# Popular Science Monthly/Volume 37/October 1890/Literary Notices

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The Evolution of Sex. By Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson. The Contemporary Science Series. New York: Scribner & Welford. Pp. 322. Price, $1.25.
The purpose of the Contemporary Science Series is to bring within general reach of the English-speaking public the best that is known in all departments of modern scientific research. Frank investigations and clear presentations are promised, in particular, of all the questions of modern life—the various social and politico-economical problems of to-day, the most recent researches in the knowledge of man, the past and present experiences of the race, and the nature of its environment. The first book issued in this series covers a field in which lie some of the most difficult as well as most generally interesting of biological questions. The subject is, therefore, an attractive one both to trained biologists and to persons without special training, and the wants of both these classes of readers have had consideration in the mode of treating the subject which the authors have pursued. They undertake to give an outline of the various kinds of reproductive processes that occur in the animal kingdom, and to point out an interpretation of these processes in the elemental facts of biology. They have decided opinions on the important biological questions now in dispute, which are not always the ones generally accepted, and especially as regards the factors of organic evolution. Hence they are continually joining issue with this or that evolutionist or physiologist, agreeing only in part with any one. Darwin's theory of sexual selection comes up for criticism at the very outset, and both this and Wallace's views on natural selection are rated as accounting for the acquirement of secondary sexual characters only in part. The authors offer, as a broader and more fundamental explanation of the origin of sexual differences, that katabolic, or destructive, changes in living matter prevail in the male, while anabolic, or constructive, action characterizes the female. This idea as to the essential difference between the sexes is the key to the whole theory of sex relations held by the authors. Thus, in regard to what determines sex in the embryo, concerning which over five hundred theories have been set forth, they say that anabolic, or favorable, conditions of the environment tend to cause the production of females, while katabolic, or severe, surroundings favor the appearance of males. A considerable division of the volume is devoted to a description of the organs, tissues, and cells concerned in reproduction, in the course of which an account is given of the phenomena of hermaphroditism. In concluding this section the theory of sex already alluded to is fully set forth. The various modes of reproduction which obtain in the animal kingdom are then described, including parthenogenesis, which leads to a discussion of the alternation of one-sexed and two-sexed generations. The theory of reproduction which the authors advance is that there is a continual see-saw between anabolism and katabolism, nutrition and reproduction. Growth of cell and of organism alike has a limit which, as stated by Spencer, depends on the tendency of increase of mass to outrun increase of surface. When anabolism threatens to pass this limit, katabolism acts and restores the preponderance of surface. Reproduction is continually going on in organic ​nature, because on the whole the katabolic conditions of the environment preponderate over the anabolic. In conclusion, certain psychological and sociological aspects of sex relations are discussed, namely, the occurrence of the love of mates and of offspring among animals, the intellectual and emotional differences between the sexes, and the various proposals for checking increase of population. The authors express strong aversion, based on biological grounds, to the recent attempts of some women to mold their sex into the fashion of men. They hold that the difference between the mental capabilities of women and men is highly beneficial to the race, and is hence to be fostered and not obliterated. Each chapter of the work is followed by a summary of its main points, and a list of books bearing upon the special topic under treatment. The authors have discussed the recently published views of Prof. Weisman on Heredity, and have taken account also of Wallace's latest criticisms on Darwinism. They express regret that limits of space have made it impossible to give the botanical side of their subject its proportionate share of attention, but they have inserted illustrations of the essential facts, which they deem sufficient to show the parallelism of the reproductive processes throughout nature. A defect of the book is in its language, which is frequently so involved as to be obscure, and is still oftener awkward. The volume is illustrated and has an index.
The Metallurgy of Steel. By Henry Marion Howe. Vol. I. New York: The Scientific Publishing Company. Pp. 380, quarto. Price, $10.
In this work metallurgists are provided with an account of the most important of metallurgical industries on a scale which is seldom ventured upon. Its purpose is to describe the present practice of steel-making in America without attempting to give the history of the industry. Hence the author says: "In describing old experiments and abandoned processes, I have not aimed to give matter of historic interest, but rather that which might be useful, whether in deterring others from repeating unnecessary or hopeless experiments, or in guiding them should processes once unsuccessful become commercially possible through changed conditions." Most of the first half of this volume is devoted to the characters of different steels, produced by admixtures of carbon, silicon, manganese, and other metallic and non-metallic elements. In considering the effect of carbon on iron, the author presents both the chemical and the microscopical evidence which goes to show that there are two conditions of combination of carbon with iron. In one of the early chapters the processes of hardening, tempering, and annealing are described, and the changes produced in the metal by these operations are explained. The absorption of gases by iron and their escape from the metal, and the various means taken to prevent the consequent forming of blow-holes and pipes, form a division of the subject that receives full discussion. The author considers next the varieties of stuctureshown by the microscope, and the changes of crystallization, etc., produced by various treatments of the metal. The operations included under cold working and hot working are then described, after which the making of steel is taken up. A great many varieties of the direct process, several charcoal-hearth processes, and the crucible process are described and their results are compared. The closing chapter is a description of the apparatus for the Bessemer process, including a variety of modifications. The material of this volume has been published in supplements to The Engineering and Mining Journal within the past two years, during which time new results have been attained in some departments of the subject. Some of these—namely, on manganese steel and other special steels, on anti-rust coatings, and on lead-quenching—are added in appendixes. In stating the cost of metallurgical processes, the author has generally given the quantities of material and the amount of labor needed for a given work rather than the expense in dollars and cents, for the reasons that the former fluctuate less than the latter, and more managers are willing to tell what quantities of materials they use than what is their exact cost of production. He has inserted a great many references to original authorities, for the purpose of showing that his statements have a solid foundation, or so that the reader may examine any special topic more in detail. In ​regard to his use of material already published the author says: "Such a work as this can not, of course, be carried out without much compilation; but by far the greater part of the labor has been expended in the original work of discussing the data thus compiled, and in acquiring wholly new data, whether by experimental research or in prolonged examination of the processes described. For instance, there are about two hundred tables in this volume; of these, all but about twenty (and most of these twenty are very small) are either wholly original or consist mainly or wholly, not of matter published by others, but of numbers calculated therefrom." As to revealing trade secrets, his rule has been to give all the information about present practice that seems useful and that he has permission to give, while trying to conceal the identity of the establishment at which it exists. This volume being numbered one, implies another or more to follow it, but no announcement of succeeding volumes is made in the one now issued.
Report upon United States Geographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian, in charge of Captain George M. Wheeler. Vol. I, Geographical Report. Washington. Pp. 780, quarto, with Plates and Maps.
This report was practically completed in June, 1879, but the officer in charge was prevented, by a press of other duties and by subsequent prolonged illness, from presenting it for publication until 1887. The series of expeditions covered by the report was made under the direction of the Chief of Engineers, United States Army, in 1869, and in successive years from 1871 to 1879, inclusive. On the organization of the Geological Survey in 1879, surveys by the War Department for military and industrial purposes were discontinued. The results obtained in these expeditions were published in eight quarto volumes, each devoted to a special topic, as astronomy, geology, etc. The present volume gives a brief account of the expedition of each year, with a summary of results. In 1871 a party explored the Grand Canon of the Colorado River in boats, from Camp Mohave to Diamond Creek. An itinerary of this trip is given, to which is prefixed a sketch of earlier explorations along this river. Some account is given of the population, industries, irrigation, and land classification in the regions explored, which include parts of New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, and Oregon. In several appendixes are given descriptions of the atlas sheets issued as a part of these reports, an account of the methods of survey employed, notes on the survey and disposal of the public lands of the United States (with map), and considerations on the government land and marine surveys of foreign nations. The last appendix is a memoir on discoveries and explorations on the Pacific Coast of North America and in the interior west of the Mississippi from 1500 to 1880. In the first part of the memoir the explorations between 1500 and 1800 are mentioned, and eleven curious old maps are reproduced which show the very imperfect knowledge of America that existed during much of this period. This is followed by an epitome of the memoir by Lieutenant G. K. Warren, made in 1858, on the explorations west of the Mississippi from 1800 to 1857, and by a sketch of the explorations and surveys from 1857 to 1880. The volume contains three folded maps and thirty-eight plates, the latter including the eleven old maps already mentioned, and representing also typical localities, contours, Indian costumes, etc., in the country examined.
Physiognomy and Expression. By Prof. Paolo Mantegazza. The Contemporary Science Series. New York: Scribner & Welford. Pp. 327. Price, $1.25.
In this treatise the author takes up the study of expression at the point where Darwin left it, "and modestly claims to have gone a step further." There is a great deal of chaff in the literature of the subject; and the author, who is one of its most accomplished students, has accordingly had the task set before him of separating once for all positive observations from the number of bad guesses and ingenious conjectures which have hitherto encumbered the study. His wish, he says, has been "to render to science what is due to science, and to imagination what is due to imagination." Besides new facts, the reader is invited to find in his work facts already known, but ​interpreted by new theories. A historical sketch of past studies and treatises on expression is given. Of authors of the old school, Lavater is found to have come the nearest to being scientific. The real science begins with Camper, from whom the famous facial angle took its name. But the great anatomists and physicists who preceded Darwin only touched one side of the problem—expression in its relation to art and the aesthetic. Darwin traced the general laws which govern expression in the whole animal kingdom; and in his book, published only in 1872, expression, in so far as it is a special branch of comparative biology, asserted itself as a new science. In the science of the present day we have, on one side, a study of the human countenance, which is associated with anatomy and anthropology, and, for its application, with all the plastic sciences; and, on the other side, a study of expression, and of expression in relation to psychology, to comparative ethnology, "the applications of which interest in turn painter, sculptor, and actor," The present book proposes "modestly to restore to anthropology and to psychology what belongs to either, and to make known the positive documents which we possess to-day on the human countenance and on expression." Two diverse and important functions are accorded to physical expression—it may replace or complete language, and it may defend the nerve-centers and other parts of the body against dangers of different kinds. Including all living beings in a general view, we may, according to the author, say that the expression of emotion augments in intensity and variety as the animal rises to a higher scale and becomes more sociable. These two maxims concerning the office and the development of expression, which we have selected from the observations in the chapter on the Language of Expression, indicate the importance and interest of the study. The first part of the treatise is devoted to the human face, its several features, and its comparative morphology; the second part to the expression of the emotions, in which, besides what are usually understood under that term, are included the minor emotions or feelings, the expression of thought, the general expressions of repose and action, disquietude, etc., and racial and professional expression, with additional chapters on the moderators and disturbers of expression, criteria for the determination of the strength of an emotion by the degree of expression, for judging the moral worth of a physiognomy and the intellectual value of a face, and on the physiognomy of gestures and the expression of clothes. While the scientific is predominant in the method of the book, a kind of literary discursiveness is frequently indulged in which supplies pleasant reading supplementary to the solid principles of the bulk of the text.
Geological Survey of New Jersey. Annual Report of the State Geologist for 1889. Pp. 112.—Final Report of the State Geologist. Vol. II, Part I. Pp. 642. New Brunswick: Irving S. Upson, Assistant in charge of the Office.
The survey was continued through 1889 on the lines planned by Dr. Cook before his death, which occurred on the 22d of September. A leading object in the work has been, as heretofore, to develop and make public the natural products and resources of the State. The present volume bears evidence, continuing and additional to that given in previous volumes, of the success with which this object has been met. The geodetic survey was continued during the year, after having been suspended in 1888, southerly and westerly from the line—Hammerton-Newfield—which was reached in 1887. In a section on the archæan rocks, Mr. Frank L. Nason gives a historical review of what has been done in the Archæan Highlands since 1836; and continues with a report of the field-work of the year, descriptions of the type rocks of the region and their distribution, studies of the economic value of rocks, and special notes on the zircon and molybdenite found there. The section on Water-Supply and Artesian Wells, by Mr. C. C. Vermeule, includes accounts of the measures which have been taken to secure a water-supply to several cities and towns, and notes of the observations made in boring nearly thirty artesian wells in different parts of the State. The borings of a well at Atlantic City, to a depth of about 1,400 feet, show that the Quaternary gravels and sands are over 200 feet thick, and the strata under them to 1,225 feet are Miocene, while below that depth no fossil is yet found distinctive ​of the Eocene. The second volume of the Final Report is devoted to the mineralogy, botany, and zoölogy of the State; the first part comprising the mineralogy and botany. The minerals—for which, by reason of the great number of species and varieties, their rare chemical combinations, and their wonderful crystalline development, the localities of New Jersey are famous—are catalogued by Mr. Frederick A. Canfield, with the aid of the best collections. The Flora of the State is divided by Dr. N. L. Britton, who furnishes the catalogue, into a northern and a southern, the division between which is approximately indicated by the glacial moraine. A minor division includes the marine and coast group of plants, species, and varieties especially characteristic of the sea-beaches and salt or brackish marshes and meadows; and a fourth group is made of species of especial western distribution, which, however, have no special significance in the consideration of the origin of the flora. In all, 5,641 species and varieties of plants are catalogued.
Wheelbarrow: Articles and Discussions on the Labor Question. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company. Pp. 303. Price, $1.
"Wheelbarrow" appears to be both the title of this book and the pen-name of the author. The volume is made up of articles contributed to The Open Court over this signature, containing also two by Lyman J. Gage, written in controversy with "Wheelbarrow" over The Ethics of the Board of Trade. The articles are intended to present various topics of the labor question from the standpoint of a common laborer, which was the author's position in early life. His autobiography prefixed to the volume informs us, however, that he rose from the occupation of wheeling gravel on railways through the grades of country school-teacher and brickyard laborer to that of lawyer. He served in the army during the war with Mexico and the civil war, and attained the rank of brigadier-general, and we understand that he is General M. M. Trumbull, of Chicago. His portrait is inserted as a frontispiece to the book. The tone of the "Wheelbarrow" essays is against the revolutionary schemes of some who call themselves workingmen, and in favor of a manly Independence and a generous fraternity on the part of laborers, in their relations with their employers and with each other. On the money question he argues for a hundred cents' worth of silver in the silver dollar; he opposes Henry George's single-tax idea; and he charges the produce brokers with "making bread dear." The volume contains also three essays on The Poets of Liberty and Labor, namely, Gerald Massey, Robert Burns, and Thomas Hood. The articles are written in simple and picturesque language, and the views they contain are enforced by many anecdotes and fables.
Evolution and Disease. By J. Bland Sutton. The Contemporary Science Series. New York: Scribner & Welford. Pp. 285. Price, $1.25.
The author's purpose in writing this book has been to indicate that there is a natural history of disease as well as of plants and animals. It is difficult to define disease when our remarks are restricted to the human family; and it becomes obviously more difficult when we attempt it, as the author has done, on a broad zoölogical basis. It necessarily follows, he assumes, from the relations between man and the higher animals, "that there should be a similarity in the structural alterations induced by diseased conditions in all kinds of animals, allowing, of course, for the differences in environment. This we know to be the case, and it is clear that as there has been a gradual evolution of complex from simple organisms, it necessarily follows that the principles of evolution ought to apply to diseased conditions if they hold good for the normal or healthy states of organisms; in plain words, there has been an evolution of disease pari passu with evolution of animal forms." In view of the talk of physiological types of diseased tissues, the author's earlier efforts were directed to searching among animals for the purpose of detecting in them the occurrence of tissues which in man are found only under abnormal conditions. The hypothesis proved to be true in only a limited sense; but, "at the same time, the truth of an opinion held by nearly all thoughtful physicians—that disease may in many instances be regarded as exaggerated function—was ​forcibly illustrated, and 1 quickly saw that the manifestations of disease were regulated by the same laws which govern physiological processes in general, and that many conditions regarded as pathological in one animal are natural in another." This view is enforced in the successive chapters of the book, in which—according to the author's plan of treatment as summarized by himself—the effects of increased use and disuse of parts are considered in connection with the gradual change in function of organs, and the part played by transmission of the effects of increased use and disuse in producing vestigial structures in complex organisms. The tendency of vestigial structures to become diseased, or to give rise to conditions disadvantageous to the individual, is dealt with. The transmission of acquired characters and malformations is discussed. Causes of disease arising without the organism, and the relations they bear to inflammation and fever, are given a chapter. Tumors are considered in connection with general morbid processes, and the scanty knowledge we possess of the zoölogical distribution of disease is summarized. The illustrations of the principles have been selected, whenever it was practicable, from animals other than man, for the author believes that man has been studied too exclusively.
Longmans' School Geography for North America. By George G. Chisholm and C. H. Leete. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 384. Price, $1.25.
The first feature of this work to be noticed is its departure from the familiar thin quarto form in which geographies that combine maps and text are made. This volume contains only text and illustrations, and is intended to accompany an atlas. An examination of it will not proceed far before showing that it differs from the ordinary geography in something more important than form. The book aims to set before the pupil those facts of geography that are most worth his knowing, and that are most effective as discipline. Hence all countries are not described in conformity with a rigid outline, but the characteristic features of each are given especial prominence. The authors have sought to make the study of geography something better than a memorizing process by bringing out the relations of cause and effect. To aid in this latter purpose, the general laws of physical geography are stated in an introduction, and to this chapter are referred the facts that especially illustrate the laws. Cause and effect are particularly developed in the paragraphs on towns, where it has been sought to show why and on what basis a town exists in any particular place. In the description of the natural features of a region, little regard is paid to the artificial boundaries of political divisions and subdivisions. Thus, in the treatment of North America, which is preceded by a sketch of North and South America together, each of the general topics, surface, climate, life, etc., is dealt with for the whole continent, the portion of each of these features that becomes the share of one or another country being pointed out later. In this way are avoided the many repetitions that would be involved in describing separately the geographical characters of the fifty States and Territories of the United States. The facts relating to the products and commerce of a country are also presented from a national standpoint, and comparisons are made with foreign countries. The work is not confined to North America, as might be inferred from a hasty reading of the title; the other grand divisions of the globe are treated with more or less fullness according to their importance to the American pupil. The text is illustrated by seventy well-selected cuts, but unfortunately the pictures have such a muddy appearance that their value is much impaired. In spelling foreign names the authors have followed the rules adopted by the Council of the Royal Geographical Society. The volume is closely printed, and hence contains a great deal of matter within a moderate compass, and different sizes and styles of type, cross-references, foot-notes, and statistical tables have been made use of to link the various descriptions into one connected whole.
A Manual of Anatomy for Senior Students. By Edmund Owen, M.B., F.R.C.S. London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 526. Price, $3.50.
From its title alone one might infer that this work had about the same scope as others on the same subject prepared for medical students, but it has a somewhat peculiar character, owing partly to what it ​omits and partly to what it takes in. The author says in his preface: "Most of the ground has, I am aware, been already covered, especially as regards so-called surgical anatomy. But the entire range of anatomy has not hitherto, I think, been treated from the point of view of the senior student, who, having quitted the dissecting-room, is in need of a volume which shall supply him with such anatomical information, free of wearying detail, as is essential for his successful and intelligent work in the medical and surgical wards and in the special departments of his hospital." He also says: "Having always found it impracticable to draw a hard-and-fast line between facts which bear upon the science of medicine and those which chiefly concern the practical surgeon, I, a surgeon, have presumed in this Manual boldly to trespass upon the domains of the physician, as well as of the specialist." This fact makes the book better calculated to be of use to American students than it otherwise would be, for the medical profession and the public in this country have likewise found it "impracticable to draw a hard-and-fast line" between physicians and surgeons such as exists in England. Accordingly, there is less minute description of parts than in manuals for the dissecting-room, while malformations and disorders, and the operations which these call for, are described more fully than is usual except in the most complete treatises. The style of the book is clear and concise, the text is liberally illustrated, and the mechanical work of the volume is excellent.
Heat as a Form of Energy. By Prof. Robert H. Thurston. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 261. Price, $1.25.
Prof. Thurston has produced a book for the general reader rather than a text-book for the student. It traces the development of the science of heat from the speculations of the ancient philosophers down to the results of the latest experiments. After stating the ideas of the philosophers in regard to heat, the author gives an outline of the modern science of thermodynamics. In the next chapter he shows how the transfer of heat in various ways is an essential feature in many of the world's important industries, and in many great operations of nature. Most of the latter half of the volume is devoted to the development of heat-engines—machines for transforming heat into mechanical energy. The author is evidently in a favorite field when describing the development of the steam-engine, for he devotes considerable space to this topic, and illustrates the account with pictures of several successive forms of engines. The book is the third of the Riverside Science Series.
The explorations by the United States Fish Commission steamer Albatross during the year 1889 covered a considerable extent of mainland and inland coast waters from California south of Point Conception to Washington. The new discoveries of fishes along the shores of California, Oregon, and Washington were almost wholly from greater depths than fifty fathoms. Of the sixty species of fishes obtained from the Revillagigedos Islands, only about a dozen had been previously recorded there; not more than half were yet known from the mainland; and the other half included new forms and shapes from the islands of the western Pacific and from the Galapagos. The collections from the Gulf of California were obtained mainly along the shores and in the shallower waters of its northern portion. The deeper waters of the Gulf have a bottom of blue mud singularly barren of life. The Preliminary Report of Mr. Charles H. Gilbert on the fishes collected by the steamer contains descriptions of ninety-two species—all new. The New Fishes collected off the Coast of Alaska and the Adjacent Region to the Southward is the subject of a paper by Mr. Tarleton H. Bean. Eight of the genera are among the common forms of the Atlantic, and four of them are apparently new to science. Other papers to which the scientific results of the explorations of the Albatross have given rise are a Catalogue of Fishes collected at Port Castine, St. Lucia, by David Starr Jordan, and a Catalogue of Skeletons of Birds collected at points along the South American coast, by Frederic A. Lucas. All are published by the United States National Museum.
A description of Etheostoma tippecanoe, a New Species of Fish from Tippecanoe River, Indiana, is described by David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren Evermann, and figured ​in the Proceedings of the National Museum, Washington.
The Bulletin from the Laboratories of Natural History of the State University of Iowa, Nos. 3 and 4, contains six papers—viz., Some New Species of Palæozoic Fossils, by S. Calvin; The Saprophytic Fungi of Eastern Iowa, and Common Species of Edible Fungi, by T. H. McBride; The Loess and its Fossils, and A New Species of Fresh-Water Mollusk, by B. Shimer; and the Pselaphidæ of North America, by Dr. E. Brendel and H. F. Wickham. Published by authority of the Regents, at Iowa City.
Among the latest papers left by Prof. Leo Lesquereux is one On Some Fossil Remains considered as Peculiar Kinds of Plants, which appears as one of the publications of the United States National Museum. It relates to some fossils, one of which, from the Upper Helderberg limestone, Sandusky, Ohio, is like a long, flexuous, tubular stem imbedded in a large piece of compact gray limestone. The others, from the Erie shale near Cleveland, are cylindrical fragments traced in relief upon gray, hard, yellowish, sandy shale, or else short, oval, utricular bodies, rounded at one end, bilobate at the other, found on large flattened pebbles or lenticular masses of argillaceous iron ore, locally distributed in the shale. The author named the fossils Halymenites Herzeri, Cylindrites striatus, and Physophycus bilobatus—all new species.
Prof. A. H. Mackay publishes, as a reprint from the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, a paper on the FreshWater Sponges of Canada and Newfoundland. It is intended to be only a synopsis, just sufficient to indicate the extent to which the Spongillidse of the Dominion have been observed, and to facilitate further investigation. After the introductory general observations on the Spongillidæ, ten species are described, of which Heteromegenia pictovensis, of different lakes in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, is declared to be the firmest and most beautiful of all the fresh-water sponges in Canada.
The Catalogue of Minerals for Sale by George L. English & Co., Philadelphia (William Niven, New York), fifteenth edition, June, 1890, is a hand-book and bulletin in mineralogy as well as a dealers' list. Besides the ordinary catalogue matter, it contains forty pages of accounts, with illustrated descriptions, of new minerals. The catalogue matter itself is of scientific value, for it includes a complete classified list of all the species described in Dana's System and in the appendixes and the more recent accounts in the American Journal of Science. The pleasant information is given that the present elaborate catalogue is the result of a very great increase in the demand for mineral specimens.
A new theory of The Origin of Polar Motion is put forward by M. Myerovitch, who attempts to prove that the motion arises from the repulsive power of molecules. The author has published the introduction of his contemplated book on the subject in advance of the book itself, for the information of critics. Rosenberg Brothers, 266 West Twelfth Street, Chicago, 111.
Zoe, a monthly Biological Journal (Zoe Publishing Company, San Francisco), is filled with contributions of natural-history notes incident and pertinent to the West and the Pacific slope. In a recent number, Mr. Behr's paper on the Economy of Nature as Exemplified by Parasites gives illustrations of the danger of reckless interference with the natural order of affairs. President Jordan accounts for some apparent anomalies in the Distribution of Fishes in the Yellowstone Park. Mr. T. S: Brandegee has some observations on the alternate defoliation and new leafing of Fouquieria several times in the season, according to changes in the moisture conditions—a fact that is not unknown with some species on the Atlantic slope. Mr. H. R. Taylor describes some curious incidents of individuality in the nesting habits of the golden eagle.
Among the eight papers in the fifth and sixth numbers of Studies in the Biological Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, Vol. IV, H. Newell Martin and W. K. Brooks, editors, we notice as of more obvious general interest those of Prof. Martin and Julius Friedenwald on the Effect of Light on the Production of Carbon Dioxide by Frogs; of J. C. Hemmeter on-the Effects of Certain Members of the Ethylic Alcohol Series on the Isolated Mammalian Heart; of Prof. Martin and E. C. Applegarth on the ​Temperature Limits of the Vitality of the Mammalian Heart; and of S. Watase on the Morphology of the Compound Eye of Arthropods. The articles requiring it are amply and excellently illustrated.
The Journal of Morphology, No. 3, Vol. III, of which C. O. Whitman and W. Phelps Allis are editors, has four articles—viz.: on the Embryology of the Earthworm, by Edmund B. Wilson; the Ribs and Median Fins in Fishes, and The Morphology of the Vertebrate Skull, by Dr. C. Baur; and a discussion, by Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, of the position of Chamæa (the wren-tit) in the system. They are well illustrated.
Dr. Michael Foster, in conducting The Journal of Physiology, enjoys the assistance of two English co-operators and of Prof. H. P. Bowditch, Prof. H. Newell Martin, and Prof. H. C. Wood, in the United States. Numbers 1, 2, and 3 of Vol. XI contain thirteen articles relating to bodily temperature, respiration, salivary secretion, the digestive system, the blood, phonation, the nervous system, and knee-jerk. Cambridge, England.
The quarterly University Studies, published by the University of Nebraska, for July, 1890, L. A. Sherman, editor, contains papers on the Determination of Specific Heat and of Latent Heat of Vaporization with the Vapor Calorimeter, by Harold N. Allen; the Color Vocabulary of Children, by Harry K. Wolfe; and the Development of the King's Peace and the English Local Peace-Magistracy, by George E. Howard. The last is also published separately. In it the author, who is Professor of History in the University, traces the idea of the public peace of the community from the beginning to the re-establishment of popular self-government in the English shire by the act of Parliament of August 13, 1888.
The quarterly Bulletin of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers for June, 1890, S. N. Dexter North, editor, is devoted chiefly to questions concerning the pending Tariff Bill and its effect on woolens. An article not coming under this description is a History of Wool-combing in England.
It appears from the Calendar of the Faculty of Medicine of McGill University, Montreal, that the session of 1890 will be its fifty-eighth, the medical school having been founded in 1824 and suspended during the political troubles from 1836 to 1839. The new building has been found admirably adapted for making the teaching of the primary branches practical and thorough. The session is from October 1st to April, with a summer session of twelve weeks from the middle of April. The school was attended last year by 261 students.
The first number of the first volume of the Quarterly Review of the United Brethren in Christ, which is intended to represent the thought of the growing religious denomination of that name, J. W. Etter, D. D., editor, appeared in January, 1890. While its articles are intended to and do appeal chiefly to churchmen, we notice as of general interest that of the Rev. J. H. Pershing on the Conemaugh Cataclysm; and as claiming the attention of those who wish to be acquainted with various sides of thought, that of Prof. J. P. Landis on Some Foes of Christianity. The foes described in this article are Pantheism, Materialism, Agnosticism, Rationalism, and Socialism, which are grouped as "anti-theistic theories."
In a paper read by Dr. G. Brown Goode before the American Historical Association, on Museum History and Museums of History, a historical review is followed by a statement of the author's ideas of what a museum should contain, what purposes it should be intended to serve, and bow it should be arranged and managed. The same author's address on the Origin of the National Scientific and Educational Institutions of the United States gives a connected view of the growth of such institutions from their beginning in the attempt of Mr. Boyle, Bishop Wilkins, and others to establish in the colony of Connecticut a society for promoting knowledge. A third address by Dr. Goode was delivered before the American Philosophical Society, at the commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the death of Benjamin Franklin, and is on his Literary Labors. In it Dr Franklin is presented as one who, although standing prominently forth as the only great literary man of America in colonial days and the first fifty years of the Republic, had no thought of obtaining for himself literary fame, but made use of what he gained to promote the welfare of his country.
​Prof. William Watson Goodwin's Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb appears from the press of Ginn & Co. in a new edition, rewritten and enlarged from the editions of 1860 and 1865, and so modified by the operation of the author's own criticisms of his earlier effort as to have become to a great extent a new and independent work. A great change has in fact come over the conditions of Greek scholarship during the interval, so that it could hardly be adequately represented in its present state without reconstructing the exposition almost from the beginning. As the author remarks, "few are aware how modern are many of the grammatical doctrines which are now taught in all classical schools." The writings of the Greek authors are full of refinements of style and delicate distinctions which greatly impede the progress of the beginner and make the labor of the advanced student not easy, and on which the ordinary grammars and lexicons cast but a dim light. The purpose of Mr. Goodwin's manual, if we gather it correctly, is systematically to use the full light of the most recent scholarship in explaining them.
The Directional Calculus of Prof. E. W. Hyde (Ginn & Co.) is an effort to introduce the system of multiple algebra invented by Hermann Grassmann, and called by him the Theory of Extension. The author has become convinced of the superiority of Grassmann's system to Hamilton's quaternions, in that it is founded upon and is consistent with the idea of geometric dimensions; and that in it all geometric quantities appear as independent units. His directional methods are also believed to be superior to the comparatively awkward and roundabout methods of the Cartesian co-ordinates. While Grassmann's results are all obtained for n-dimensional space, Prof. Hyde has, for greater simplicity, restricted the discussion to space of two and three dimensions.
The purpose of Mr. William Roscoe Thayer's The Best Elizabethan Plays (Ginn & Co.) is to present specimens of the work of the five Elizabethan dramatists who stand highest among Shakespeare's contemporaries. The selected works are Marlowe's Jew of Malta, Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, Fletcher and Shakespeare's Two Noble Kinsmen, and John Webster's Duchess of Malfi. The choice in each case is justified by critical remarks respecting the author and his works, with comparative estimates of the merits of the latter. A general view is presented of the development of the English drama from its rise in Marlowe to its last strong expression in Webster. Its development was urged by the impulsion of the modern spirit which was remolding the society of the Renaissance, added to the great stimulus of the recovered appreciation of classical antiquity. The great poets of the Elizabethan age took all nature for their province. Literary precedents and the conventional rules prescribed by writers of rhetorics and grammars did not hamper them. "Taking the implements at hand—the tedious moralities and the loosely spun miracle plays—they soon improved upon them, soon invented a drama-form not so rigid as to be cramped nor so loose as to be redundant, but articulate like a highly developed organism and as elastic as the various material furnished by nature required. And for their meter they adopted and perfected a line susceptible of almost infinite modulations, suited alike to the simplest narration and to the highest outbursts of passion, and to the most delicate whisperings of fancy."
The Leading Facts of American History (Ginn & Co.) is the title of a generally admirable presentation of this important topic by D. H. Montgomery. The work is based on a careful study of the highest recognized authorities. Its purpose is to present, in a clear, connected, and forcible manner, the important events in the history of our country. The author has aimed to be accurate in statement, simple in style, and impartial in treatment. We are glad to observe that military events and politics do not have the first places, but that these are given to social, scientific, and industrial progress, to which they belong. Another commendable feature appears in the brief summaries of most important features attached to each period.
While Mr. Joseph H. Crocker's purpose in his essay on Different New Testament Views of Jesus has been solely to state the facts respecting the single topic indicated in the title, the author has compiled the paper from the point of view of the supposition that each of the authors of the Gospels had 1 his own ideas of the nature, personality, ​and purposes of Jesus, and that this idea is manifested in his narrative; hence that the Christian church has been divided on these subjects from the very beginning.
Mr. George W. Childs publishes a booklet, small enough for the pocket and large enough to serve for an evening's reading, of Recollections of General Grant, with an account of the presentation of the portraits of Generals Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan at the Military Academy, West Point. (Collins Printing House, Philadelphia.)
The Annual Report of the State Board of Charities (New York) for 1889, besides the general account of the charitable institutions of the State, comprises special reports of the investigation of the Rochester Orphan Asylum; on reformatories; on the deaf and dumb; on the State Soldiers' and Sailors' Home; on dependent children; and on the condition of children in asylums.