Unless the teacher is more than ordinarily stupid, and addicted to the routine of book-teaching, the pupil can hardly fail to have his mental stature increased, his reasoning powers strengthened, by going over the course of experiments here laid down. Of the author's success in carrying out this scheme, the first volume of the series was evidence; and our readers can see from the copious extracts which we elsewhere publish in the present Monthly that the promise made in the preface is more than fulfilled in the body of the work. Prof. Mayer's text leaves nothing to be desired in point of clearness, and, where the imperfection of written speech might cause obscurity, the illustrations, which are all new and rigorously exact, will serve to guide the leader aright.
Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Free Religious Association (1878). Boston: The Free Religious Association. Pp. 90. Price, 40 cts.
Besides the financial reports and the list of officers for the ensuing year, this volume contains several more or less elaborate addresses, among which may be mentioned an essay by Thaddeus B. Wakeman, entitled "The Religion of Humanity," in which the author explains what that religion is, and shows how it may be organized and cultivated upon American soil; also, an essay by William H. Spencer: "Religion of Supernaturalism; why it should be disorganized, and how it may be done."
Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College.—Photometric Researches. By C. S. Peirce. Made in the Years 1872-1875. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. Pp. 181. With Plates.
Of the five chapters into which this elaborate work is divided the first treats of the sensation of light; the second, of the numbers of stars of different degrees of brightness; the third is a record of the author's original observations with the astro-photometer of Zöllner; in the fourth, the star-magnitudes given by the different observers are compared; and the fifth treats of the form of the galactic cluster.
In the Wilderness. By Charles Dudley Warner. Pp. 175. Price, 75 cts.
If you cannot compass a trip to the Adirondacks, this inimitable little volume of forest sketches is a capital substitute, for Mr. Warner brings to his work a love of the woods and a knowledge of their varied features, rivaling that of "Old Mountain Phelps" himself. Moreover, subtile humorist as he is, he cannot escape being funny, and his little volume sparkles with delicate wit and keen but not unkindly satire from beginning to end.
Metric Weights and Measures for Medical and Pharmacal Purposes. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 40.
In the Marine Hospital service, medical officers are now required to employ metric weights and measures for all medical and pharmacal purposes, and in this little pamphlet are contained rules and tables for the conversion of quantities according to apothecaries' weight and measure into quantities according to the metric system. The work will interest physicians and pharmacists, and will probably be of service in hastening the general adoption of the metric system in the United States.
Sound and the Telephone. By C. J. Blake, M. D. Pp. 12.
In this paper, which was read before the British Society of Telegraph Engineers, the author states in part the result of experiments made for the purpose of measuring the vibrations of the disks of the Bell telephone, and determining the loss of power sustained in the transmission of sound. He further compares the vibrations of the telephone-disk with those of the human tympanum membrane.
American College Directory (1878). St. Louis: C. H. Evans & Co. Pp. 111. Price, 10 cts.
This volume contains a list of all the colleges, seminaries, special schools, etc., in the United States, and gives in brief much essential information concerning each; for instance, the number of teachers and pupils, number of volumes in the library, value of scientific apparatus, value of buildings, etc.
