# Popular Science Monthly/Volume 45/October 1894/Literary Notices

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An Introduction to the Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. By William Henry Hudson. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 234.
This book is largely an outgrowth of lectures delivered from time to time on Mr. Spencer's Philosophy. The book itself was undertaken to meet what seemed a healthy popular demand. Mr. Hudson had observed with some surprise the widespread diffusion of interest in the subject of evolution. His lectures were heard by attentive and appreciative audiences, and cultivated men and women, especially the younger ones, expressed the desire to know more of the new thought and of its bearing upon the practical problems and issues of the day. He could not refer all inquirers to Mr. Spencer's works; for, clear and forcible as is the presentation in them all, they are too voluminous and the style of their writing is too condensed for any but persons having abundant time and strong powers of concentration to master them in bulk. Therefore the author has undertaken to furnish this introduction as a sort of guide or handbook to the complete works, by the aid of which readers may gain a kind of bird's-eye view of the system as a whole, or, if they are disposed and able to examine it more in detail, may be assisted in their course through its different regions. In this he has succeeded admirably, and his book is marked throughout by a clearness of statement which will enable any one of average intelligence to follow the author through even the most abstruse parts of the discussion. The examination of Mr. Spencer's work is preceded by a biographical sketch of the philosopher—the most satisfactory and probably the only full one that has been presented. In it ​all the incidents which had a part in shaping Mr. Spencer's career, and in directing his thoughts to the course they took, are plainly set down, with the several stages in the development of his scheme, and the order in which its different parts were conceived or brought forth. Two chapters are then devoted to Mr. Spencer's earlier work—to the preparation for the Synthetic Philosophy—and to the Synthetic Philosophy itself. Here pains are taken to place in its proper light Mr. Spencer's connection with the modern doctrine of evolution, and to show him to be the originator of it—antedating Darwin and all others many years in the conception and first publishing of it, as we have often shown in the Monthly. These chapters deal to a considerable extent with the abstract and metaphysical aspects of Mr. Spencer's work, but only as a necessary introduction to what is to follow; for it is not the author's purpose to consider the philosophy as an abstract conception or a piece of metaphysical rationalistics, but rather to demonstrate it as a scheme of life and of reigning natural law; and he does this with a success that is nothing less than remarkable. This is, in fact, one of the most important characteristics of the volume. No pains are spared to make prominent the practical element in Mr. Spencer's philosophy, to exhibit the bearing of his writings on current problems, and to show how the system fits to all the various relations of the world's growth and the exigencies and duties of life. Of all men's, Spencer's thought has been most potent in shaping and directing the intellectual movement of the latter half of the century; and it has been so by reason of the immediate bearing of his teachings not only on the everyday questions that occupy men's minds, but also on those larger problems which are pressing on all sides for solution. Every man of whatever calling or aim who reads them attentively will find in them what will aid him in the pursuit of his profession or his object. This bearing appears throughout in Mr. Hudson's book, and especially in the chapters on the Spencerian sociology and on the ethical system and the religious aspect, not because of efforts to exhibit it—for such efforts are wholly absent—but logically and naturally, as a part of the thing itself. Mr. Hudson is at some pains to explain the exact meaning of Mr. Spencer's "Unknowable," and to correct the impressions that have been industriously cultivated by prejudiced antagonists that he is a materialist or an agnostic in any atheistic sense; a pains which is supererogatory as to persons who will carefully read what Mr. Spencer says, but may be necessary as to those who come to his writings burdened with the endless reiteration of misrepresentations. Those who read this little book can hardly fail to be impressed with the great importance and wholesome character of Mr. Spencer's writings, and to desire to know more of them.
Folk Tales of Angola. Fifty Tales, with Ki-Mbundu Text, Literal English Translation, Introduction, and Notes. Collected and edited by Heli Chatelain. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., for the American Folklore Society. Pp. 315, with Map. Price, $3.
The author visited Africa as pioneer and linguist of Bishop Taylor's self-supporting missions. In his studies of the native language he found that all the dialects spoken at Loanda and Angola and those of the adjoining districts formed one language, and that that language—the Ki-Mbundu—was worthy of the founding of a literature. He published some elementary books in it, and by the aid of an intelligent native was able to take down a large number of folk tales, riddles, songs, and proverbs, of which the present volume is only a first installment of what he intends to publish. After comparing the whole material, the author has found that many of the myths, favorite types or characters, and peculiar incidents which have been called universal, can also be traced through Africa from sea to sea, and that African folklore is not a tree by itself, but a branch of one universal tree. Though Portuguese and Arabian influence is evident in many of the stories, still the bulk of the tales is purely native. African folklore is especially rich in animal stories or fables. The folklore of the Bantu appears to be remarkably homogeneous and compact, while the Nigritic folklore, after the exotic elements connected with Islam are eliminated from it, is found to be virtually the same. The mythologies and superstitions of the various tribes are easily reducible to one ​common type, and this is strikingly similar to the popular conceptions of the Aryans and other great races when not identical with them. The stories are classified as traditional stories regarded as fictitious; stories reported as true, or anecdotes; historical narratives; stories of moral philosophy, or proverbs; poetry and music, and riddles. The myths and tales of the negroes in America are all derived from African prototypes, and through the American negro have exercised a deep and wide influence on the folklore of the Indians, and even of the American white race. This fact gives strong incentives to the study of the subject by Americans. Besides the stories, an analysis is given of their general features, a bibliography, directions for the pronunciation of Ki-Mbundu, a description of the country and people, and copious illustrative notes.
Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1890-'91. Washington: Government Printing Office. Two volumes. Pp. 1549.
The whole number of pupils in schools of all grades, public and private, is given at 14,669,069, constituting 23·09 per cent, or not quite one fourth, of all the population. Besides these are to be counted pupils in evening schools, art, industrial, and business schools, schools for defective classes and for Indians, in all about 300,000 pupils, which would swell the whole number to nearly 15,000,000. The commissioner remarks upon a correspondence between the waves of industrial prosperity and depression that pass over the country and the relative attendance upon the private and the public schools. The whole number of teachers in schools of both kinds is nearly 425,000. The entire expenditure during the year for public schools was $146,800,163, or $17.67 for each pupil attending 135'7 days, and $2.31 per capita of the whole population. Of the income for schools nearly seventy per cent comes from local taxes and nineteen per cent from State taxes. Besides these and other statistics of the schools in the United States, the first volume of the report gives papers on Secondary Education in New Zealand; Education in France; a review of the Educational Systems of England and Scotland and their Operations for 1890-'91; the Educational System of Ireland; Industrial and Technical Education in Central Europe, Education in Russia, Japan, Italy, Corea, and Hawaii; Legal Education in the United States and in Canada, Australia, Spanish America, Japan, and China; Colleges of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. The second volume gives a "Name Register" of State and City Educational Officers; statistics of city, secondary, higher, and professional schools; papers on Education in Alaska, the Education of the Colored Race, Class Intervals in City Public Schools, Educational Statistics, discussions of current educational questions, a report on the physical and mental condition of 50,000 London school children, and Facilities in Experimental Psychology in the Colleges of the United States. These articles are followed by statistical tables.
Science and Hebrew Tradition. By Thomas H. Huxley. Collected Essays, Vol. IV. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 372. Price, $1.25.
The essays contained in this volume are concerned mainly with the question whether the Old Testament is wholly true or partly legendary. The first three, however, have no direct connection with those that follow. They deal with the discoveries and inductions of paleontology, and can be said to bear upon the above question only by furnishing samples of the scientific method of research. They include Prof. Huxley's lectures on evolution delivered in New York in 1876, and his lecture on the Method of Zadig. The fourth essay of the volume, entitled The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature, was written for a controversy' with Mr. Gladstone upon the correctness of the account of creation in the book of Genesis. The one following—Mr. Gladstone and Genesis—is a continuation of the same theme. In both of them Prof. Huxley denies that the order in which the several kinds of living creatures are said to have been created is the same as that revealed in the records of paleontology. In the next two essays he gives the facts which conflict with the story of the Noachian Deluge. The last in the volume is A Study of the Evolution of Theology, the data for which are drawn from the practices of the ancient Israelites and of certain Polynesian tribes.
Believing that all claims to infallibility ​are pernicious, Prof. Huxley states in his preface that these essays are intended to combat certain of such claims. "Unless I greatly err," he says, "the arguments adduced go a long way to prove that the accounts of the Creation and the Deluge in the Hebrew Scriptures are mere legends; and, further, that the evidence for the existence and activity of a demonic world, implicitly and explicitly inculcated throughout the Christian Scriptures, and universally held by the primitive churches, is totally inadequate to justify the expression of belief in it. This much on the negative side of the discussion. On the positive side, the essay on the Evolution of Theology, as I imagine, shows cause for the conclusion that the Israelitic religion, in the earliest phase of which anything is really known, is neither more nor less rational, neither better nor worse ethically, than the religions of other nations in a similar state of civilization; that in the natural course of its evolution it reached, in the prophetic age, an elevation and an ethical purity which have never been surpassed, and that, since the new birth of the prophetic spirit, in the first century of our era, the course of Christian dogmatic development, along its main lines, has been essentially retrogressive."
It will thus be seen that Prof. Huxley aims to be not a destroyer but a purifier of religion.
Elementary Lessons in Steam Machinery and the Marine Steam Engine. With a Short Description of the Construction of a Battle Ship. By Staff-Engineer J. Langmaid and Engineer H. Gainsford. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 267. Price, $2.
These lessons, prepared for the naval cadets in one of the vessels of her Majesty's fleet, are intended to represent a systematic course of simple instruction preparatory to a more thorough study of the whole subject. In the earlier lessons instruction is given in the elements of construction and mechanism, and in those mechanical details which students are usually expected to learn by workshop experience. The conclusions given are wholly such as have been arrived at by experience, and the various details of marine engines are illustrated by the simplest examples. The lessons on Construction include the principles of measurements, the uses and qualities of the metals used, and instructions concerning riveted joints, screw threads and fastenings, transmission of power by shafts, etc.; conversion of motion, toothed gearing, friction, stuffing boxes and packing, joints of pipes, etc.; valves and cocks, and pumps. The lessons on the marine steam engine relate to boilers and boiler mountings and engines, with the details similarly separately considered.
Aëro-Therapeutics; or, The Treatment of Lung Diseases by Climate. With an Address on the High Altitudes of Colorado. By Charles Theodore Williams. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 187. Price, $2.
This work, by the Senior Physician in the Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest, Brompton, and late President of the Royal Meteorological Society, consists of the Lumleian Lectures for 1893, delivered before the College of Physicians. In his lectures the author has attempted to sketch a scientific system of aëro-therapeutics, based on the combination of modern meteorology with clinical experiment, in which each element of climate is duly considered in its bearing on health and disease. The lectures severally relate to the factors and elements of climate, temperature and moisture, and barometric pressure in its relation to health and disease. In the summary of results of different climates compared, at the close of the regular lectures, a marked preponderance is found in favor of high altitudes as against the English home stations, the Riviera, and sea voyages. The address on the high altitudes of Colorado embodies a clear account of the character and climate of the country, and a strong appreciation of its value to health.
The Conquest of Death. By Abbot Kinney. New York. Pp. 259.
The author is struck with the deficiency of children in American families and the apparent prevalence of the habit of limiting the number of children, and forebodes disaster from it. "For some twenty years," he says, "fact after fact has forced upon me the reluctantly received opinion that the present vital movement in our population can only eventuate in the elimination of the old American stock through nonreproduction. It is impossible to disguise the fact that in many ​places the population is maintained or increased by immigration, or by the children of recent immigrants. The fidelity of these to the duties of marriage is largely due not to the reason but to useful superstition. Intellectual inquiry invites infidelity. Skepticism has no soul, nor has it breeding power. Man must have a belief to be in earnest. The skeptics disappear, the superstitious survive, but progress can not live without intellectual activity. This is incompatible with the infallibility demanded for the integrity of superstition. So long as there is progress there must be intellectual independence. Here, then, is the dilemma—skepticism and sterility, or superstition and stagnation; progress to extermination, or perpetuation of life without improvement. This problem, and others kindred to it, are those for which I have sought a solution." Finally, the main motive of the work is declared to be the necessity of reproduction in man to enter any demonstrable future. The subjects of Sex, Marriage, Husband Choice, Wife Choice, The Child, Hints to the Husband, A Word to the Wife, and Religion, are discussed.
The Theory of Heat. By Thomas Preston. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 719.
The author's object in preparing this volume has been to treat the science of heat in a comprehensive manner, so as to produce a tolerably complete account of the whole subject in its experimental as well as in its theoretical aspect. He has consequently enjoyed a freedom in his choice of subject-matter and mode of exposition which would not have been possible in a work designed to meet the requirements of some particular class of persons preparing for examinations or engaged in practical pursuits. The nobler aspect of science as an instrument of education and culture is kept in mind throughout, and the principle is enforced that an acquaintance with a number of facts does not constitute a scientific education, and there is no royal road to learning other than that by which it is pursued for its own sake. The most fruitful method of exposition, it is observed, is not necessarily that by which a given number of facts may be recorded in the shortest space, but rather that by which they may be most easily assimilated by the mind and most comprehensively grasped in their general bearings and mutual relations; and this is the method which is most calculated to advance knowledge and raise the intellectual character of the individual. The historical method of treatment is preferred, as admitting the most constant comparison of theory with the results of experiment and the closest scrutiny at every step of the development. With this is combined a due amount of detail in description and explanation to secure instruction and such suggestion and criticism as may excite intellectual life and independent thought on the part of the student. The classical experiments are given in detail, and in addition such other investigations are noticed as will give the student a general idea of the work that has been done in each department up to the present time. In the introductory chapter, or "preliminary sketch," some remarks are given on the general effects of heat and on the meaning of the terms used in the subject, the theories of heat are reviewed, and the subjects of matter and energy and the theories concerning them are discussed. In the subsequent chapters, thermometry, dilatation, calorimetry, change of state, radiation and absorption, conduction, and thermodynamics are considered. Such subjects as the steam engine and the theory of solutions are omitted, as having obtained separate treatment in special works. The kinetic theory of gases has been entered into so far as to meet the immediate requirements of the subject in hand; and the suggestion is made that it, with some other subjects usually dealt with in treatises on heat, are deserving of treatment in a separate volume.
Science and Christian Tradition. By Thomas H. Huxley. Collected Essays, Vol. V. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 419. Price, $1.25.
This volume contains ten of Prof. Huxley's vigorous magazine articles, first published in the years 1887 to 1891, to which is prefixed the Prologue to his volume entitled Controverted Questions. Among these essays are his series of three on agnosticism, and his two on the Gadarene swine miracle in controversy with Mr. Gladstone, while the others deal mainly with other miracles of the New Testament. In the essay on The Value of Witness to the Miraculous, Prof. Huxley scrutinizes certain mediæval miracles ​recorded by Eginhard, a writer of the time of Charlemagne; and in the one on Possibilities and Impossibilities he examines the two accounts of the feeding of multitudes with a few loaves and fishes. The somewhat extended preface to this volume includes an argument against the demonology, or belief in various kinds of evil spirits, which has been made a part of Christian theology. It includes also a statement of the "Synoptic Problem"—i. e., the question as to how, when, and by whom the gospels which bear the names respectively of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written. In looking back over his various discussions of theological doctrines. Prof. Huxley declines to admit the charge that he has "gone out of his way" to attack the Bible; "and I as steadfastly deny," he continues, "that 'hatred of Christianity' is a feeling with which I have any acquaintance. There are very few things which I find it permissible to hate; and though it may be that some of the organizations which arrogate to themselves the Christian name have richly earned a place in the category of hateful things, that ought to have nothing to do with one's estimation of the religion which they have perverted and disfigured out of all likeness to the original."
The subject of Helical Gears is not a very familiar one, but it appears to be of such growing importance as to warrant a special treatise upon it. In preparing his volume, A Foreman Pattern-maker has treated with much detail of illustration the true and only workable methods of development of spur and bevel wheels, and has entered fully into the proper methods of construction of the pattern parts. He has also explained the methods of molding these gears by machine. He has aimed to make his book practical and adapted to the shop and the technical school. (Published by Macmillan & Co., at the price of $1.)
George M. Dawson, in his Geological Holes on some of the Coasts and Islands of Bering Sea and Vicinity, notices as one of the most remarkable features of the region the absence of any traces of a general glaciation. Respecting the latest changes in elevation of the land, evidences of a recent slight general uplift are mentioned as visible in several widely separated places. Mr. Dawson also sends us Notes on the Geology of Middleton Island, Alaska. Both these papers are published in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America.
Hugh M. Smith, M. D., reprints from the Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission Economic and Natural History Notes on Fishes of the Northern Coast of New Jersey, and a paper on The Fyke Nets and Fyke-net Fisheries of the United States, with notes on the fyke nets of other countries. In the former paper the subject of Ocean Pound Fishing is dealt with.
The function of dynamics in evolution is discussed by John A. Ryder in a lecture delivered by him in August, 1893, at Woods Hole Biological Laboratory on Dynamical Evolution. The author concludes that observers have hitherto allowed purely morphological considerations to becloud their vision; and that when each of the five sciences—physics, chemistry, physiology, morphology, and psychology—"shall have been given its due weight and place in the conduct of the study of life-forms, we shall begin to know what the latter really means, but not till then." (Published by Ginn & Co., Boston.)
J. W. Spencer, State Geologist, publishes as a part of his work The Palæzoic Group—Ten Counties of Northwestern Georgia (Polk, Floyd, Barton, Gordon, Murray, Whitfield, Catoosa, Chattooga, Walker, and Dade Counties), embracing the Geological and Physical Characteristics, Economic Geology, and Soils. A chapter on Good Roads is incorporated in the report, and the whole is illustrated by a geological map.
A part, including numbers six to twelve of Vol. VII of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, contains Coleopteriological Notices, by T. L. Casey; A Revision of the American Ciclidæ, by C. H. Eigenmann and W. L. Bray; Notes on some South American Fishes, by C. H. Eigenmann; and The Granite at Mounts Adam and Eve, Warwick, Orange County, N. Y., and some of its Contact Phenomena, by J. F. Kemp and Arthur Hollick.
In a paper on The Widening Use of Compressed Air, applications of this force are mentioned by W. P. Pressinger in the work of the pneumatic dynamite gun; in pneumatic block signaling; to raising water ​from deep wells; to spraying oil into petroleum furnaces: as a stirrer, cooler, etc., in various chemical manufacturing processes; in pneumatic elevators, cranes, and hoisting machinery; in pneumatic transmission tubes; in refrigerating and ventilating; in the propulsion of cars; in the purification of water supplies; and in various other operations in which compressed air appears as a power, "ever ready to do our bidding, summoned or dismissed by the simple turning of a valve."
In his Contributions to the Morphology of Cladoselache (Cladodus)—a fossil shark—considerable attention is given by Bashford Dean, of Columbia College, to the development of the fins and of the heterocercal structure. (Published by Ginn & Co., Boston.)
The Eighth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor—for 1892—relates to industrial education, and comprises the results of inquiries on the subject made at home and abroad. The schedule of questions under which the information was obtained covered a wide scope, and included such topics as the age of the student workman, the occupations he had followed, the nature of his previous training, his proficiency in the use of tools and material, whether he attained an average degree of skill and efficiency in the use of tools quicker than those who had not had manual or trade training, whether he had acquired greater economy in the use of materials, whether he was more proficient in the things that indicate mental cultivation, whether he promised to become a more intelligent workman, whether he received better compensation than persons not coming from the technical schools, and many other points. In its original work the department has received the aid of several men—experts and specialists—not generally employed by it, to whom acknowledgment is made by name. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner.
Number 4 of Volume V of Studies from the Biological Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University contains four papers. The first and most extended of these is an account of An Undescribed Acraniate: Asymmetron Lucayanum, by E. A. Andrews. The creature is a small lancelet found in the Bahamas. Maynard M. Metcalf furnishes for this number Contributions to the Embryology of Chiton, a first paper, and Dr. John P. Lotsy contributes the beginning of an opus on The Formation of the So-called Cypress Knees. The fourth paper is a brief statement on The Origin and Development of the Stichidia and Tetrasporangia in Dasya Elegans, by B. W. Barton. The several papers are accompanied by plates and figures.
The sixth special report of the United States Commissioner of Labor, Hon. Carroll D. Wright, is an account of The Phosphate Industry of the United States. This industry is carried on in South Carolina and in Florida, having become established first in South Carolina, and extends somewhat into adjoining States. The report describes these two chief fields separately, giving the geology of each, an account of the methods and machinery employed in mining each of the several kinds of phosphate rock, statements of analyses, and general observations. There are also detailed statistics as to rates of wages, prices of machinery, royalties to the State in South Carolina, freight charges, and other elements in the cost of production, the quantities consumed in a term of years, etc. The report is illustrated with several photographic views and diagrams, and two folded maps.
An article by Arthur Hollick, reprinted from the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, on Additions to the Palæobotany of the Cretaceous Formation on Long Island, describes forty-six species of plants (leaves) found in this formation, additional to the ten species described in a previous paper. Of these, nine species are new. An accompanying paper—Some Further Notes on the Geology of the North Shore of Long Island—embodies a discussion of the "preglacial" or "yellow gravel" of the district named, and its probable relation to the cretaceous of New Jersey.
At an educational conference on geography held in Chicago in December, 1892,W. M. Davis, C. F. King, and G. L. Collie were appointed to prepare a selected list of topographical maps published by the various Government bureaus, making special mention of such sheets as might best illustrate the physical features of our country. It was desired that the list should be distributed among school superintendents and teachers as an aid in securing for the high schools the specified maps, together with the map of ​the district in which the school is situated, to be introduced in the teaching of geology. The list thus contemplated is published, with brief commentaries pointing out the significance of the several maps, by Henry Holt & Co., in the pamphlet,The Use of Government Maps in Schools. It describes sixty-eight maps. (Price, 30 cents.)
Mathematical students of the higher branches will understand and appreciate Alexander Macfarlane's setting forth of The Principles of Elliptic and Hyperbolic Analysis. In it the fundamental theorem of trigonometry is investigated for the sphere, the ellipsoid of revolution, and the general ellipsoid; then for the equilateral hyperboloid of two sheets, the equilateral hyperboloid of one sheet, and the general hyperboloid. Subsequently, the principles arrived at are applied to find the complete form of other theorems in spherical trigonometry, and to deduce the generalized theorems for the ellipsoid and the hyperboloid. At the end, the analogues of the rotation theorem are deduced. (Author's address, Austin, Texas.)
A paper by J. F. Kemp in the Contributions from the Geological Department of Columbia College, on Gabbros on the Western Shore of Lake Champlain, deals with certain igneous rock in the townships of the district named in which the most important phases of the great igneous body that forms the bulk of the Adirondacks are illustrated and photographic details not previously noted are adduced. The paper also appears in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America.
The first number of Tufts College Studies comes without an editor's name, but a footnote to one of the articles, apparently editorial, bears the name of J. S. Kingsley. The number contains three papers—viz., The Anterior Cranial Nerves of Pipa, by G. A. Arnold; Ectodermic Origin of the Cartilages of the Head, by Julian B. Platt; and The Classification of the Arthropoda, by J. S. Kingsley. (Published at Tufts College, Mass.)
In Observations on the Geology and Botany of Martha's Vineyard (contributions from the Geological Department of Columbia College) the question is discussed by Arthur Hollick whether the island has been subjected to distortion and elevation by mountain-building forces, or whether its existence may be accounted for upon the same hypothesis by which we may account for the other islands—Long and Staten—as remains of the glacial morainal fringe. The author's conclusions are in favor of the latter hypothesis. The botanical section of the paper gives a list of a hundred and twenty-eight plants found growing on the island.
The Ore Deposits at Franklin Furnace and Ogdensburg, N. J., are carefully described in a paper on that subject by J. F. Kemp, as to their history, location, surrounding, nature, and working. A list is given of sixty-six minerals occurring in them. The paper is a contribution from the Geological Department of Columbia College.
The object of the original edition of Mr. H. W. Watson's Treatise on the Kinetic Theory of Gases (Macmillan & Co., $1) was to set forth in a more systematic and in some cases a more simple form the demonstrations of the laws of the theory. In the present (the second) edition substantially the same ground is covered as in that one; but a more detailed treatment has been adopted, partly on account of historical interest, but mainly to avoid some of the difficulties experienced by the student in following out investigations of the great generality required in a more condensed treatment.
The matter of Elements of Solid Geometry (Macmillan & Co., $1.60) was used by the author, N. F. Dupuis, in annual courses of lectures to mathematical students, who were much interested. The subject is carried somewhat further than is usual in ordinary text-books of plane and solid geometry. The work is divided into four parts, which are again subdivided: 1. Dealing with the descriptive properties of lines and planes in space, of the polyhedra, cone, cylinder, and sphere. 2. Dealing with areal relations. 3. Stereometry and planimetry; and 4. The principles of conical or perspective projection. A collection of miscellaneous exercises is presented at the close of the work. The author expresses a high opinion of the value of synthetical solid geometry, in that it exercises the intellectual powers in the development of the theorems, the imagination in the building up of the spatial figures, and the eye and the hand in their representation.
White's Manual, in his New Course of Art Instruction for the Fifth-Year Grade, ​includes the outline of the year's work in geometrical drawing—including sections on measurement, geometry, working drawings, development, decorative drawing, color, historic ornament, design, paper cutting, and model and object drawing. It is marked by the good qualities characteristic of all the books of this series. (American Book Company.)
A new volume of Statistics of Public Libraries, compiled by Weston Flint, has been issued by the Bureau of Education. It contains a list of three thousand eight hundred and four libraries in the United States having over one thousand volumes, arranged by States. Many of them are not what is commonly understood as public libraries, for they belong to schools, societies, and corporations, and a few are even set down as private. With each are given statistics concerning its age, size, income, growth, manner of use, ownership, etc. Prefixed to the list are summaries of these various statistics illustrated by comparative diagrams. A statistical list of public libraries in Canada is appended.
An edition, abridged for the use of junior students, of Baron Roger de Guimps's Pestalozzi, his Aim and Work, is published by C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y., in his Standard Teachers' Library. The translation is by Margaret Cuthbertson Crombie, who has also appended brief, suggestive notes and a bibliography of Pestalozzi. (Price, 50 cents.)
The Art of Living in Australia would not be misnamed were it called The Art of Living Everywhere. It is, in fact, a treatise on hygiene and diet, by Philip E. Muskett, intended especially for Australia, but embodying principles that are generally applicable. Its main object is to call attention to the need of improvement in the food habits of Australians, who, the author is impressed, are living in special opposition to their semitropical environment. They are consumers of butcher's meat enormously in excess of any common-sense requirements and beyond any other people, while their fisheries are not developed, market gardening is "deplorably neglected," salads are "conspicuous by their absence," and Australian wine is "almost a curiosity." All this, he thinks, is wrong, and he tries to teach a better way. The Australians are not the only people who need instruction or admonitions on these subjects. In addition to the discussion of the principles of right living—including adaptation to the climate, ablution, bedroom ventilation, clothing, diet, and exercise—the book contains three hundred Australian cookery recipes and accessory kitchen information, prepared by an expert in such matters. (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode.)
In Primary Elections a study of methods for improving the Bases of Party Organization is presented by Daniel S. Remsen. Believing that reform should begin at the primary, the author would have the rules or laws of party aim to induce the largest participation of party members at that meeting. A method should also be provided which would enable minorities to elect their due proportion of delegates. Holding these principles in view, rules and methods are suggested which, while they may not be perfect, are believed to be on the right lines and such as will tend to make candidates feel responsible to the membership of their party rather than to any central power. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons' Questions of the Day Series. Price, 75 cents.)
John Phin dedicates his Common-Sense Currency—a practical treatise on money in its relation to national wealth and prosperity—to the farmers and mechanics of the United States, in the hope that the principle it sets forth may help them to detect the sophistries and avoid the traps of cheap-money demagogues, of avaricious and dishonest legislators who sell themselves to class legislation intending to cheat the workingman; and fanatics, honest, perhaps, but ignorant and enthusiastic, whose wild schemes contradict the fundamental principles of monetary science. (New York: Industrial Publication Company.)
The Diseases of Personality and The Psychology of Attention, two well-known and valuable works by the eminent French psychologist, Th. Ribot, are published by the Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago, as numbers 4 and 5 of their Religion of Science Library, at 95 cents each.
In a paper on The Coming Railroad, the Chase-Kirchner aërodromic system of transportation is described and its merits are set forth by the projectors, G. N. Chase ​and H. W. Kirchner. The system includes an elevated track, with aëroplane sails as one of the sources of motor power. (St. Louis, Mo.)
Parts VIII and IX of H. H. Bancroft's Book of the Fair are devoted to the Woman's Exhibits, the Children's Department, and the Machinery and Agricultural Halls. (The Bancroft Company, Chicago. Price, $1 each.)
Entolai may be characterized as a "philosophical romance," or as a life history, with a religious element, described otherwise by the author, A. M. Bourland, as a letter to those he loves about science and the ideal. Its purport may be conceived from the dedication: "To those whose love of Nature has so thoroughly possessed them that they have been able to escape from every vestige of superstition, and as a consequence of which have embraced an unfaltering faith in the loving confidence in righteousness, that sustains all things, and rejoices in all truth." (Van Buren, Ark.: Lloyd Garrison.)
From Earth's Center: A Polar Gateway Message, is the title of a story embodying a thinly disguised teaching of some of the doctrines of the Edward Bellamy school, by S. Byron Welcome. A country within the earth, reached by means of a polar current, is supposed, where the ideal prevails of the conditions imagined by the dreamers of the class we have referred to.
Among recent bulletins of the United States Geological Survey is a Report of Work done in the Division of Chemistry and Physics, for 1890-'91, by Frank W. Clarke, which is occupied mainly with analyses of minerals and meteorites. Another bulletin is a Record of North American Geology for 1890, by Nelson H. Darton, being an alphabetical author and subject bibliography of books and essays in periodicals, dealing with North American geology, and received by the Survey in 1890. Works on general geological subjects, if printed in North America, are also included. Samuel H. Scudder describes in another bulletin, with three plates, Some Insects of Special Interest from Florissant, Colorado. Still another is a record of Earthquakes in California in 1890 and 1891, by Edward S. Holden. It consists of an observation of each shock made at the Lick Observatory, together with brief descriptions from many city and country newspapers in various parts of the State.