig of Yachts; Speed Records of Sailing Yachts; Trophies; History; Record of Races; descriptions of yachts and biographical sketches of members of the five leading Canadian yacht clubs, and similar information relative to thirty-eight yacht clubs in the United States. The volume contains more than six hundred photo-etchings of yachts and clubhouses, nearly two hundred half-tone vignettes of yachtsmen, more than forty full-page half-tone portraits of commodores, and a hundred full-page photogravures of yachts and clubhouses. A second volume is to contain a leading chapter relative to the introduction of steam on yachts and to various other motor powers; a history of the America's Cup; histories of such yacht clubs as do not appear in the first volume; and photogravures and descriptions of the vessels, cruisers, and war ships of the American Navy.
Natural Theology. By Prof. Sir G. G. Stokes. London: Adam and Charles Black. Pp. 272. Price, $1.50.
The second course of Gifford Lectures is contained in this volume, the first series of which was delivered and published in 1891.
According to the will of the founder, the subject was to be treated as a strictly natural science, without reference to or reliance upon any supposed exceptional or so-called miraculous revelation.
Prof. Stokes has made no attempt to fulfill this requisition, stating at the close of the course that the conception is hardly possible to carry out in the manner contemplated, and elsewhere that "any divorce between natural theology and revealed religion is to be deprecated." He justifies his deviation from the plan partly by an appeal to another clause in the foundation, suggesting that the lectures should be promoted and illustrated by different minds.
There are ten addresses in all, the first six giving what arguments are offered in favor of theism. The first topic is the theory of the luminiferous ether and the character of the proof for its credibility, a lesson being drawn from this not to reject what transcends sense experience and to provide a favorable reception for the supernatural. Secondly, it is argued, as the simple laws of motion did not account for inorganic phenomena, but to them were added various theories from time to time, such as gravitation and magnetism, so we are justified in assuming some hypothesis for the construction of living matter which physical laws do not fully explain: this is named the theory of directionism. If also this individual directing power be supposed, by whose influence the bodily molecules are brought together, we obtain some notion of survival after death, since it is not subject to physical dissolution.
The exquisite construction of the "bacillary layer" of the retina and the beauty of color and marking found in plants and animals are adduced as evidences of design, and the laws of chemical combination as testifying to some scheme of creation including the welfare of man. The "vast array of primordial atoms" as well as the beginning of life upon the earth demand the exertion of creative power; this, it is claimed, or even subsequent creative acts, are not in conflict with the process of evolution.
In the remaining lectures the author does not enter upon a comparative study of religions, but confines himself to the claims of Christianity.
Whatever may be said in favor of the theistic arguments contained in the first part of the book can scarcely be maintained in regard to these deductions, wherein it is urged that the Christian doctrine of the origin of man, his fall from a state of innocence, the dogma of the Trinity, and the indwelling of the Spirit "satisfy certain aspirations of natural theology."
The Dawn of Astronomy. By J. Norman Lockyer, F. R. S., etc. New York and London: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 432. Price, $5.
It would be impossible to determine whether the heavenly bodies aroused the greater wonder in the ancients, who could know but little of their real nature, or in us, who have learned something of their immense sizes, distances from the earth, and velocities of motion. That the ancients were profoundly impressed by them, and were attentive observers of their phenomena, is being made more and more evident by the advance of archæological research. While in Greece, some four years ago, Prof. Lockyer became interested in determining the orientation of some of the Athenian temples. He found reason to believe that these structures were oriented upon an astronomical basis, and, carrying the investigation back to the works of the ancient Egyptians, discovered the abundant evidence in support of his supposition which IS embodied in the handsome volume before us. The great temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak faces the sunset at the time of the summer solstice. A stone avenue stretches through the axis of the temple for five hundred yards, and throughout all the halls of the building nothing was allowed to obstruct the view through this avenue toward the point where the sim dropped below the horizon on the longest day of the year. Other temples elsewhere were oriented toward the same point. Still others appear to have been oriented with reference to stars. Ruins of old temples have been found and beside them a less ancient structure with an axis pointing in a somewhat different direction. Inasmuch as stars change their declinations about a degree in three hundred years, this circumstance of a changed axis in the new temple strongly supports the theory of stellar orientation. Many similar facts are given by Prof. Lockyer, and in connection with them he sets forth the astronomical basis of the Egyptian pantheon, describes the Egyptian calendar, and constructs, from the various monuments, inscriptions, and other available material, a chronicle of the succession of moon cult to sun cult, and of the mingling of these together and with various star cults, as successive waves of population inundated the valley of the Nile. The volume is copiously illustrated with views of temples and other monuments, figures of gods, diagrams, etc.
Sewage Disposal in the United States. By George W. Rafter, M. Am. Soc. C. E., and M. N. Baker, Ph. B. New York: D. Van Nostrand Co. Pp. 598. Price, $6.
This substantial volume embodies a comprehensive survey of the operations for the disposal of sewage that have been carried on in the United States. The conditions and needs governing sewage disposal in this country being somewhat different from those existing abroad, the authors believe that the information which they have gathered will be of peculiar benefit to American sanitary officials and engineers. The work is divided into two parts, the former of which is a discussion of principles, while the latter consists of descriptions of works. The practice of discharging sewage into fresh-water streams and lakes from which the water supplies of towns are taken has given rise to many of the most perplexing problems that sanitary engineers have had. to deal with. Accordingly, the pollution of streams by sewage and manufacturers' waste and the self-purification of streams thus polluted are among the earliest topics treated in this work, their legal as well as their scientific aspects being duly considered. The authors regard as not proved the assertion that polluted streams are rendered fit for drinking by natural agencies in the course of a few miles' flow. They see no objection to discharge into tide-waters or large lakes, and meet the argument as to waste of material by stating that the organic matter in sewage serves as food for low forms of animal life, which in turn sustain food fishes. The various modes of treating sewage—by chemical precipitation, broad irrigation, and intermittent filtration—are then described. Since rye grass, one of the species of useful plants that succeed best on sewage farms, does not cure easily, but may be readily preserved by ensilage, the silo beomes a valuable adjunct to the sewage works. In the portion of the volume devoted to descriptions of works, the establishments at more than twenty places are described with considerable detail and with figures, maps, and diagrams. There are also brief accounts of the use of sewage for irrigation at a number of places in the West. Various laws and codes of rules regulating the disposal of sewage in the United States and England are given in appendixes.
A Handbook of Gold Milling. By Henry Louis. London and New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 504. Price, $3.25.
But few arts remain that have not been brought under the sway of science, with the result of securing improved products, a reduction of waste, lessened drudgery for man and beast, or an increased return for the same amount of effort. The separation of gold from the rock and gravel in which it occurs was carried on by wasteful empiric methods so long as rich deposits were available, but now that lower-grade ores must be largely depended upon, a disposition to work in the light of exact knowledge is becoming manifest. The present volume is designed to aid in the technical instruction of gold millers. It gives no space to the separating operations connected with hydraulic mining, the stamp mill being its only theme. After some preliminary chapters on the occurrence of gold, the properties of gold and mercury, and the formation of amalgams, the processes and appliances for the several steps of the modern milling process are taken up in order. Rock breakers, mortar boxes, stamps, frames, guides, and their various accessories are described and are illustrated in views and detailed drawings. The processes of amalgamation, concentration, cleaning-up, and the cleaning, retorting, and melting of the amalgam are then discussed and the appliances required for them are set forth. Some information is given with regard to the cost of milling, labor, power, sampling, and assaying of ore, etc., and several useful tables together with an essay on the cam curve are contained in an appendix.
The Industries of Russia. Prepared by the Department of Trade and Manufactures, Ministry of Finance, for the World's Columbian Exposition. Editor of the English translation, John Martin Crawford, U. S. Consul General to Russia. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, American Agents. Five volumes. Price, $6.
The Russian Empire took an active part in the exhibition of 1893 at Chicago. Wishing to afford the American people a fuller idea of the industrial capabilities of Russia than the material exhibit of that country could convey, the Imperial Minister of Finance caused to be prepared this series of volumes which comprise sketches, by especially qualified writers, of the several chief industries of the empire. The first volume is devoted to manufactures and trade, and opens with a general view of this field by the distinguished chemist, Prof. D. I. Mendeléeff, who also contributes papers on the chemical industry and naphtha to this volume. Papers on the various textiles are furnished by N. P. Langovoy, professor in the St. Petersburg Technological Institute, and others on paper, leather, metals, glass, food products, tobacco, spirits, shipbuilding, etc., are contributed by other writers. Of a more general scope are the essays on the interior trade and fairs of Russia, the foreign trade, wages and working hours in factories, tariff systems, etc. The third volume, which is the largest of the five, containing over five hundred pages, is devoted to agriculture and forestry, the various features of these industries being treated by a large number of special writers. Mining and metallurgy are treated in a volume of a hundred pages by Mr. A. Keppen, mining engineer. The fifth volume is devoted to Siberia and the Great Siberian Railway, giving a description of the country and its resources, the history of its occupation by Russia, and an account of the preliminary work on the railway. The writers of all parts of these volumes have a special acquaintance with then-respective subjects through a connection with technical institutions or the Government service. Tables of statistics and many colored maps add to the value of the work.
Elementary Meteorology. By William Morris Davis. Boston: Ginn & Company. Pp. 365. Price, $2.10.
This treatise, which is the outcome of fifteen years of teaching and study in Harvard College may be used either as a textbook or for general reading. It opens with a consideration of the origin and uses of the atmosphere, with its extent and arrangement around the earth. As the winds arise from differences of temperature, the control of the temperature of the atmosphere by the sun is then discussed. The motions of the atmosphere and its varying quantities of moisture are next studied. After this we are led to the discussion of those more or less frequent disturbances which we place together under the name of storms. The closing chapters deal with the ordinary succession of atmospheric phenomena on which our local variations of weather depend, and the average conditions which, repeated year after year, we call climate. Some account is also g'ven of the methods employed in predicting the weather. The text is illustrated with maps, diagrams, and cuts of apparatus.
Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay. By F. H. Bradley, M. A., LL. D., Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. London: Swan, Sonnenschein & Co. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. xxiv568. Price, $1.76.
A decidedly ingenious volume, and, to employ a schoolboy term, brimful of "criscross" reasonings. Though few names are mentioned, nearly all the great thinkers come under the author's knife. In fact, as the author intimates, to read the work intelligently, one must have read and widely. It is rather favorable than otherwise to allege, of almost every page within the covers, that the i-eader will doubtless, here and there, discover himself uttering two ejaculations, viz. . How does the author know '? and. Well reasoned for so ingenious a query! Indeed, at every step we encounter a forest of questions in a field of doubt. At the very opening, the critic is not only disarmed, but Prof. Bradley comes to his own rescue with his own sword, for he "would rather keep" his "natural place as a learner among learners." Hence, "if anything in these pages suggests a more dogmatic frame of mind" he "would ask the reader not hastily to adopt that suggestion. I offer him," he says, "a set of opinions and ideas in part certainly wrong, but where and how much I am unable to tell him. That is for him to find out if he cares to, and if he can." The chief aim of the book is to supply "a skeptical study of First Principles." So, the student, with this in mind, proceeds to ask how can there be, as alleged (preface), any "positive function of the universe," when "outside of spirit there is not and there can not be any reality" (closing lines, page 562); yet withal, "spirit" is nowhere in the book defined, while things around us that are generally accepted as real are (page 12*7) no "more than mere appearance." These passages detached from the text might constitute a partial injustice were they not the main makes-up of the author's labors. While paradoxes in philosophy are in the aggregate not desirable, they sometimes serve a useful end, and, on the like plane, perplexities in logic may have a place for those who care to pursue the narrow and thorny path to their hiding. One thing, though not stated, is clearly enough perceptible in a perusal of Appearance and Reality: the universe is to each one according to his faculties, and even the earthworm has its world. Instead of taking to the ocean to reach the author's distant shore, he might have landed us in a nutshell across some surer though narrower channel. The work contains twenty-seven chapters, is divided into two books, and constitutes one in Series No. 3 of the Library of Philosophy.
In a lecture on The Status of the Mind Problem, Mr. Lester F. Ward, of Washington, predicates the dependence of mind and body while carefully avoiding the predication of their identity. Concerning the "mystery of mind," he offers the simple explanation that "the phenomena of mind stand in the same relation to the brain and nervous system that all other phenomena stand to the substances that produce them; in a word, that the mind is a property of the organized body." Mind is no more a mystery than matter, except that its phenomena being more complex, we possess as yet much less knowledge of them than we do of many of the simpler phenomena of Nature.
The Report of the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries for 1889 to 1891 contains, besides the summary of the work of the commission and its different stations, reports by Richard Rathbun of the Inquiry respecting Food Fishes and the Fishing Grounds, and by Hugh M. Smith regarding the Methods and Statistics of the Fisheries; and, in the Appendices, reports, by Z. L. Tanner, on the Investigations of the Steamer Albatross; by C. T. Townsend, on the Oyster Resources and Oyster Fishery of the Pacific Coast of the United States; and by C. H. Stevenson, on the Coast Fisheries of Texas; with papers on the Sparoid Fishes of America and Europe, by D. S. Jordan and Bertt Fisher; Fish Entozoa from Yellowstone Park, by Edward Linton; and Ernst Haeckel's Plankton Studies on the Importance and Constitution of the Pelagic Fauna and Flora (translated by G. W. Field).
A pamphlet by Mr. Alexis A. Julien, entitled Notes of Research on the New York Obelisk, contains, under the significant title of Misfortunes of an Obelisk, a history of the obelisk in Central Park from the time it was quarried at Syene till it was brought and erected in its present position; together with a Study of the New York Obelisk as a Decayed Bowlder. The author regards the obelisk as liable to rapid decay in our damp and variable climate, and his chief object appears to be to discover the best means of arresting its disintegration. He approves of the paraffin treatment that has been applied to it, but believes, and seeks to demonstrate, that it was originally gilded; and that if again covered with gold it will be restored to its first estate and be most effectually protected against further deterioration.
From Romeyn Hitchcock, Chicago, 111., we have of his contributions to the United States National Museum The Ainos of Yezo, Japan—one of the most satisfactory and valuable works on the subject that has appeared; The Ancient Pit Dwellers of Yezo, Japan; Shinto, or the Mythology of the Japanese; The Ancient Burial Mounds of Japan; and Some Ancient Relics in Japan.
The first paper, and the one occupying the most space, in the Archivos do Museo Nacional do Rio de Janeiro (Archives of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro), is by Dr. Emilio Augusto Goldi, On a Disease of the Coffee Tree in the State of Rio de Janeiro, which is produced by a nematoid worm, Meloidogne exigua. Dr. Fritz Müller describes the metamorphoses of Trichodactylus, a fresh-water crustacean, and furnishes besides papers on Janira exul, an isopod crustacean of the State of Santa Cattarina, and two shrimps—Atyoida potimirum and Palæmon potiuna; and Dr. Hermann von Shering contributes a description and anatomy of Peltella.
The Journal of Morphology, under the editorial conduct of Prof. C. O. Whitman and Mr. Edward Phelps Allis, Jr., continues to furnish the best results of the most careful researches in the branch to which it is devoted. No. 2 of Vol. VIII (May, 1893) contains the second part of Prof. J. S. Kingley's study of The Embryology of Limulus; The Habits and Development of the Newt, by Edwin O. Jordan; The Formation of the Medullary Groove in the Elasmobranchs, by William A. Lucy; Biological Changes in the Spleen of the Frog, by Alice L. Gaule; Histogenesis of the Retina in Amblystoma and Necturus, by F. Mall; and Homology of the Centrosome, by S. Watasé. All these articles are suitably illustrated in the plates.
No. 2 of Vol. I of the Contributions to the Botanical Laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania is devoted to a Botanical and Economic Study of Maize, by John W. Harshberger. The botanical account, under which are included gross anatomy, histology, bibliography, synonyms, and name, is followed by a discussion of the origin of maize, with evidences afforded by meteorology, botany, archæology, ethnology, philology, and history; after which its geographical distribution, chemistry, agriculture, physiology, utility, and future are considered.
The paper of Mr. William Trelease, of the Missouri Botanic Garden, St. Louis, on The Sugar Maples, with a Winter Synopsis of all North American Maples, is devoted, first, to the identification and description of the varieties which are known in different parts of the country as sugar maples; and, second, to a detailed botanical description of the winter appearance of the several species of maple '1 giving the characters of bark, color, etc., of twigs, buds, and other marks apparent in winter by which the species may be distinguished at that season. The leaves, seeding, and buds of several of the varieties are further illustrated in engravings.
The report of The Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology represents that during the absence of Curator Putnam as chief of the Department of Ethnology at the Chicago Exposition the work of the museum was continued without interruption. Much progress was made in the arrangement of collections in the new halls, one of which is devoted to the objects gathered by the several expeditions to Yucatan and Honduras during the past five years. The expedition of 1892-'93 was prematurely terminated on account of the death of its chief, Mr. Owens, and the placing of another expedition is delayed. A memoir on Indian Music, by Miss Fletcher, published as No. 5 of the museum papers, is the result of twelve years' study, and contains the words.and music of nearly one hundred songs of war, friendship, love, and ceremonial, with a scientific study of the structure of Indian music. The museum's exhibit at Chicago was of the most satisfactory character.
The Chemical Publishing Company, Easton. Pa., are publishing in monthly numbers, to be of 48 pages each. Principles and Practice of Agricultural Analysis, by Dr. H. W. Wiley. The work will be issued in two volumes, of which the first, in ten numbers, comprising nearly five hundred pages, will contain a description of the origin of soil and fertilizers, and the method of their examination; and the second will be devoted to the best approved methods of analyzing agricultural products. An attempt will be made to condense all the material into twenty-four numbers; but if this can not be done, a third volume will be published. The price of the work will be 25 cents a number. Publication began in January, 1894.
Naturæ Novitates—Natural History News—is the name of a semimonthly publication giving a bibliographical list of current literature of all nations in natural history and the exact sciences, published by R. Friedlander & Son, Berlin, N. W., Carlstrasse, 11, at 25 cents a number. All titles entered are numbered consecutively from 1 up.
A Laboratory Manual of 90 pages, consisting of a course of experiments in organic chemistry, by W. R Orndorff, assistant Professor of Chemistry at Cornell University (D. C. Heath & Co., 40 cents), is arranged to accompany Remsen's Organic Chemistry. It contains a commendatory preface by Remsen. Each experiment is followed by a series of questions and a blank sheet for notes.
Under the simple title Guide to the Study of Common Plants, Prof. Volney M. Spalding has published a thoroughly practical manual of laboratory study in botany (Heath, 85 cents). The author supports fully and freely the modern doctrine that a knowledge of things should be gained through studying the things themselves rather than what some one has written about them. The book is adapted to classes in high schools and similar institutions. The pupils are assumed to have parts of plants before them at every lesson, and the exercises consist of directions for examining this material so as to learn what it has to teach. Seven chapters are given to the several principal parts of flowering plants, after which the chief botanical families represented among common plants are studied in succession. Full directions for study, lists of material, apparatus, and reference books are given, and there is some practical counsel for student and for teacher.
The plan of the recently issued Treatise on Hydrostatics, by Prof. Alfred G. Greenhill, of Woolwich (Macmillan, $1.90), is to develop the subject from the outset by means of illustrations of existing problems. In this way the author hopes that the student will acquire a real working knowledge of the subject, while at the same time the book will prove useful to the practical engineer. Particular attention has been given to the applications of the subject in naval architecture. With regard to details it may be mentioned that the condensed notation of units proposed by M. Hospitalier at the International Congress of Electricians of 1891 has been employed, and in the mathematical processes a free use has been made of the symbols and operations of the calculus. In support of the latter policy the author quotes the saying that "it is easier to learn the differential calculus than to follow a demonstration which attempts to avoid its use." Pneumatics and hydraulics have been included as divisions of hydrostatics, and there is a chapter on the mechanical theory of heat.
Dr. Daniel G. Brinton has reprinted from the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society his account of Nagualism—a mystic cult that flourished in Mexico and Central America in the times of conquest and colonization (David McKay, Philadelphia, $1). The nagualists were of various tribes and languages, united in a powerful secret organization; they exercised necromantic powers and held occult doctrines. They were animated by an intense hatred of the Spanish explorers, and their one purpose was the destruction of the invaders and the annihilation of the government and religion introduced by them.
A recent bulletin of the United States National Museum is A Monograph of the Bats of North America, by Harrison Allen, M. D., being designed to take the place of the author's monograph on the same subject issued thirty years ago. The new work is made larger than the old by the addition of species and by elaboration of the descriptions. Thirty-eight plates, showing anatomical details, accompany the text.
A sketch of travel in California, by Rev. Dr. Charles A. Stoddard, has been published under the title Beyond the Rockies (Scribners, $1.50). Dr. Stoddard describes the fruit orchards, the wonderful climate, the big trees, the Yosemite Valley, the old missions, San Francisco and other Californian cities, etc., in a chatty and entertaining style. Incidents of travel are also mingled with the descriptions, and there are accounts of the scenery and stopping places in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado, which were passed through either in going or coming. The volume is copiously illustrated with photo-engravings of the places described.
A new translation of The Social Contract, of Jean Jacques Rousseau, with an introduction and notes by Prof. Edward L. Walter, has been issued (Putnam, $1.25). Students of political science will find in this book "the most striking statement of a theory destined to mold profoundly the history of nations," and will discover within it, also, "the weapons which are first sharpened and polished, and then directed against the whole framework of the modern state." The introduction reviews the political circumstances in which the treatise appeared, and the notes give historical facts concerning the persons and events referred to in the text, or references to books from which full information may be obtained.
In David T. Day's report on the Mineral Resources of the United States for 1892, the ninth of the series, the statistical tables of previous years are carried forward. Instead of chapters, the book is divided by mineral topics, which are so arranged as to bring kindred subjects together. The work is the result of a census conducted by the principal experts on each subject.
The Report of the Chief of the Weather Bureau for 1891-'92 is the first volume of the meteorological data published by the office as now constituted, and continues the series heretofore published by the War Department. The necessity of crowding two years' work into one report has compelled condensation by the omission of the detailed hourly and twice daily observations; but this omission is partly supplied on the daily weather maps. Tables of monthly and annual normal pressure, temperature, and precipitation are given. A description of the instrumental equipment of observing stations by Prof. C. F. Marvin, and a report by Prof. Cleveland Abbe on the instrumental corrections, methods of reduction, and the probable resulting accuracy of the observations and the means, add much to the value of the volume. Mark W. Harrington, chief of the bureau.
The Commissioner of Labor of the United States publishes a special report on Compulsory Insurance in Germany, which has been prepared at his request by Mr. John Graham Brooks, after residing in Germany and making a careful and broad study of the subject and all the circumstances surrounding. The author was commissioned to collect all the official information available with reference to the system, and to ascertain in all legitimate ways its real workings, its effect upon labor and the workingman, and its general tendencies. Neither approving nor condemning the system, Mr. Brooks has given the reasoning for and against it, and its results, taking up the steps which led to its institution and showing the phases attending its beginning and the experience under it after it was established. The report shows that the system aims at securing all that has been aimed at under various systems of charity, and that its ethical side was most potent in securing its establishment. It also appears that the compulsory insurance laws were not, as has been supposed, the result of a sudden conviction of an emergency to be met, but came directly through evolutionary processes covering long periods of time.
Besides the regular accounts of proceedings and progress, and the Report of the Secretary, the Annual Reports of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 1891 and 1892 contain in the general appendixes brief accounts of scientific discoveries in particular directions; occasional reports of the investigations made by collaborators of the institution; memoirs of a general character or on special topics, both original and selected; and other papers, as space permitted, supposed to be of use or value to the correspondence of the institution. The attention of the Board of Regents was largely given, during the two years covered by these reports, to the establishment of an Astrophysical Observatory. An accession of $200,000 to the endowment of the institution has been obtained through the bequest of Mr. Thomas G. Hodgkins, of Setauket, Long Island.
A map and tables of the Average Elevation of the United States, published by Henry Gannett in connection with the United States Geological Survey, give, in the map, by gradations of color, the elevations, at intervals rising from five hundred to three thousand feet, of the country and mountains, from the few spots below sea level up to "above ten thousand feet"; and, in the tables, the number of square miles, in each State and in the whole Union, at each grade of level, and the mean elevations of the several States.
The report of Barton W. Evermann and William C. Kendall on The Fishes of Texas and the Rio Grande Basin (United States Fish Commission) is designed to complete the studies published in a report made in 1892 preliminary to establishing a fish-cultural station in Texas. It is intended to include all the species, both salt and fresh water, which have been reported from the region named, so far as the authors have been able to learn. Geographically the paper is made to include, besides the State of Texas, all those parts of Colorado, New Mexico, and Mexico that belong to the hydrographic basin of the Rio Grande. The geographical distribution of the fishes is prominently considered. The report is illustrated by forty plates.
The Living Method for Learning how to Think in German proceeds on the assumption that if one tries to speak German while thinking in English, his conversation will consist largely of pauses, in efforts to recall the German expressions and to arrange them idiomatically; and that the only way to speak German is remembering what Germans say under the same or similar circumstances; not that one should live in Germany, but that he should live in German. The process is to associate the foreign phrases we have learned so perfectly with our actions that they will mentally suggest each other. The book furnishes the phrases for usual acts; then, whenever we do any of the acts, we should say, or think—in German—what we are doing. From this we go on, expanding our knowledge and practice, and making and learning new combinations. (Charles F. Kroeh, author and publisher, Hoboken, N. J.)
The Mechanics of Hoisting Machinery (Macmillan & Co., $3.75) is a translation made by Karl P. Dahlstrom from Prof. Herrmann's revised edition of Weisbach's great work on Engineering Mechanics—a work of which several volumes, treating of special subjects, are already familiar through translations. The present volume, however, has never heretofore appeared in English, although its value is generally recognized. The edition is intended as a text-book for technical schools and a guide for practical engineers. Within its purview are included levers and jacks; tackle and differential blocks; windlasses, winches, and lifts; hydraulic hoists, accumulators, and pneumatic hoists; hoisting machinery for mines; cranes and shears; excavators and dredges; and pile drivers.
The Peerless Cook Book, embracing more than one thousand recipes and practical suggestions to housekeepers, by Mrs. T. J. Kirkpatrick, appears to ha well adapted to the needs of working housekeepers. The recipes are plain, direct, and comprehensible, and for practicable dishes which may be in common use in the most modest households. They are also abundant in variety. Much pains is taken in the arrangement, and the articles are placed where they would come in a regular course dinner. Many of the recipes have been gathered from practical housekeepers; and of these not a few are original with the ladies and have never before been in print. The practical suggestions are excellent. (Mast, Crowell, and Kirkpatrick, Springfield, Ohio. Price, 50 cents).