# Popular Science Monthly/Volume 41/July 1892/Literary Notices

Layout 4
The Discovery of America. By John Fiske. Cambridge: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1892. In two volumes.
Prof. Fiske opens his subject with a discussion of the question of the grade of culture reached by the inhabitants of the American continent at the time of the discovery. The gorgeous accounts given by the Spaniards of the civilization of Mexico and Peru have survived until quite recent times, not only in the popular imagination, but in the writings of sober-minded authors. Careful research has, however, dissipated these earlier conceptions of American culture and put it in the right relation to the condition of advancement reached by the Old World peoples. Prof. Fiske gives the chief credit to the clearing up of this question to the late Lewis Morgan, whose generalizations he in the main accepts. According to Mr. Morgan's classification, the three well-marked stages in culture are savagery, barbarism, and civilization, the dividing line between the first two being the invention of pottery, and that between barbarism and civilization the invention of the alphabet.
According to this classification, none of the American peoples at the time of the voyage of Columbus had reached a higher stage of culture than the middle status of barbarism. In the Old World this stage of culture was marked by the domestication of animals other than the dog, but nowhere in America outside of Peru were there any domesticated animals except the dog, and in the latter those of the Old World were unknown. The social development reached by the aboriginal American was in keeping with that in the arts. The Spaniards, with their notions of society derived from mediæval Europe, naturally interpreted the social arrangements they found in terms of their experience, but nowhere on the American continent, save in Peru, was there anything approaching a nation. The organization of the Aztecs in Mexico was similar to that of the more advanced Indians to the north—viz., that of the clan. Montezuma, whom the Spaniards mistook for a king, was simply the chief of the clan. The living was communal in structures the property of the clan, and there was no development of the idea of private property except in things purely personal. Peru had passed beyond this stage, and had acquired the position of a rudimentary empire, but in some things was less advanced than Mexico. Neither country had yet acquired the art of smelting iron, and between both and the beginnings of civilization there lay the vast tract which terminates with the invention of the phonetic alphabet.
Prof. Fiske follows his survey of the inhabitants of the American continent by a discussion of the visits of the Northmen to the American coast, and then takes up the relations of Europe with the East, which completes his survey of the subject, preliminary to the memorable voyage of Columbus. In his chapter on pre-Columbian voyages he sums up what is known of the voyages of the Northmen. Far from being mythical, these voyages were very real. These northern seamen settled Iceland, and from there spread over to Greenland, where two settlements were made which lasted for four hundred years. From these settlements voyages were made down the American coast as far south probably as Massachusetts. An attempt was made to found a settlement in Vinland, which was the name they gave to a part of the coast visited, but this came to no result, and they did nothing beyond visiting the place to cut timber. None of these voyages did anything toward altering the relations of the Eastern and Western world. The two streams of life flowed on as they had for centuries, unknown to each other. It was not until the epoch-making voyage of Columbus and those who followed after that the two worlds were brought into contact. Prof. Fiske, therefore, rightly considers that the voyages of the Northmen were in no sense anticipations of Columbus.
In order to understand the meaning of the voyage of Columbus, we must understand the economical condition of the Europe of the fifteenth century and its relation to the East—or Cathay, as it was termed. We must also, as Prof. Fiske insists, banish from our minds the modern map, and try to put ourselves in the place of the people of that time. A rich trade had for some centuries been carried on between Europe and the East, in spices, gums, and fine fabrics. Genoa and Venice were rival centers of this trade, and had each overland routes to the ​fabled land of the East. The traders did not actually pass from Europe to India and China, but met the Eastern traders and made exchange of products. Their knowledge of the East was therefore mostly hearsay knowledge, and, as is generally the fact in such a case, much fable was mixed with the truth. It was not until the middle of the thirteenth century that it became known in Europe that there was an ocean to the east of Cathay, and it was not until the close of the century, when Marco Polo published an account of his long sojourn in the East, that there was any definite information of these far-off countries accessible to Europeans. This Eastern trade, which had been steadily growing, had reached large proportions by the middle of the fifteenth century. But just at this juncture political events occurred which threatened its destruction by cutting off the routes heretofore used. The overthrow of the Mongols and the coming in of the native Ming dynasty in China had resulted in the exclusion of foreigners from that country. The rise of the Ottoman Empire and the conquest of Constantinople had cut off the northern route used by Genoa, and the Venetian route by way of Egypt was threatened by the same power. Men's minds, therefore, turned with ardor to the question of finding an outside route to the Indies. The significance of an ocean to the east of China began to be apprehended, and by the time of the first voyage of Columbus the European mind was ripe for projects for the finding of a water route to the Indies. Very little faith, however, was put in any scheme to find the Indies by sailing west. The hope and expectation were all in the direction of finding a route down the west coast of Africa and then east. No one had any idea of the extent of Africa, and, though many voyages were undertaken by Portugal, it was not until after the voyage of Columbus that Africa was entirely circumnavigated and an easterly route to the Indies discovered.
Prof. Fiske details very fully the struggles of Columbus to interest, first Portugal and then Spain, in his project of finding the Indies by sailing westward. The only ground upon which such an expedition could be based was the one that it would furnish a shorter route to the Indies than that which Portugal was seeking down the west coast of Africa. Columbus calculated that the distance from the Canaries to Japan, the wonderful island kingdom to the east of Cathay, could not be much more than twentyfive hundred miles. As Prof. Fiske points out, this was a case where a little knowledge was helpful instead of dangerous. The perils of the voyage seemed great enough with this estimate of the distance; they would have been prohibitory had the real distance to Asia been known. Columbus died in the belief that he had reached land just off the Asiatic coast. He did not dream that he had landed upon a new world separated from Asia by a vast ocean. Years were to elapse before this fact should be appreciated by Europe, and the labors of many able navigators, extending through a period of two hundred years, were necessary to completely map out the vast new continent to which Columbus led the way.
Prof. Fiske, in recounting the many voyages and explorations by which the New World was brought within the domain of accurate knowledge, is very successful in grouping them so as to preserve the historical perspective. The reader appreciates the gradual growth of knowledge in Europe as successive voyages furnish new data, until at last there is the rounded out and completed whole. The text is supplemented by maps made from time to time by European cartographers, which are more vividly illustrative of the state of European ignorance than any amount of description could be.
Prof. Fiske devotes considerable space to clearing up the obscurity that surrounds the naming of the New World America. From this it appears that this name was proposed by a German cartographer for the land discovered by Americus Vespucius on his third voyage, when he was blown westward to the extreme eastern coast of South America. It was not known until long afterward that this land had any connection with that discovered by Columbus. The latter was supposed to be Asia, and the place occupied by the land visited by Americus was supposed to be open sea. It was therefore felt to be a proper thing to give to this new land, which was not Asia, the name of its discoverer. Later, when it became known that this was part of a land of continental dimensions, which extended far to the north as ​well as to the south, the name had become so fixed that it was applied to the entire continent.
The conquests of Mexico and Peru are given a large share of attention, and a very vivid and interesting picture is drawn by Prof. Fiske of these first considerable conflicts between the two orders of culture of the Eastern and the Western worlds.
The author closes his account of the discovery with the story of the navigators and explorers who, for two centuries after Columbus, were busy with the detailed exploration of the great American continent.
To those familiar with Prof. Fiske's writings, it is needless to say that the work is thoroughly well done. It is drawn from original sources, and, while here and there points remain to be cleared up, we have in the present volumes in graphic and vivid form the story of the great chain of events, in their true historic proportions, which won for civilization a New World.
Natural Science. Monthly. London and New York: Macmillan & Co. Price, one shilling a number.
We have the pleasure of welcoming a new scientific magazine, the first number of which appeared in England in March. It is to be primarily a record of new observations and discoveries in the field of natural history adapted to the needs of amateur investigators. "It will be our constant aim," say its conductors, "to expound and deal in a critical manner with the principal results of current research in geology and biology that appear to be of more than limited application. Original articles referring to the existing status of certain special branches of natural science, with suggestions for further development, will be a prominent feature. Periodical summaries of the latest results in the various departments are contemplated. Reviews of the more important new books will be not merely critical but also descriptive. Special attention will be given to the latest news concerning the work of all the principal societies and institutions throughout the world devoted to scientific and educational matters."
The magazine will have also a polemic tendency, for it starts with the avowed purpose of combating professionalism. "Half a century ago," it says, "scientific research was almost entirely in the hands of amateurs—independent workers, as Humboldt, Darwin, Lyell, Murchison, Hugh Miller, Waterton, and others." But a change has been wrought, mainly by the very rapidity of scientific progress. The more rigorous requirements of scientific work in recent years have operated to discourage amateurs, and hence to produce a wide gap between the scientific workers and the general public. Both science and the public have suffered in consequence; hence it is to be one of the aims of the new magazine to promote a better state of affairs.
The first number opens with a few pages of Notes and Comments, which are followed by articles dealing with Some Recent Observations upon Mimicry, by Frank E. Beddard; Deep-sea Deposits, by J. J. H. Teall (being a review of the Report on the Challenger Specimens, by John Murray and A. F. Renard); The Evolution of Fins, by A. Smith Woodward, illustrated; Some Salient Points in the Study of Mammals during 1891, by R. Lydekker, illustrated; English Lake Dwellings, by James W. Davis; Marine Snakes, by G. A. Boulenger, illustrated; The Exploration of Coral Reefs by Borings, by J. W. Gregory; Some Recent Researches on Insects and Arachnids, by G. H. Carpenter; Relationship of Sigillaria and Stigmaria, by Thomas Hick; and The Mammals of India, by R. Lydekker, illustrated. There are also review, news, and obituary departments.
The Philosophical Review. Bimonthly. Edited by J. G. Schurman. Boston: Ginn & Co. $3 a year.
Cultivators of philosophy have now the promise of a well-conducted and regularly appearing magazine devoted to metaphysics and the allied subjects psychology, logic, and aesthetics. Its prospectus announces that the review "will be an open forum alike for those who increase the stock of positive data and for those who strive to see new facts in their bearings and relations, and to trace them up to their ultimate speculative implications. An equal hearing will be given to both sides of every unsettled question. The attitude of the review is nonpartisan. Writers alone will be responsible for their articles, which in all cases must be ​signed." The initial number of this review opens with a paper on The Critical Philosophy and Idealism, by Prof. John Watson, of Queen's University, taking Caird's work on Kant as a starting-point. Prof. George T. Ladd follows with a review of James's Principles of Psychology, under the title Psychology as So-called "Natural Science"; and Benjamin I. Gilman contributes the first part of an essay on Psychological Aspects of the Chinese Musical System, with extended examples. There is a carefully edited department of Reviews of Books, and another department in which are given summaries of articles on philosophical topics in other periodicals.
The Journal of Comparative Neurology. Quarterly. Edited by Prof. C. L. Herrick. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co. $3 a year.
Prof. Herrick has undertaken the publication of a periodical which shall make known the results of researches upon the nervous systems of man and the lower animals. The two numbers now before us contain contributions to the Comparative Morphology of the Central Nervous System, by the editor, and Morphology of the Avian Brain, by C. H. Turner, both papers being continued, accompanied by plates. There is also a contribution dealing with Recent Investigations on the Structure and Relations of the Optic Thalami, by Henry R. Pemberton. The other matter in the numbers consists of notes on laboratory technique, editorials, and literary notices. In addition to the physiological topics treated in the journal, the editor intends to give increasing attention to the problems of comparative psychology.
A Guide to Electric Lighting. By S. R. Bottone. London and New York: Macmillan & Co., 1892. Pp. 189. Price, 75 cents.
This little manual essays to give in concise form the information necessary to acquaint the non-scientific reader with the principles of electric lighting. The author first treats of the electric battery, and then of the dynamo as a source of the electric current, and explains the meaning of series and multiple arc distribution. A chapter is given to lamps, arc, incandescent, and the now obsolete form known as semi-incandescent, or incandescence in the open air. In the arc lamps figured and described the only one in extensive commercial use is the Brush, of which there is a diagrammatic sketch. As the book is designed as a guide to householders and amateurs, and is not meant to be historical, the description of apparatus that have ceased to have a commercial place does not seem to be called for, and only serves to confuse the reader by presenting a multiplicity of appliances. This remark applies as well to the storage battery as to obsolete forms of lamp. Whatever the possibilities of the storage battery for power uses, it has no place in electric lighting, and there is but little probability that it ever will have. A chapter is devoted to fittings, in which is included a brief description of voltmeters and ammeters, and also one to the electric motor. Mr. Bottone seems to have but little conception of the predominating position which is being taken by alternating-current distribution, to which he gives but a couple of pages, which contain little information. The subject of meters is treated very cursorily. This would seem to be a subject of especial interest to the consumer, and a full description of the principles involved and somewhat detailed descriptions of the meters actually employed in commercial work might properly find a place in a book of this kind.
Of the volume as a whole very little can be said in commendation. It is too brief to be of much use to one wholly unacquainted with the subject, and the salient features which would be of importance and interest to the householder are not brought out with sufficient clearness. The book is printed on good paper, in clear type, but the cuts, with a few exceptions, are wretched.
The Three Circuits. A Study of the Primary Forces. By Taylor Flick. Published by the author. Washington, D. O, 1892. Pp. 268. Price, $1.50.
This is one of those pseudo-contributions to science which make their appearance once in a while, written by men who, without any thorough grasp of the fundamental conceptions of modern physics, undertake to remodel our views of molecular and planetary forces. The domain of elemental forces is sufficiently vague and obscure to give scope to attempts of this character, and not a few ​essays have therefore been made into it by men ill fitted to add anything of a useful character to our current conceptions.
The author's thesis is that all worlds as well as the ultimate particles of matter are magnets, and that the planetary and stellar motions are the expressions of magnetic attractions and repulsions. According to his idea, light and heat are not transmitted from the sun, but are formed in our atmosphere by the interaction of magnetic forces. The author has some good ideas, and in some things he is in line with the most advanced views of modern physics, but what is good is so mixed up with a lot of insufferable rubbish that it is nearly if not quite impossible to disentangle the two. The book as a serious philosophical work is greatly marred by the flippant style of treatment and the introduction of a hypothetical personage from whom the author derives the views he offers.
University Extension. A Monthly Journal devoted to the Interests of Popular Education. Philadelphia: J. Haseltine Shinn. $1.50 a year.
The first number of this magazine appeared in July, 1891, and already, before its first volume is complete, its circulation has become so large as to warrant a reduction to half the original subscription price. The contents of the numbers so far issued consist of outlines and suggestions for carrying on the new and popular form of educational work to which the magazine is devoted, with accounts of what has been done at the various centers for this work. In the number for April are articles on Class Work in University Extension, Extension Teaching in Wisconsin, University Extension Work in Mathematics, and An Unknown Quantity and One Possible Value. The last article advocates an extension of our free high-school system by means of evening sessions, so as to bridge the gap between the elementary schools and the university-extension work. The magazine is conducted by the American Society for the Extension of University Teaching, in Philadelphia.
G. Masson, of Paris, has begun the publication of the Encyclopédie Scientifique des Aide-mémoire, or Memory-help Scientific Encyclopaedia, the volumes of which are prepared under the direction of M. H. Leaute, member of the Institute of France. While the publication is expected to be marked by a practical character, it will at the same time be truly scientific. It will be composed of eight hundred volumes in small octavo, which are expected to cover the entire domain of the applied sciences. Each of the volumes will be by an author who is an authority, and will give in a condensed form the precise present condition of science on its special subject and of the practical conditions relating to it. The eight volumes which were to have appeared on the first of April include works on Chronic Delirium, by Dr. Magnan; Gynaecology, by M. A. Auvard; Transmission of Force by Compressed or Rarefied Air, by M. Al. Gouilly; A Calorimetric Study of the Steam-Engine, by M. V. Dwelshauvers Dery; Disease of the Respiratory Organs, by Dr. Faisans; Electrophysiology, by Dr. G. Weiss; Distribution of Electricity by Isolated Installations, by M. R. V. Picou; and Resistance of Materials, by M. Duquesnay.
A book by Julian Ralph, entitled Along the Bowstring, is a guide-book to the south shore of Lake Superior. The Bowstring which gives it its name is the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad, which runs (on the map) in a marvelously exact straight line from Sault St. Marie to Duluth. Special descriptions are given of Marquette and Presque Isle and of Mackinaw; and Dr. M. E. Wadsworth contributes an interesting scientific chapter on the Geology of the Marquette and Keweenan Districts. Published by the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad.
How to reduce your Weight, or Increase it, a vivacious monograph by Celia Logan, chatty and personal while intended also to be practical, is defined as "an exposition of the Salisbury plan." Its purpose, as outlined by the author, is to make plain to every one how an easy and sure deliverance from the burden of corpulence is in his own hands; and, incidentally, to point out a way by which the meager may, readily and agreeably, attain a pleasing roundness of outline. The author professes herself to have used her prescription with [advantage. William A. Kellogg, publisher, 1023 Sixth Avenue, New York. Price, 50 cents.
Notes on Beauty, Vigor, and Development, published by Fowler & Wells Co., is a ​booklet of practical directions for acquiring plumpness of form, strength of limb, and beauty of complexion, with rules for diet and bathing, and a series of improved physical exercises, based on the text of William Milo, of London. It gives much sound and interesting hygienic lore for ten cents.
The President's Annual Report of Columbia College for 1891 presents a record of a very full year of changes and progress incident to a lively growth. The College of Physicians and Surgeons, which has been affiliated since 1860, is now fully consolidated as a part of the institution. An important addition to the faculty is the institution of the Da Costa Professorship of Biology, with Prof. H. F. Osborn as its incumbent, and Dr. Bashford Dean as instructor. Prof. Osborn has been appointed Curator of Mammalian Paleontology in the American Museum of Natural History, and the first important step has been taken toward co-operation of that institution and the college. Another movement in the direction of co-operation has been made in the arrangement with the Union Theological Seminary for interchange of privileges. The Law School has been reorganized, with a new course of three years, and a new chair of International Law and Diplomacy. The Department of English has also been reorganized, and a Department of Literature created, with Mr. George E. Woodberry as professor. The faculty of philosophy, philology, and letters has been further strengthened by the creation of the chair of Experimental Psychology, with Prof. J. McK. Cattell as professor. Other changes, rather incidental than fundamental, are noticed in the report.
The Ninth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station represents that a favorable season has aided materially in a successful termination of a variety of field experiments as well as in a satisfactory general management of the farm work. The introduction of a vegetation-house for the purpose of studying, under well-defined circumstances, the influence of special articles of plant-food on the growth and character of plants and other intricate questions of vegetable physiology, is mentioned as an important addition to the resources of the institution. The report embodies detailed accounts of feeding experiments, field experiments and observations in vegetable physiology and pathology, special work in the chemical laboratory, and meteorological observations.
The work of the Connecticut Experiment Station, as presented in its report, has included analyses of commercial fertilizers; testing samples of butter, oleomargarine, molasses, and vinegar; analyses of feeding stuffs; various tests and analyses of milk, cream, etc.; experiments on the continuous growth of Indian corn on the same land; tests of the relative yield, in the course of years, of potatoes from tubers of different sizes; studies of the albuminoids or proteids of the seeds of the oat, flax, and cotton; and experiments, chemical and other, on the curing of tobacco.
The Indiana Experiment Station has suffered some changes in the personality of its staff, but its efficiency has not been impaired thereby. A study has been made for several years bearing upon the suitability of Indiana as a sugar-beet producing State, with encouraging results under certain conditions and in certain parts of the State. Investigations are in progress on the application of nitrogenous fertilizers to wheat. The plant diseases of grain, smut, a bacterial affection of the sugarbeet, and maladies of carnations have been studied. The lumpy jaw of cattle is under investigation. The feeding experiments relate to the influence of the physical condition of the rough food on meat production in steers; comparative rations of whole and skim milk for calves; different forms of feeding corn, and rations designed for producing lean or fat meat in pigs.
The Nebraska experiment station is gradually becoming recognized as an important factor in the agriculture of the State. The number of farmers who turn to the office for information is rapidly increasing; and the demand for the bulletins, which go regularly into the hands of more than five thousand actual farmers, is very great. The bright promise of the beet-sugar industry has led to giving it prominence in the shaping of investigations and in the report. Besides accounts of field experiments and meteorological observations, the report also contains a catalogue of the native trees and shrubs of Nebraska and "farm-notes" on many subjects.
The report of S. A. Forbes, State ​Entomolgist of Illinois, On the Noxious and Beneficial Insects of the State for 1889 and 1890, mentions as among the most noteworthy events of the entomological record the almost complete disappearance of the worst outbreak known of the chinch-bug, the very destructive development of the grain-louse, and the appearance of the European fruit-bark beetle, which is injurious to stone fruits. Besides these insects the report contains papers on experiments with arsenical poisonings, the American plum-borer, the common white grubs, the Hessian fly, the corn-root aphis, and diseases of the larger corn-root worm and the chinch-bug. An appendix to the report comprises an analytical list of the entomological writings of William Le Barron, second State Entomologist of Illinois.
Good Roads is a new illustrated monthly magazine devoted to the improvement of the public roads and streets, edited by Isaac B. Potter, and published by the League Roads Improvement Bureau. Its general aim will be to stimulate the interest of the public concerning the advantages of good roads and streets, and the best methods of constructing and maintaining them; and it is intended to make the magazine of interest and value to every person who travels the common roads. It will give news of all events bearing on the improvement of roads, and a series of articles on leading subjects pertaining to it. The four numbers of the journal before us conform to the standard set up in announcing these purposes.
An account of The Fourth International Prison Congress has been prepared by the Hon. C. D. Randall, at the request of the Commissioner of Education, at whose office it is published, in Washington. Besides the proceedings and addresses at the Congress last held, a summary of the proceedings and results of the three previous International Congresses is presented. In the appendix are further given an account of the entertainments and excursions tendered to the Congress, papers with reference to John Howard, an abstract of a conference of the managers of the reformatory and industrial institutions of Great Britain, and information concerning Russian and Siberian prisons.
"Brochure" 2, Volume I, of the Proceedings of the Rochester Academy of Science contains a variety of papers, among which are botanical, geological, and zoological section reports; special geological and archaeological articles; a list of the indigenous ferns in the vicinity of Rochester; notes on aboriginal implements recently found in Irondequoit; Peru, its people, productions, and physical characteristics; the Grand Canon of the Colorado; the Economic Minerals of the Ancients; Cetaceans, etc.
The American Journal of Morphology, Volume V, No. 3, C. O. Whitman and E. P. Allis editors, contains papers on the Osteology of Mesohippus and Leptomeryx, with Observations on the Modes and Factors of Evolution in the Mammalia, by W. B. Scott; The Growth and Metamorphosis of Tornaria, by T. H. Morgan; A Human Embryo Twenty-six Days Old, by F. Mall; On the Precocious Segregation of the Sex Cells in Micrometrus Aggregates, Gibbons, by Carl H. Eigenmann; Some Points in the Development of the Toad-Fish (Batrachus Tau), by Cornelia M. Clapp; Development of the Epiphysis in Coregonus Albus, by Charles Hill; and Notes on the Development of some Sponges, by Henry V. Wilson. Boston: Ginn & Co.
Le Poil des Animaux et les Fourrures (The Hair of Animals and Furs) is a pendant to a work by the same author, Lacroix-Danliard, on the feathers of birds. In it the structure, form, and color of hair are considered; hairs are classified according to their origin and consistence, and uses to which they are applied, as fine hairs and downy fur; hairs that are spun, woven, carded, or combed; felting and hats; and silks, horse-hairs, and their uses in brush-making and upholstery. Further, the author describes the habitation, ways, and hunting of the animals which furnish the raw material of hair and fur; the places of production, markets, and prices; and, finally, gives some useful information concerning the parasites of hair and the means of contending against them. Paris: J. B. Baillière et Fils.
The Journal of Physiology, edited by Michael Foster and other eminent physiologists, among whom are four Americans, is the leading organ of original physiological investigation in the English language. The double number, 1 and 2 of Volume XIII, contains three articles with, in all, seven plates of curve tracings. The articles are on Some of the ​influences which affect the Power of Voluntary Muscular Contractions, by Warren P. Lombard; The Influence of Temperature and of Endocardiac Pressure on the Heart, and particularly on the Action of the Vagus and Cardiac Sympathetic Nerves, by G. N. Stewart; and The Blood-Corpuscles of the Crustacea, together with a Suggestion as to the Origin of the Crustacean Fibrin Ferment, by W. B. Hardy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Engraving Company. Price, 12s.; $5 a volume.
Humanity and Health is a monthly journal, of which we have received the first number, published by E. A. Jennings, M. D., at 18 Clinton Place, New York. It is devoted "to the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual health of mankind"; the just and humane treatment of all men, women, and children; the inculcation of charity, of judgment, and the spirit of forgiveness, to equal rights, the cause of the oppressed, and other objects pertaining to the welfare of mankind; and we observe that it has kind words for animals. Pp. 14. Price, 10 cents; $1 a year.
Part I, Volume XXVI, of Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College, relates to the Preparation and Discussion of the Draper Catalogue, and is by Prof. E. C. Pickering. The Draper Catalogue is named from Dr. Henry Draper, who took in 1872 the first photograph of a star in which the characteristic lines are visible. The work, interrupted by his death in 1882, is now continued at the Harvard Observatory under the Henry Draper Memorial Fund which was established by his widow. The history and progress of the Memorial are described in the introduction to the present volume. The portion of Part I which follows this account gives a description and discussion of the Draper Catalogue and of the other work done with the Bache telescope from 1885 to 1889. Accounts of other divisions of the work are promised in Part H, which is yet to be published.
The second part of the twentieth volume of the Annals of the Observatory of Harvard College gives an account, by A. Lawrence Rotch, of the Observations made at the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory in 1889—a history and description of the Observatory, with an account of its instrumental equipment and the methods of observation and reduction, having been previously given in Part I of the volume. To the tables of the year's observations are added appendixes containing observations at Boston and at Blue Hill during the five years 1886-1890, with a summary of the diurnal and annual periods at Blue Hill as shown by the tables.
The first number of the Engineering and Mining Journal for 1892 (January 2d) is the annual statistical number, and contains the Mineral Statistics for 1891. These statistics have been collected with great pains and at heavy expense, and are claimed to be the only statistics of the whole mineral industry published until the Government reports, which are not likely to appear for a year. We are further told that the highest and best known authorities in every part of the world have contributed, each in his specialty, to this record. Besides the official returns of nearly all the important minerals and metals, it gives statements of the sources of production, the occurrence of the minerals, the use and values of their products, and in many cases the stocks of metal on hand at the close of the year.
The Elementary Algebra of Dr. Charles Davies has for many years held a high place among mathematical text-books. It is so arranged as to conduct the pupil by easy and simple gradations from the arithmetical processes to the more abstract methods of analysis, and to be introductory to the best works of higher algebra. The new edition which the American Book Company now publish has been edited and brought up to date by Prof. J. H. Van Amringe, of Columbia College. Among its peculiar features are the expansion and simplification of the subject of factoring, with the greatest common divisor and least common multiple; the extension of evolution to embrace any root; and greater simplicity and thoroughness in the treatment of series and logarithms.
The volume Consumption; how to Prevent it and how to Live with it, has grown out of the preparation by the author, N. S. Davis, Jr., M. D., of a series of hygienic rules for his patients, with brief explanations of the effect of their execution. The author has faith in the power of hygiene, and expresses the belief that consumption could be reduced everywhere to very moderate limits if the bodies of children and growing youths were properly developed physically, and if the hygiene ​of our homes, offices, and factories were more perfect than it is. In this book the accounts of the modes of action of climates, forms of exercise, kinds of labor, etc., are brought together and presented in intelligible shape. Published in Philadelphia by F. A. Davis.
The third of the Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, published by Columbia College, is a History of Municipal Land Ownership on Manhattan Island, by George Ashton Black (Prof. E. R. A. Seligman, 50 cents). Mr. Black describes the transactions and policy of the city of New York concerning land from 1654, when, under the name of New Amsterdam, it acquired its first piece of real estate, down to the beginning of sales by the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund in 1844. Sixteen maps of parts of the city accompany the monograph.
The U. S. Artillery School at Fort Monroe, Va., has begun the publication of a quarterly magazine called the Journal of the United States Artillery. The first number contains articles on the motion and velocity of projectiles, our artillery organization, and the Chilian Navy. The subscription price is $2.50 a year.
The New World is a quarterly review of religion, ethics, and theology, the first number of which has been issued recently (Houghton, $3 a year). It is under the charge of an editorial board consisting of Profs. C. C. Everett and C. H. Toy, of Harvard University, President Orello Cone, of Buchtel College, and Rev. N. P. Gilman, author of The Laws of Daily Conduct, the last named being the managing editor. The prospectus states that "the new quarterly will be open to able and constructive thinkers, without regard to sectarian lines. The New World which its editors have in mind is that which is developing under the light of modern science, philosophy, criticism, and philanthropy—all of which, rightly viewed, are the friends and helpers of enduring religious faith. To positive and constructive statements of such an order of things, as distinguished from the old world of sectarianism, obscurantism, and dogmatism, the New World is pledged." Each number will contain 200 pages. In the first number the opening article is on The Evolution of Christianity, by Lyman Abbott; and other contributors are C. C. Everett, J. G. Schurman, W. R. Alger, C. H. Toy, J. E. Carpenter, T. R. Sheer, E. H. Hall, and C. B. Upton. There is a department of Book Reviews, and in future it is intended to have in each number a survey of current periodical literature on religious subjects. The New World frankly admits the influence which the doctrine of evolution and the scientific method of research are exerting in the field of religion, and promises well to become a force that shall carry this influence onward to a more perfect freedom and to an unrestricted acceptance of the truth.
The poems by H. L. Gordon, in the handsome volume entitled The Feast of the Virgins and other Poems, having been printed for the author's friends rather than for the public, are hardly subjects for criticism. They were for the most part composed during the author's life in the Northwest—on the frontiers of civilization—and bear the marks of the personal acquaintances which he says he has had with Indians of the Dakota and Ojibway nations. A considerable proportion of them relate to Indian subjects, and, in versifying Dakota legends, the attempt has been made to present faithfully many of the customs and superstitions and some of the traditions of that people. While very little poetic license has been taken with their traditions, none has been taken with their customs and superstitions. These poems may therefore be regarded as contributions to Indian lore. Published in Chicago by Laird & Lee.
Simeon Pease Cheney, author of the American Singing-Book, was a musician and music teacher, who lived thirty summers in a bird-haunted grove, and who took notice of bird songs in Vermont, New Hampshire; St. Lawrence County, New York; and southern Massachusetts. In his sixty-seventh year, with no authorities but his own observations—for he never read but four books about birds, and these not till more than half the work he accomplished was done—he undertook the collection of New England bird-songs. His intention was to write a book for the young people of New England, to be made up of bird-songs and observations on the domestic animals, with special reference to their several forms of utterance, and of notices of the music of inanimate things. He died with his work unfinished in May, 1890. His notes ​have been collected and edited by Mr. John Vance Cheney, and are published, with much supplementary matter in the appendix, as Wood Notes Wild, by Lee & Shepard, Boston. The author warmly controverts the assertion of a modern English writer that there is no music in Nature, and in contradiction of it presents a transcript of the song of water dropping into a bucket, and the melody of a whirling clothes-rack. Following these, he gives his observations and transcriptions of the notes—some of them forming various melodies—of forty-one birds, beginning with the bluebird and robin, and closing with owls and the hen—all of which, he avers, contain the essential elements of true music. In the appendix, the editor presents all that he has been able to find, by citation or reference, that has been said by other authors on the music of birds, and has combined much valuable information on the subject.
The Financial History of Massachusetts, from the Organization of the Massachusetts Bay Company to the American Revolution, is a volume of the Columbia College Series of Studies in History, Economics, and Law, by Charles A. Douglas. It is presented as a necessary antecedent to an intelligent investigation of the financial phenomena of the later period of the history of the State, which are regarded as far more complex, as well as fuller of interest, than those embraced within the scope of the present essay. In his treatment the author has given space to the exposition of administrative features, rather than to numerical statements—very properly, we think, in view of the close relation of such features to fundamental principles, and of the fragmentary and unsystematic character of the financial records. We are sorry to observe the author apologizing for involved style in some parts of his work. With a language so capable of giving clear and simple expression to every thought as the English, we can recognize no sufficient excuse in a careful work for the want of it.
Opposite views of the money question are taken in two pamphlets that are before us—Two Essays in Economics, by John Borden (S. A. Maxwell & Co., Chicago), and a lecture by Alfred B. Westrup on Citizens' Money (The Mutual Bank Propaganda, Chicago). Mr. Borden's essays are on Wealth and American Money, and are well-reasoned and well-tempered presentations of the sound financial view that the circulation must have a basis of real value. Wealth is defined, its different kinds are distinguished, false definitions of it are exposed, and it is considered with reference to its sum and its owners. In American Money are discussed the standard, tokens, the medium of exchange, the volume of the currency, money as a store of wealth, and paper money. In his lecture on Citizens' Money, Mr. Westrup insists that sufficient volume and facilities must be provided to enable all wealth to be represented by money; that this representative should be loaned at cost; that absolute security must be given to the holder of paper money; and that the present system of control and restriction of the currency by Government is wrong.