Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/576

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

A Bibliography of the more Important Contributions to American Economic Entomology has been prepared by Samuel Henshaw for the Department of Agriculture.Parts I, II, and III, already issued in one volume, contain the more important writings of Benjamin D. Walsh and Charles V. Riley. Those by B. D. Walsh number 385 titles, those by Walsh and Riley jointly are 478, while the writings of Prof. Riley alone number 1,555. A general index to the list and indexes of new names proposed are appended to the volume.

The seventh edition of Bloxam's Chemistry (Blakiston, $4.50) follows the sixth after an interval of only two years. It has been revised and edited by Prof. John M. Thomson and Arthur G. Bloxam, who give the following statement in the preface as to the changes they have made: "In the Organic division of the book an attempt has been made to give concise accounts of more modern research—such as Raoult's method for the determination of molecular formula, and Fischer and Tafel's investigations on the synthesis of sugars. In the same division the Chemistry of Vegetation has been in a great measure rewritten to suit more modern views. Those portions of the book relating to Explosives, to which the work to some extent owes its reputation, have been revised, and are treated of as fully as possible within the limits of a general textbook." The volume has been increased in length about ten pages.

A second edition of The Microtomist's Vade-mecum, by Arthur B. Lee, has been issued (Blakiston). It is much larger than the original English edition, and in fact is not based upon that, but upon the French work with a different title, by Lee and Henneguy, published two years later. Besides including the important advances made in its field since 1885, the present Vade-mecum differs from the first in being much less historical and much more critical. The subjects of most importance in a technical manual have been treated more fully, and those which are less important, or whose best place is elsewhere, have been thrown into the background. Among the chapters that have been extended are those on fixing, impregnation methods, paraffin and celloidin imbedding, and the special methods of embryology, of cytology, and of neurology. The volume has an index, and its paper and print are excellent.

A Clinical Study of the Skull—the tenth of the Toner Lectures—by Dr. Harrison Allen, is a contribution to the morphological study of diseased action. The materials on which it is based were found in the Collections of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and of the College of Physicians, Philadelphia, which together contain more than nineteen hundred specimens of skulls. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.

The March Bulletin of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station is a paper on Fungicides, or applications for such diseases as the black rot and the mildew of the grape, by Roland Thaxter. The applications recommended are Bordeaux mixture—sulphate of copper and quicklime, with water—and ammoniacal carbonate of copper; which are sprayed over the plants. The treatment is most effectual when it is applied preventively.

The second year's work of the Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of Illinois, ending July 1, 1889, comprised analyses of fodders and of various food products, with numerous items of new work taken up from time to time. Four bulletins were issued, reporting experiments upon oats, upon corn, experiments with ensilage, and experiments of the effects upon the hay of cutting certain grasses and clovers at different periods of growth. Bulletin No. 7, November, 1889, is upon the Biology of Ensilage; and Bulletin No. 8, February, 1890, records a series of field experiments with corn.

The work of the Massachusetts State Agricultural Experiment Station, as presented in its report of 1889, was carried on in the same principal lines of investigation as in preceding years. A very important part of it is represented in the investigations of fungoid diseases by Prof. Humphry. To the experiments for determining the cost of feed for the production of beef and pork were added similar ones respecting beef and mutton. Laboratory work was especially large, and extended in various directions.

References to the Constitution of the United States, which has been prepared by