Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/145

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LITERARY NOTICES.
135

the family growing around them, many of which arc so unobtrusive in color that they might escape notice unless attention were specially called to them, is to be in every way commended. According to Mr. Baldwin, the section of the United States lying east of the Mississippi and north of North Carolina and Tennessee produces fifty-nine species and varieties of orchids, of which forty-seven are found growing in New England. The matter of the present volume is adapted to satisfy both the general reader and the inquirer for exact facts and scientific details. First, we have Mr. Baldwin's general account, free from technical terms, of the family characteristics; then, the technical synopsis of the family in New England, from Gray's "Manual." This is followed by a popular essay of living interest on the different species, from which the element of gossip is not absent, and which, adorned with many graceful woodcut illustrations, forms the bulk of the volume. At the end are given a comparative list showing the range of each species, a bibliography, and a list of students of orchids in each New England State.

Taxation in the United States, 1789-1816. By Henry Carter Adams. Pp. 79. Price, 50 cents. Institutional Beginnings in a Western State. By Jesse Macy. Pp. 38. Price, 25 cents. Indian Money as a Factor in New England Civilization. By William B. Weeden, A. M. Baltimore: N. Murray. Pp. 51. Price, 50 cents.

The monographs named above are three numbers of the "Johns Hopkins University Studies of Historical and Political Science." The subject of the first work on the list is of more than usual current interest on account of its relation to the policy of so-called "protection" which still holds its grip on our national financial polity. The first measures of taxation to which the term "protective" may be applied appear from it to have been adopted when our government had hardly yet got under way, as a foil to the efforts of Great Britain to restrict our trade and prevent the growth of American commerce, and were wholly political in their aim. The beginning of systematic efforts to build up American manufactures through the operation of the tariff was of several years later date.

The second work traces the development of social and political institutions in Iowa during the period when the communities scattered over its soil were unorganized and not attached to any kind of government. The people met, voluntarily, within their own precincts and adopted such regulations as their circumstances demanded for the protection of their lives and property, and particularly for security in the possession and confirmation of their "claims." These proceedings were outside of all law, and in fact contrary to the laws of the United States relating to the public lands, but they created a custom "whose broad and beaten path leading directly across the statute obliterated every apparent vestige of its existence"; and from the foundations laid by them has been built up the present enlightened Commonwealth.

Mr. Weeden's essay gives new and enlarged ideas of the importance of wampum as a medium of trade in the early days of the colonies, and assigns it a place among real moneys having a solid value even when estimated' by the criterion by which we are accustomed to judge the gold and silver currencies of commercial nations. From this aspect of the subject the author is led to consider the relations of the two civilizations which met on our continent nearly three centuries ago, and to show that the conflicts which arose and prevailed between the whites and the Indians were not the fruits of personal hostilities, and were not dependent on ambitions or caprice, but were the inevitable results of the diverse ways of looking upon life and its duties, and of the different religious systems, to which the two parties had been bred.

Hand-Book for Horsewomen. By H. L. de Bussigny. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 75. Price, 50 cents.

A plain, practical book for teaching women to obtain and maintain a seat on the horse and to manage the animal. While advising that the English method of letting the horse to a large extent control his own movements be not neglected, it devotes particular attention to the inculcation, in addition to that, of the Continental method of bringing the animal under complete control by securing the mastery of his hind-legs.