# Popular Science Monthly/Volume 21/July 1882/Literary Notices

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INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES, No. XLI.
Diseases of Memory: An Essay in the Positive Psychology. By Th. Ribot, author of "Heredity: its Phenomena, Laws, Causes, and Consequences," "English Psychology," etc. Translated from the French by William Huntington Smith. D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 209. Price, $1.50.
From both a scientific and a practical point of view this monograph is among the most interesting and valuable that have appeared in the "International Series." It is an able statement of the latest knowledge on a subject which concerns almost every-body. "We can here only intimate the author's stand-point in the discussion.
Where are our thoughts when we are not thinking them? Not a ten-thousandth part of the great stock of mental acquisitions which a man possesses is ever in consciousness at any one time. And, of those which in our waking states are ever rapidly emerging and disappearing, only a very small portion are obedient to the will—they exist and are preserved independently of consciousness, and they come and go, to a large extent, by laws deeper than volition.
Where, then, is the great stock of our ideas when we arc not aware of them? The common, the pre-scientific answer is, they are in the mind, which is an abstract spiritual container, of which we only know that it is an immaterial essence. This mind is made up of faculties, and memory is one of these faculties, in which the intellectual contents are stored up until called for by voluntary thought. Hamilton speculated vaguely about "mental latency," but where the mental stock is kept was always regarded as a great mystery—in fact, an insoluble mystery which there was no use in working at, because all the mind that concerns us is the mind we know about. Mind was thus bounded by consciousness, and memory, or the recall of ideas, was considered purely as a matter of volition, while this faculty in all men was looked upon as very much the same thing. Dugald Stewart, for example, says of the memory, "that original disparities among men, in this respect, are by no means so immense as they seem to be at first view, and that much is to be ascribed to different habits of attention, and to difference of selection among the various objects and events presented to their curiosity."
But it is obvious enough that nothing can be done with the problem of mental disease under this view; and, if we are to inquire concerning "diseases of memory," the first thing is to ascertain what we have to deal with that is capable of being diseased. This, of course, is the corporeal part of our nature, and it implies at once that memory has its organic side. It is the nervous part that registers and conserves our psychical acquisitions, and accordingly Professor Ribot begins his work by the study of nervous structures, properties, and activities, and with the consideration of memory as a biological fact. Memory implies three things: first, an impression, and therefore an organism capable of receiving impressions. The various senses bring, and the nervous centers receive and record, these impressions. The centers, moreover, recombine, reassociate, and elaborate these impressions in the most complex ways. This implies, secondly, a conserving or retaining capacity of the nerve-centers, which answers to the notion of mental storing. Then there is, thirdly, the emergence of these impressions in thought, or conscious recollection. This deliverance in consciousness is a result which we might call incidental, and depends, of course, on the prior conditions of impressibility and ​conservation, which are, therefore, of fundamental importance. It is estimated that there are a thousand million cells in the human brain, all bound into a living unity by four or five thousand million nerve-fibrils of amazing tenuity, and this is the grand mechanism of registering, conserving, and elaborating impressions and turning them out as groups and systems of ideas. Consciousness is merely a door through which a small part of these cerebral elaborations emerge. Mind grows as this organism grows; its capacities are at bottom organic capacities, and its diseases are breaks, failures, debilities, and degenerations of the nervous sub. stratum of all psychical operations.
Memory is therefore not the faculty of an abstraction, but a phenomenon of nervous dynamics; and it is dependent upon the soundness, vigor, nutrition, and organic perfection of the nervous structure. It is not one thing, but our memories are innumerable. Investigating the problem from the biological point of view, our author is able to throw light on the many forms of failure to which the control of mental acquisitions is subject. He is, in fact, prepared to announce a law of the decay of memory, which explains the order in which acquirements disappear as the organ of thought declines in force by age or from various other causes. The import of the book is therefore highly practical, for in proportion as we have a correct understanding of the subject shall we be saved from the consequences of erroneous views. The subject is far enough from being cleared up, but this little book gives us more trustworthy knowledge about it than can be found in any preceding treatise upon it.
The Present Religious Crisis. By Augustus Blauvelt. G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 196. Price, $1.
This is not at all a scientific book in the usual sense, but it raises the question in a very emphatic way that is fundamental to all science, namely, the question of liberty of thought. Whatever we may say in regard to the alleged conflict between religion and science, of one thing there can not be the slightest doubt: there is a radical and a desperate conflict between theology and liberty of thought. It is historic, and it is contemporaneous; and, if any doubt its inveteracy, let them read Mr. Blauvelt's book, which may be taken, in one of its aspects, as but a new illustration of the old experience in which religious bigotry is arrayed against free and independent inquiry.
In his preface, Mr. Blauvelt remarks: "When the author says that he was graduated from Rutgers College, at New Brunswick, New Jersey, and also from the Peter Hertzog Theological Seminary connected with the same institution, he has given a sufficient guarantee that his original instruction in divinity was of the most hyper-orthodox description. Nor does he concede that any alumnus of either Alma Mater ever went forth who was, to begin with, a more devout and implicit believer than he was in both the essentials and the non-essentials of the general orthodox theology, and notably that of the Calvinistic order.
"It is needless to assure the reader that, while he was a student at New Brunswick, the author was most securely guarded against all contamination from modern infidelity. He does not remember, for example, that in those days he ever heard so much as the mention of the name of Strauss. At the same time, he does have an indistinct recollection that, in a vague and general way, he was taught at once to dread and to abhor that modern theological monstrosity, namely, German rationalism."
It was not to be expected that an active minded man like Mr. Blauvelt, when he began to think for himself, would be content to remain in the mental condition induced by the theological seminary. Upon assuming the function of a public religious teacher, he found the necessity of a more thorough equipment for his work than his theological instructors had provided, and he therefore entered upon the systematic study of the traditional theology, from the point of view of modern criticism. The spirit in which he engaged upon the work of biblical and religious research is thus indicated. He says that "the specific purpose with which he originally took up these investigations was to vindicate the traditional Protestant conceptions about the Bible and religion against all the assaults of the modern unbelievers. But from the very outset ​he conceived the idea that, to make this vindication of any actual and permanent service to those conceptions, it must itself be actual; it must itself be scientific, it must itself be something decidedly more than merely theological. In other words, whatever inherited conceptions, about either the Bible or religion, he found he could not establish by valid evidence and by legitimate reasoning, he resolutely determined that he would never make the effort to establish either by any such distortion of evidence, or by any such illegitimate reasoning, as he had fortunately come to discover to be only too characteristic of the mediæval apologists."
Pursuing his biblical studies from this independent point of view, Mr. Blauvelt, in the spirit of the liberal scholarship of the time, was led to the formation of opinions widely differing from the orthodox traditions. The general results which he reached are given with their proofs in the first eight chapters of the little volume before us, the subjects of which are: I. The Crisis; II. Dogmatic Theology; III. The Validity of the Biblical Canon; IV. The Inspiration of the Bible; V. The Historical Character of the Gospels; VI. The Religion of the Bible; VII. Religion; VIII. The Religion of Jesus. These chapters are full of information in relation to the work of modern criticism on biblical subjects, and they afford an excellent introduction to the general inquiry, for those who wish to know how the register of theological liberality stands at present.
But the sequel of honest and fearless research proved to be in this case, what it had always been before, repression of free thought. In Chapter IX, Mr. Blauvelt gives us some examples of the treatment extended to religious men who have undertaken to inquire for themselves. He tells us that "when, in 1835, Strauss published the initial volume of his first 'Life of Jesus,' he was occupying the position of a theological instructor at Tübingen, with the most brilliant prospects before him, and beloved and honored of all. But even before the appearance of the second volume he was summarily ejected from his position. As the unparalleled commotion created by his work continued to increase, his own father turned away from him in anger; his early teachers in divinity hastened to disavow all complicity with his opinions, and 'as for the friends and companions of my studies,' says Strauss himself, 'these I had the mortification of seeing exposed to so much suspicion and annoyance for their merely rumored intimacy with me, that it became a point of conscientious duty not to expose them to still greater odium by any public memorial of our friendship."
Again, "The faculty of the Theological Seminary of St. Sulpice were once engaged in preparing their annual examinations, when a young candidate for the deaconship, who had always been noted for his great modesty and studious habits, asked leave to submit a number of questions which perplexed his mind and seemed to depress his religious spirit. Unless they were solved to his satisfaction, he could not hope to enter into holy orders. His earnestness astonished and alarmed the entire faculty. They refused at once to examine questions which to them appeared novel or subversive, and, justly fearing that a neophyte who on the threshold of the priesthood was besieged with such misgivings might become a cause of strife in the Church, they withheld their protection, and bade him depart from the consecrated place. This inquisitive and conscientious student was Joseph Ernest Renan." How he subsequently succeeded in passing with the highest honors his examination for University Professor of Philosophy; how he became Professor of Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac Languages and Literature in the oldest chair of the oldest institution in the land; and how he was howled down by the clerical party so that he could not be even heard on the day of his inauguration; and how this was followed by a governmental decree suspending his course of lectures indefinitely—is now well-known matter of history.
When the volume entitled "Essays and Reviews," containing some independent theological thought, appeared in England, the authorities were besieged to prosecute the writers for heresy; and there was one petition which is said to have contained the signatures of not less than nine thousand clergymen of the Established Church, to promote this end. Bishop Colenso was subsequently ​hunted down for his heresies, and Professor Robertson Smith has been very recently dismissed from the professorship of Hebrew, in the Free College of Aberdeen, for the same cause.
In further illustration of this religious hostility to independent thought, it may be stated that the author of the book before us contributed in 1873, to "Scribner's Monthly," a series of papers entitled "Modern Skepticism," which were simply a bold and forcible statement of the present drifts of liberal inquiry regarding theological matters. The periodical was widely and vehemently denounced for printing such discussions, and there were public demands made for a new editorship on penalty of the withdrawal of patronage. Dr. Holland resisted the bigoted crusade, and after a year or two another paper was forwarded to him by Mr. Blauvelt, in continuation of the argument. In reply, Dr. Holland wrote: "Your last article was received, and I have read it to-day. At the conclusion of its perusal, I find myself called upon to make the most important decision that has ever come to me for its making, since I became an editor. I must be frank with you. I believe you are right. I should like to speak your words to the world; but, if I do speak these, it will j pretty certainly cost me my connection with the magazine."
So much for freedom of religious thought—American freedom of religious thought—Protestant freedom of religious thought, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century of Christianity! Of course, Mr. Blauvelt himself did not escape the penalties of applying the scientific method to theology. We do not notice the statement in his volume, but if any one will turn to "The Popular Science Monthly," for August, 1877, he will see that the reverend heretic was stripped of his office, turned out of the church, and branded as a "betrayer of his Master." It was a little too late to burn him, but is not that about as far as Christian toleration has yet "progressed"? One thing is evident: if Mr. Blauvelt had been a little more dishonest, had played fast and loose with his conscience, and had not been so anxious about the truth, he could have spent all his days in pious comfort in the bosom of the Church. Ever, and in the nature of things, repression of thought is a bid for hypocrisy.
Egyptian Obelisks. By Henry H. Gorringe. Published by the Author, 32 Waverley Place, New York. Pp. 187, with 41 Plates.
The propriety of regarding as a great achievement the removal of a noble object of the oldest civilization from the place where it has rested for ages, to adorn a modern pleasure-ground among surroundings as different as possible from those among which it has stood, has been criticised by admirers of the antique. The fact that the English, French, Germans, and Italians have also taken obelisks from Egypt may show that they are not innocent, but can not excuse us if the act is, as some believe, a kind of vandalism. The criticisms can not, however, be applied justly to those who removed the obelisk in Central Park, for they did not take it from before the temple at Heliopolis, where Thothmes II set it up, but from the place to which others before them had removed it from there. The offense of removal, if it was an offense, was committed by the Romans nineteen hundred years ago; and they may have been guiltless of actual sin, for they probably found the obelisk already thrown upon the ground. Americans have been guilty of no "despoilment," or removal from among "antique surroundings"; for the most prominent surroundings which Commander Gorringe found about the obelisk at Alexandria "were a railway depot, a new apartment-house, and an Arab fort," and it would have inevitably been destroyed if he had not taken it away. In other respects, a feeling of disgust was aroused by the surroundings, and "something more than curiosity was needed to induce one to approach near enough and remain long enough to examine and appreciate it." The removal of the monument from such a situation as Commander Gorringe describes to one that is fully worthy of it, though un-Egyptian, should be considered an act deserving as much praise as the tact, ingenuity, and engineering skill that were displayed in effecting it with complete success. Readers of the present work will find abundant opportunity to admire these qualities as displayed ​by Commander Gorringe, for the difficulties he had to meet, whether proceeding from the tempers of men or the stolidity of natural forces, and the means by which he overcame them, are clearly described and illustrated in the interesting and often amusing narrative that forms the first third of the volume. The account of Commander Gorringe's experiences in getting the great stone afloat and across the ocean is supplemented by descriptions of the methods, also illustrated, by which other obelisks have been transported to Paris, London, and Rome. The rest of the book is mainly historical and archæological. In it are included a review of the "Archæology of the New York Obelisk," its symbolism, translations of the inscriptions on it, and its history; a "a Record of all Egyptian Obelisks," with photographs, and translations of their inscriptions; and "notes on the ancient methods of quarrying, transporting, and erecting obelisks," including all that is known on the subject. The final chapter, arranged by Professor Persifer Frazer, describes the analyses of the materials and metals found with the obelisk, and is illustrated by polariscopic sections of rocks. The work thus combines a narrative of personal adventure and professional achievement, an exhaustive historical and archaeological account of Egyptian obelisks, and the results of scientific study, in a setting in which no expense seems to have been spared to make it worthy of the subject, and to leave nothing wanting.
Experimental Researches into the Properties and Motions of Fluids, with Theoretical Deductions therefrom. By W. Ford Stanley. London: E. & F. N. Spon. 1881. Pp. 538. Price, $6.
Having been engaged in an experimental examination of the undulatory theory of fight, from which he was obliged to desist on account of failing eye-sight, Mr. Stanley took up this subject, he tells us, from the interest awakened by the previous work, and in the hope of making clear to his own mind certain points left obscure by his previous investigations. It soon, however, appeared to him that "there was yet an immense amount of work to be done in researches in the motions of fluids before theoretical principles of the sciences of hydrodynamics and acoustics could be fixed upon mechanical principles with any great precision," and he consequently entered upon the extended investigations set forth in the present volume. Of the unsatisfactory state of much of the work in this branch of physics the author instances the case of wave-motions on water. The true procedure in this case is to determine the manner in which waves are produced on the surface of water by the action of the wind, and then, as a secondary consideration, to investigate the action of gravity in bringing the surface to equilibrium. The reverse of this order, the author asserts, is usually followed, the question being made a case of the oscillations of fluids through gravitation only, and thus begged, as you have then to assume the wave in existence, while its production is the thing to be accounted for.
The first three chapters, the author states, are speculative, and he puts them forth simply as helping to a clearer conception of the nature of a fluid. In the fourth chapter he develops a theory of rolling contact of fluids moving upon static bodies; and in the fifth and sixth chapters he offers principles of conic resistance in fluids which give simple mechanical laws for the class of motions known as vortices, eddies, and cyclones. The eighth chapter is devoted to an exposition of the "principles of motive resistance to the projection of free solids in extensive fluids," and the ninth to the "diffusion of flowing forces in fluids."
These nine chapters constitute the first section of the work, the principles established in which are applied to the elucidation of the manifold phenomena of natural currents produced by the combined effects of heat, gravitation, and the earth's rotation. In the third and closing section of his work Mr. Stanley takes up the subject of the formation of waves upon the surface of water, on which he reaches conclusions not materially different from those of M. Flangergues and Mr. Scott Russell. A fourth section upon sound-motions in fluids, which should have made a part of the present treatise, the author withholds from publication until he has opportunity to go over the subject again, with the help, which he anticipates ​will be considerable, furnished by the discoveries in the telephonic transmission of sound.
Myron Holley; and what He did for Liberty and True Religion. Pp. 328. Boston: Printed for the Author, P. O. Box 109.
The name of the author of this work is not given upon the title-page, but by turning over the leaf we get an explanation of the matter as follows:
"Copyright secured by Elizur Wright."
"A copy of this book, which three leading publishers, though guaranteed against loss, have declined to publish, either with the author's name or without it, will be sent, post-paid, on the receipt of $1.50 addressed to Elizur Wright, Box 109, Boston. Or ten copies will be sent, free of freight, on the receipt of $10.
"If any profit should accrue from the sale, it will all be paid to the descendants of Myron Holley till such time as the State of New York shall have paid the just debt it owes them."
We have to thank the writer of this book for one of the most readable and instructive biographies we have ever read, and for doing justice to the character of a very rare and remarkable man. Myron Holley was born in 1779, and died in 1841. His career, which was thus ended more than forty years ago, belongs to the early part of the century, and we had heard much of his noble work and his manly characteristics, though only in a fragmentary and unsatisfying way, and had often expressed regret that there was no accessible sketch of his life. Now that we have it, it is more apparent than ever how great would have been the loss to the world if the task had remained unperformed.
The character of Mr. Holley has been brought out vividly in this volume in several relations. In the first place, he was one of the most efficient, influential, and indefatigable of the pioneers to which we owe the canal system of the State of New York. No matter how this system may be now regarded, the construction of the Erie Canal was a leading step in the progress of our Western civilization, and full of formidable difficulties from the novelty and magnitude of the project, and the state of the public mind upon the subject. One of the most interesting portions of Mr. Wright's racy and graphic book is the account he gives of the origin and growth of the canal policy, which he found it indispensable to delineate in order to bring out the full import of Mr. Holley's relation to it. He was not only a man of great energy and determination, but of admirable tact, clear judgment, and invincible integrity. He entered into the project with his whole soul, subordinated all personal interests to it, neglecting his own private affairs, under the unwise impression that, when the great public work was done, the State would do him justice. We have no room here for explanations upon this point, and must refer the reader to the pages of Mr. Wright, where it is proved that the State of New York cheated Myron Holley out of more than a hundred thousand dollars, when millions would not have repaid the State for the value of his services in carrying out the canal project.
Myron Holley's name will also be historic in connection with the progress of American ideas by his early and controlling alliance with the anti-slavery movement. He was a pioneer reformer in the days when opposition to slavery meant social execration, and when the North in all its great elements—political, ecclesiastical, collegiate, literary, and social—was on its knees to the South for every vile and venal purpose. It i was in the palmy days of Northern poltroonery when the South was told that she could have anything she wanted, and all she 1 wanted; that she had but to name the terms on which this government might continue, and they should be conceded, and when slavery was rampant and regnant as the supreme interest of the American Republic that Myron Holley took the lead in founding the Northern Liberty party.
To this history Mr. Wright also adds an interesting account of Holley's independent and advanced religious views, and also his ideas of domestic culture, family interests, the education of children, and the conduct of social life. In all these relations Mr. Holley was a man of great individuality, and freedom from the tyrannical restraints of mere conventionalism. He was a thoroughgoing reformer when reform was less a ​vocation than it has since become, and he was always marked for the reasonableness and temperateness of his views, and the ability and power with which they were presented.
Myron Holley was one of the personalities that are not to be forgotten, and we have again to thank Elizur Wright for his painstaking and generous efforts to rescue from forgetfulness a character so worthy to be remembered, and admired, and emulated.
Annual Report of the Connecticut Agricultural-Experiment Station, for 1881. New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor. Pp. 122.
The Station has been occupying borrowed quarters in the Sheffield Scientific School, which were so limited that it has been able to do little else than oversee the analysis of fertilizers. This it does gratuitously when consumers of the fertilizers, for moderate fees when proprietors and sellers, are its customers. It having become necessary to remove the Station, the director suggests it be given a situation where it can test the agricultural value of the fertilizers, and perform other experiments in practical agriculture. The act of Connecticut in establishing the Station been responded to in other States. New Jersey has a Station in connection with the Agricultural College at New Brunswick, which enjoys the advantage of a farm. North Carolina has lately furnished its station with excellent accommodations at public expense; and New York is organizing a station at an outlay of $20,000 a year. The report contains very full accounts of analyses and valuation of different kinds of fertilizers, and papers on fodders and feeding-stuffs, with their analyses. Of immediate and practical interest are articles on the feeding of milch-cows at different dairies and the New Jersey Experimental Station, and on feeding with ensilage.
The Occult World. By A. P. Sinnett. Boston: Colby Rich Pp. 172. Price, $1.
The author apparently belongs to the band of Theosophists, and asserts that the wisdom of the ancients survives as what he calls the occult philosophy, and that "it was already a system of knowledge, that had been cultivated in secret and handed down to initiates for ages, before its professors performed experiments in public to impress the popular mind in Egypt and Greece. Adepts of occultism in the present age are capable of performing similar experiments, and of exhibiting results that prove them immeasurably further advanced than modern science in a comprehension of the forces of nature." He claims, also, that these adepts have peculiar knowledge of the mental and spiritual world. He has met this science during his travels in India, and has assumed to describe in this volume his experiences of it. and the knowledge he has gained respecting it. Those who read the book with the expectation of finding anything in it to confirm the high-sounding pretensions declared at the start will be disappointed.
Marriage and Parentage, and the Sanitary and Physiological Laws for the Production of Children of Finer Health and Greater Ability. New York: M. L. Holbrook & Co. Pp. 186.
The doctrine of this book is that "the race might be greatly improved by wiser and more sanitary marriages, and by more physiological parentage"; and the author suggests that, "if the average standard of ability of the race in intellect, in morals, and in physical power were raised one degree during each century, the results could hardly be estimated." The subject deserves discussion in a practical, common-sense manner, and receives it here.
The New Infidelity. By Augustus Radcliffe Grote. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 101. Price, $1.25.
The author has endeavored to show in this work that there is an essential difference between the religious temper of the Aryan race and the Semitic. "Our villages to-day," he says, "are Aryan settlements in their vital points, not Semitic inclosures; and it is so with our religion—at bottom it is pagan still." He has also tried to show that revealed religion is not directly attacked by the discoveries of Science. "Only Natural Religion"—which is regarded by him as the foundation of paganism—"is now assailed in her own house, by her own children, and with her own weapons. This has come to pass through the further ​development of that race-tendency which seeks in nature for the proof of the existence of God. In Nature, paganism found at first many gods; and our present monotheistic idea (outside of Christianity) seems to be the result of the gradual extinction of the belief in diverse deities, by the process of discovering a single force moving the universe of matter."
An Elementary Treatise on Electricity. By James Clerk Maxwell. Edited by William Garnett. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1881. Pp. 208. Price, $1.90.
The greater part of this work consists of articles written by the late Professor Maxwell some years before his death, with a view to their ultimate publication as an elementary text-book of the subject. Owing to the labor involved in the editing of the Cavendish papers, they were left in a very incomplete state at the time of his death, but the editor has endeavored to carry out the original purpose, by supplementing them with material taken from Professor Maxwell's larger work, "Electricity and Magnetism." The first two chapters are devoted to an experimental demonstration of the principal facts relating to electric charge considered as a quantity capable of inurement, and the third to electric work and energy. In the fourth chapter the electric field is considered, and Faraday's law of lines of induction forms the subject of the fifth. Some particular cases of electrification are taken up in the sixth chapter, electrical images in the seventh, and condensers the eighth. The various phenomena of the current form the subject of the ninth and tenth chapters, while the methods of maintaining it are considered in the eleventh. The twelfth chapter is devoted to the measurement of electrical resistance, and the thirteenth and last to electrical resistance of substances.
The Mother's Guide in the Management and Feeding of Infants. By John M. Keating, M. D. Philadelphia: Henry C. Lea's Son Co. Pp. 118. Price. $1.
The author has endeavored to supply a want which he believes to be daily growing, as the monthly nurses of the last generation, whose knowledge gained by experience gave them a place hardly secondary to that of the doctor, are passing away—the want of a better understanding of the requirements of a new-born babe. A necessity for artificial feeding has been developed; over-luxurious and overheated dwellings have raised the question of proper clothing; and the rapid advancement of science has taught us the value of early treatment to eradicate the tendency to inherited taint. For explaining these matters, the work considers the requirements of the infant, first from birth till the cutting of its first teeth, then during the period of dentition, and finally those of a child after its third year.
Opium-Smoking in America and China. A Study of its Prevalence and Effects, Immediate and Remote, on the Individual and the Nation. By H. H. Kane, M. D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 156. Price, $1.
"That opium-smoking." says the author of this work, "is a vice that imperatively demands careful study at the hands of Americans is made manifest by the fact that the practice, comparatively unknown among us six years ago, is now indulged in by some six thousand of our countrymen, male and female, whose ranks are being daily recruited; . . . that large and small towns in the West and large cities in the East abound in places where this drug is sold and smoked"; and that in some of the States it has been found necessary to enact repressive laws on the subject. Dr. Kane has made careful investigations of the methods and effects of opium-smoking, by personal experiment, by the observation of smokers in the act and afterward, by correspondence and communication with other similar observers, and by the consultation of books in which the subject is discussed, and communicates the results in this volume.
A Study of the Various Sources of Sugar: Sugar-Cane, Sorghums, Sugar-Beet, Maple, Water-Melons, etc. By Lewis S. Ware. Philadelphia: Henry Carey Baird & Co. Pp. 66. Price, 50 cents.
The author suggests that sugar, being the largest single article of import into the country, offers a greater field for usefulness in the investigation and introduction and development of a new industry than "any ​not now here existing." He reviews all the products from which sugar is obtained or is expected to be obtained, in order to discover which one presents the most hopeful opening for enterprise. His conclusions are, that sorghum offers a difficult problem from a financial point of view; that amber-cane is a little more satisfactory, but not satisfactory enough; that the cultivation of corn-stalks for sugar would exhaust the soil; that sugar-cane can not supply the home demand; that the maple can do this no better; that the expectation of obtaining sugar from sweet-potatoes is delusive, and that of getting it from white potatoes more so. Water-melons deserve more consideration, but they are declared to be inferior to the sugar-beet; and the last is pronounced "the only possible plant which can supply the North with sugar." The question remains, whether beet-sugar can be made profitably without the artificial stimulus of protection. If not, we had better continue to raise what we can derive a profit from without artificial aid, and buy our sugar where we can get it cheapest.
Vaccination: Arguments Pro and Con; with a Chapter on the Hygiene of Small-pox. By Joseph F. Edwards, M. D. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 80. Price, 50 cents.
The energy of the opposition manifested by a considerable number of persons against vaccination has induced the author to make his own independent study of the question. He has gathered information from all available sources and considered the arguments on both sides, as he presents them here, and has become convinced that in vaccination properly performed, and in that only, we can find immunity from small-pox. He attaches much importance to anticipating the opposition that may arise and spread in this country, as it has done in England.
First Aid to the Injured. By Peter Shepherd, M. D. Revised and added to by Bowditch Morton, M. D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 88. Price, 50 cents.
A brief manual intended for non-professional readers, the object of which is to furnish a few plain rules to enable any one to act in cases of injury or sudden illness, pending the arrival of professional help. The revisions and additions by the American editor have been simply such as would make the work more suitable to this country.
Sir John Lubbock's charming little book on "Ants and Bees" will be the next volume of the "International Scientific Series," and is now in press, to be very shortly issued. It will contain much new, fresh, and entertaining matter on a subject always full of interest. Sir John has been many years a close observer of the habits of these little creatures, and his volume will therefore not be a second-hand compilation, but an original contribution to the most romantic aspect of natural history.
The entertaining sketches entitled "The Mountains of the Moon"; or, Chronicles of Hakim Ben Sheytan, concerning a curious African people, of which we have printed some representative installments in the "Monthly," is now being copiously illustrated for separate publication in a volume.
Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Education. No. 6. 1881. Effects of Student Life on the Eye-sight. By A. W. Calhoun. M. D. And No. 1. 1882. Training-Schools for Nurses. Washington: Government Printing-Office.
Fungi injurious to Vegetation. With Remedies. By Dr. Byron D. Halstead. Pp. 35.
The Opium-Habit, By E. H. M. Sill, M.D. New York: Bermingham & Co. 1882. Pp. 8.
On the Trachyte of Marblehead Neck, Massachusetts. By M. E. Wadswortb, Ph.D. Pp. 7.
Biogen: A Speculation on the Origin and Nature of Life. By Dr. Elliott Coues. Washington: Judd & Detweiler. 1882. Pp. 27.
The Death-Rate of Memphis. By George E. Waring, Jr. 1882. Pp. 6.
How the Great Prevailing Winds and Ocean Currents are produced. By C. A. M. Taber. Boston: A. Williams & Co. 1882. Pp. 82. 40 cents.
History and Description of the Luray Cave. By S. Z. Ammen, A. M. Baltimore: J. W. Burst & Co. 1882. Pp. 48. Illustrated.
Educational Journalism. By C. W. Bardeen. Syracuse: C. W. Bardeen, Publisher. 1881. Pp. 30.
Bulletin of the United States National Museum. No. II. Bibliography of the Fishes of the Pacific Coast to the End of 1879. By Theodore Gill. Washington: Government Printing-Office. 1882.
Notes on Physiological Optics. By W. Le Conte Stevens. 1882. Pp. 28.
Current Fallacies about Vaccination. A Letter to Dr. Carpenter. By Dr. P. A. Taylor, M. P. London: E. W. Allen. 1881. Pp. 37.
​Journal of the American Chemical Society. Vol. IV, Nos. 1-4. January-April, 1882. New York: Bermingham & Co. 1822. Pp. 48.
How we See. By Dr. Swan M. Burnett. Washington: Judd & Detweiler. 1882. Pp. 25. 10 cents.
The Mental Status of Guiteau. By Walter Channing, M.D. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Riverside Press. 1882. Pp. 22.
The Mineral-Water Controversy, Artificial or Natural. By Carl H. Schultz. New York: Wells, Lockett & Rankin. 1882. Pp. 32.
Forest-Tree Culture in California. Pp. 12. And, On the Growth of Certain California Forest-Trees and the Meteorological Inferences suggested thereby. Pp. 8. By Robert E. C. Stearns. Berkeley, California.
Color-Names, Color-Blindness, and the Education of the Color-Sense in our Schools. By B. Joy Jeffries, M.D. Boston: L. Prang & Co. 1882. Pp. 11.
A Bibliography of Fossil Insects. By Samuel H. Scudder. Cambridge, Massachusetts: University Press. 1882. Pp. 47.
Tenth Annual Report of the Board of Directors of the Zoological Society of Philadelphia. Philadelphia. 1832. Pp. 30. Illustrated.
Third Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Archaeological Institute of America, etc., etc. Cambridge: John Wilson & Son. 1882. Pp. 56.
The Domain of Physiology, or Nature in Thought and Language. By T. Sterry Hunt, F.R.S. Boston: S.E. Cassino. 1882. Pp. 27.
The Passion Tragedies of the Nineteenth Century. By Richard Monsill. Rock Island, Illinois. 1882. Pp. 83. 50 cents.
Kindergarten Manuals. Primary Helps. By W. N. Hailmann, A. M. Syracuse: C. W. Bardeen. 1882. Pp. 29. Fifteen full-page Plates. 75 cents.
Capital and Population. By Frederick B. Hawley. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1882. Pp. 267. $1.50.
Gypsies. By Dio Lewis. New York: M. L. Holbrook & Co. 1882. Pp. 214. Illustrated.
A Compendious Dictionary of the French Language. By Gustave Masson. New York: Macmillan & Co. 1882. Pp. 416. $1.
Cornell University Register. 1881-1882. Ithaca, New York. Pp. 120.
Currency; or, The Fundamental Principles of Monetary Science. By Hugh B. Willson. New York: G. P. Putnam Sons. 1882. Pp. 309. 1.50.
Handbook of Invertebrate Zoölogy. By W. K. Brooks. Ph.D. Boston: S. E. Cassino. 1882. Pp. 392. Illustrated. $3.
An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. By Rev. Walter W. Skeat. New York: Macmillan & Co. 1882. Pp. 799. $2.50.
Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, for the Year 1880. Washington: Government Printing-Office. 1881. Pp. 772.
Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics. By Frederick Pollock, M.A. London: Macmillan & Co., 1882. Pp. 383. $3.
Tenth Census of the United States. Statistics of the Population of the United States by States, Counties, and Minor Civil Divisions. Compiled by Francis A. Walker. Pp. 375. Statistics of Public Indebtedness, embracing the Funded and Unfunded Debts of the United States and the Several States. Compiled under the Direction of Robert P. Porter. Pp. 667.
History and Present Condition of New Orleans. Louisiana, and Report on the City of Austin, Texas. By George E. Waring, Jr., and George W. Cable. Pp. 99.