# Popular Science Monthly/Volume 55/October 1899/General Notices

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The fact that Mr. Charles A. Dana stood in close personal relations with Secretary Stanton and was officially associated with him during a considerable period of the war for the Union, and was also incidentally brought near Mr. Lincoln, gives whatever he may relate concerning the events of that period somewhat the air of a revelation from the inside. Accordingly, we naturally expect to find things narrated in his Recollections of the Civil War that could not be told as well by any one else. The account given in the book relates to events in which the author was personally concerned. Mr. Dana had been associated with Horace Greeley in the editorial management of the New York Tribune for fifteen years, when, in April, 1862, Mr. Greeley invited him to resign. No reason was given or asked for the separation, and no explicit statement of a reason was needed. Mr. Greeley, having expressed in the beginning his willingness to let the secessionist "wayward-sister" States go in peace, was in favor of peace; Mr. Dana was for vigorous war. A correspondence was opened between him and Mr. Stanton in reference to public matters shortly after Mr. Stanton went into the War Department. Then Mr. Dana was intrusted with special commissions that carried him to the front and brought him in contact with the leader's of the army; and finally, in 1863, was appointed Assistant Secretary of War, an office he filled till the end of the contest. His narrative deals as the story of one having knowledge with questions of policy, with the critical phases of the hard conflict, with the perplexities and anxieties of the men charged with ​responsibilities, with stirring scenes in the councils at the Capitol and in battle at the front, and with personal incidents of the men whose names the nation loves and delights to honor. All is related in the straightforward, fluent style, touching only the facts, of a writer who has a story to tell and makes it his business to tell it. The result of the reading of the book is to arouse a new appreciation of the abilities and virtues of those great men in their various walks of civil, political, and military life, who took our country through its supreme trial.
Mrs. Arabella B. Buckley's Fairy-Land of Science has stood the test of about thirty years' publication as one of the simplest, clearest, and best popular introductions to physical science. Originating in a course of lectures delivered to children and their friends, the thought of publishing the book was suggested by the interest taken in the lectures by all the hearers. It was a happy thought, and the carrying of it out is fully justified by the result. But thirty years is a long time in so rapidly advancing a pursuit as the study of science, and makes changes necessary in all books treating of it. The publishers of this work, therefore, with the assistance of the author, have considerably extended the original volume, adding to it notices of the latest scientific discoveries in the departments treated, and amplifying with fuller detail such parts as have grown in importance and interest. A few changes have been made in the interest of American readers, such as the substitution, where it seemed proper, of words familiar here for terms almost exclusively used in England, and the introduction of American instead of English examples to illustrate great scientific truths. The book has also been largely reillustrated.
Some of the essays in Miss Badenoch's True Tales of the Insects have already appeared in serials—two of them in the Popular Science Monthly. The essays are not intended to present a view of entomology or of any department of it, but to describe, in an attractive and at the same time an accurate manner, a few special features of insect life and some of what we might call its remarkable curiosities. The author is well qualified for her undertaking, for, while being an entomologist of recognized position, she has those qualities of enthusiasm in her pursuit and literary training that enable her to present her subject in its most attractive aspect. From the great variety of insect forms she has selected only a few for this special presentation, including some of eccentric shape and some of genuine universal interest. She begins with the strange-looking creatures of the family of the Mantidæ, or praying insects, or, as the Brazilians call the Mantis, more fitly, the author thinks, the devil's riding horse, which is characterized as "the tiger, not the saint, of the insect world." The walking-stick and walking-leaf insects, of equally strange appearance, but peaceful, naturally follow these. Then come the locusts and grasshoppers, which are more familiar, and the butterflies and moths, which attract the most attention and present such remarkable forms as the case-moths and the hawk and death's-head moths. The insects made subjects of treatment are described with fullness of detail, and the record of their life histories. The book is published in an attractive outer style, on thick paper, with thirty-four illustrations by Margaret J. D. Badenoch.
Prof. Charles C. James, now Deputy Minister of Agriculture for Ontario, defines the purpose of his book, Practical Agriculture, to be to aid the reader and student in acquiring a knowledge of the science as distinguished from the art of agriculture—"that is, a knowledge of the 'why,' rather than a knowledge of the 'how.'" The author believes, from his experience of several years' teaching at the Ontario Agricultural College, that the rational teaching of agriculture in public and high schools is possible and would be exceedingly profitable, and that an intelligent knowledge of the science underlying the art would add much interest to the work and greatly increase the pleasure in it. The science of agriculture is understood by him to consist ​of a mingling of chemistry, geology, botany, entomology, physiology, bacteriology, and other sciences in so far as they have any bearing upon agriculture. He has aimed in this book to include only the first principles of these various sciences, and to show their application to the art of agriculture. The subject is treated as it relates, consecutively, to the plant, the soil, the crops of the field; the garden, orchard, and vineyard; livestock and dairying; and, under the heading of "other subjects," bees and birds, forestry, roads, and the rural home. The appendix contains lists of trees and of weeds, and an article on spraying mixtures. Questions to be answered by the reader are attached to most of the chapters. The illustrations are well chosen and good.
Considerable information about the Philippine Islands and their inhabitants is given by Dr. D. G. Brinton in a pamphlet entitled The Peoples of the Philippines. Dr. Brinton's point of view is the anthropologist's, and accordingly, after a few paragraphs about the geography, geology, and history of the islands, he takes up their ethnology and describes their various peoples as they have been studied by the masters of the science and by travelers. Much valuable as well as interesting information is given respecting their manners and customs, languages, and literature, for the Tagals have had a written language from the earliest known times, and though their old literature does not amount to much they are to-day exceedingly facile versifiers.
The Open Court Publishing Company (Chicago) publishes The Lectures on Elementary Mathematics (Leçons élémentaires sur les mathématiques) of Joseph Louis Lagrange, "the greatest of modern analysts," in a translation from the new edition of the author's collected works by Thomas J. McCormack. These lectures, which were delivered in 1765 at the École Normale, have never before been published in separate form, except in the first printing in the Journal of the Polytechnic School and in the German. "The originality, elegance, and symmetrical character of these lectures have been pointed out by De Morgan, and notably by Dühring, who places them in the front rank of elementary expositions as an example of their kind. They possess, we might say, a unique character as a reading book in mathematics, and are interwoven with helpful historical and philosophical remarks." They present with great clearness the subjects of arithmetic and its operations, algebra, equations of the third and fourth degrees, the evolution of numerical equations, and the employment of curves in the solution of problems. The translator has prefixed a short biographical sketch of Lapouge, and an excellent portrait is given.
A book of Observation Blanks for Beginners in Mineralogy has been prepared by Herbert E. Austin, as an aid to the laboratory course, and is published by D. C. Heath & Co. (Boston, 30 cents). The laboratory course is intended to make the pupil familiar with the characteristics of minerals and the terms used in describing them by directing him to observe typical specimens and describe what he sees, and to develop his faculties of observation, conception, reasoning, judgment, comparison, and memory. A description is given of apparatus that may be home-made. The blanks follow, containing spaces for the insertion of notes under the heads of Experiment, Observation, Statement, and Conclusion.
In Volume No. XXX of the International Education Series—Pedagogics of the Kindergarten—a number of Froebel's essays relating more especially to the plays and games were printed from the collection made by Wichard Lange. A new volume of the series, Friedrich Froebel's Education by Development, includes another selection from Lange's publication, in which the gifts are more thoroughly discussed. "Again and again, in the various essays," the editor of the series says, "Froebel goes over his theory of the meaning of the ball, the sphere, the cube, and its various subdivisions. The student of Froebel has great advantage, therefore, in reading this volume, inasmuch as Froebel has cast new light on his thought in each separate exposition that he has made. . . . The essays on the training school for kindergartners and the method of introducing children's gardens into the kindergarten are very suggestive and useful. In fact, there is no other kindergarten literature that is quite equal in ​value to the contents of this volume." The few essays in Lange's volume that still remain untranslated, are characterized as being mostly of an ephemeral character. with the publication of the present volume, of which, as of the Pedagogics, Miss Josephine Jarvis is the translator, a complete list of the original works of Froebel in English translations has been provided in the International Education Series of Messrs. D. Appleton and Company.
A useful manual for students in chemistry is the Chemical Experiments of Prof. John F. Woodhull and M. B. Van Arsdale (Henry Holt & Co., New York). It embraces directions for making seventy-five experiments with different substances and chemical properties, including oxygen and the air, hydrogen and water, chlorine and the chlorine family, acids, bases, salts, sulphur, nitrogen, carbon, carbon dioxide and the carbonates, fermentation, potash, and problems to illustrate the law of definite proportions. A title is given to each experiment, suggesting what is to be proved by it; the details of the process are given, and the pupil is left to do the rest, entering his particular observations and conclusions on the blank page opposite the text. Questions are appended, of a nature further to develop the thinking powers of the pupils, and tables or lists are added of the elements concerned in the experiments, weights and measures, apparatus, and chemicals.
The book Defective Eyesight: the Principles of its Relief by Glasses, of Dr. D. B. St. John Roosa, is the result of an attempt to revise The Determination of the Necessity for Wearing Glasses, published by the same author in 1888. It was found, on undertaking the work of revision, that the advance in our knowledge of the proper prescription of glasses, especially in the matter of simplicity in method, had been so great as to require a complete rewriting. In doing this the book has been very much enlarged, and illustrations have been introduced. The author hopes his manual may prove a reliable guide to the student and practitioner in ophthalmology, and may also be of interest to persons who wish to know the principles on which the prescription of glasses is based. The special subjects treated of are the measurement of visual power, presbyopia, myopia or short-sightedness, hypermetropia, corneal astigmatism, asthenopia, and the qualities of lenses. (Published by the Macmillan Company. Price, $1.)
* ↑ Recollections of the Civil War. With the Leaders at Washington and in the Field in the Sixties. By Charles A. Dana. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 296. Price, $2.
* ↑ The Fairy-Land of Science. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 252.
* ↑ True Tales of the Insects. By L. N. Badenoch. London: Chapman & Hall. Pp. 253.
* ↑ Practical Agriculture. By Charles C. James. American edition edited by John Craig. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp.203. Price, 80 cents.