Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/141

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LITERARY NOTICES.
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the best methods of preventing or counteracting the injuries of the pests. For this the author has drawn from the investigations of our leading entomologists. He has tried to make the discussions of life-histories and remedies plain and simple. The insects are classified according to the plants or parts of plants on which they ravage—as those affecting, severally, the larger fruits, the smaller fruits, shade trees, ornamental plants, and flowers, vegetables, cereal and forage crops, and domestic animals and the household. Price, $1.25.

In Los Animales Parásitos introducidos por el Agua en el Organismo (London, Burns & Gates) a full account is given by Dr. Rafael Blanchard of the parasitic animals introduced into the organism by water. The work is of convenient size, is neatly printed and abundantly illustrated, and will be of great value to the Spanish readers for whom it is intended.

Mr. Edward Trevert, author of several hand-books on electricity, batteries, and dynamos, has prepared a manual on Electricity and its Applications, which is published at Lynn, Mass., by the Rubier Publishing Company (price, $2). It is written to supply a demand which the author finds to exist, particularly among amateurs and students, for more information relating especially to the practical part of the science. It treats (giving facts rather than theories, and avoiding technicalities) of voltaic batteries, dynamos, the electric arc and arc lamp, electric motors, field magnets, armatures, the telegraph and telephone, electric bells, the induction coil, incandescent lamps, electrical mining apparatus, the electric railway, electric welding, plating, and gas-lighting apparatus, other electric inventions, electric measurements, and gives resistance and weight tables and an illustrated dictionary of electrical terms and phrases.

In his Introduction to Dynamics (Longmans) Mr. Charles V. Burton has included kinematics, kinetics, and statics, because of the difficulty, in writing a book for young students with no previous knowledge of the subject, of making a satisfactory division of it. Absolute systems of units have been used, and the C. G. S. system has been given the most prominent place. Price, $1.50.

In Optical Projection (Longmans) a treatise is given of a practical character by Mr. Lewis Wright on the use of the lantern in exhibition and scientific demonstration through its entire range. The author has practiced optical projection as a hobby for many years, and in his experiments has discovered many ways of improving the application of the art and enlarging its scope. His treatise is comprehensive, and includes, besides an exposition of the philosophy of projected images, descriptions of the parts of the lantern, and of the lights susceptible of being used with it, and accounts of the demonstrations of the apparatus in representations of experiments in molecular and mechanical physics, physiology, chemistry, sound, reflection, refraction, dispersion, and color of light, the spectrum, interference, polarization, heat, and electricity. Price, $2.25.

A series of studies in History, Economics, and Public Law has been begun by the University Faculty of Political Science of Columbia College, to be conducted under the editorial direction of Prof. Edwin R. A. Seligman. The monographs are to be chosen mainly from among the doctors' dissertations in political science, including only such studies as form direct contributions to science and are works of original research. They will appear at irregular intervals, and will be paged both consecutively and separately. The first of the list to appear is a study by Walter F. Wilcox on The Divorce Problem. The argument of it is that legal provisions of whatever sort have little direct and permanent influence on divorce. The whole ideal and tendency of our modern civilization are to teach every individual self-direction and self-government. No legal reform can do such work. The main work of the state should be as an educator of public opinion; and law may contribute by holding up a standard of morality in advance of the average standard. Other correctives may be sought in education and the Church, or ethical society. The second paper in the series is The History of Tariff Administration in the United States, from Colonial Times to the McKinley Bill, by John Dean Goss. The author suggests that if our tariffs had been simply for revenue the problems of the best methods and rates would have been solved long ago; but the adoption of the policy of