Elephant Pipes in the Museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Davenport, Iowa. By Charles E. Putnam. Pp. 40.
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Davenport has two pipes in the shape of elephants, and three inscribed tablets, which are claimed to have been found among aboriginal relics. Their genuineness has been doubted by some, and has been attacked by Mr. Henry W. Henshaw, in the report of the Bureau of Ethnology. This essay is a vindication of their authenticity by a member of the academy. Behind the question immediately at issue lies the controversy respecting the origin of the mound-builders, on which archæologists are dividing.
Mushrooms of America, Edible and Poisonous. Edited by Julius A. Palmer, Sr. Boston: L. Prang & Co. Pp. 4 of Text, with Twelve Chromo-lithographic Plates.
Regarding the edible mushrooms as supplying most valuable and delicious food, the author seeks to furnish a guide in the selection of species that shall admit of no mistake being made. The letterpress pages furnish general directions for recognizing and gathering the useful species and avoiding the dangerous ones; and the plates give exact portraits of both kinds, in their natural sizes and colors, with botanical descriptions, and directions for preparing them for the table. The same information is given in a cheaper form in two charts, one containing the useful, the other the dangerous kinds. Mr. Palmer's qualifications for the description of these plants are attested by the fact that he has for more than ten years directed his attention and experiments to ascertaining the edible or noxious qualities of the various species of mushrooms abounding in our fields and woods.
A Course of Practical Instruction in Botany. By F. O. Bower and Sidney H. Vines. London: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 226. Price, $1.50.
This work has grown out of the course of botanical instruction which was begun in 1873 by Mr. W. Thistleton Dyer in the Normal School of Science at South Kensington, in which the same plan was adopted as Professor Huxley had found convenient for the animal side of morphology. Mr. Dyer's purpose, to put the results of his experience in teaching methods in the form of a hand-book, which he has not been able personally to carry out, has been fulfilled by his successor, Mr. Bower, in the matter of laboratory instruction for the types selected, and by Dr. Vines in the matter of method and the morphology of the cells. The plan of the teaching is—typical specimens having been selected of well-known or easily identified plants—to give the pupil directions for making careful and minute examinations of all their parts, their structure, and their visible qualities. This volume, which is designated as Part I, is devoted to the phanerogams and the pteridophyta.
The Basic Pathology and Specific Treatment of Diphtheria, Typhoid, Zymotic, Septic, Scorbutic, and Putrescent Diseases generally. By George J. Ziegler, M. D. Philadelphia: George J. Ziegler, M. D. Pp. 225. Price, $2.
The author's treatise is based upon and unfolds the theory that the diseases in question are "dependent upon, or complicated with, one common basic, alkaline, pathogenic factor, mostly the volatile alkali ammonia, incidental to all forms of life, and differing only in quantity and the constitutional and local manifestations and complications arising from diverse etiological and pathological conditions, yet underlying and intensifying them all."
A Manual of the Theory and Practice of Topographical Surveying by Means of the Transit and Stadia. By J. B. Johnson, C. E. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 113. Price, $1.25.
The author is Professor of Civil Engineering in Washington University, and was formerly Engineer of the United States Lake and Mississippi River Surveys. The system which he explains is well adapted to preliminary railroad and canal surveys; surveys of drainage-basins, reservoir, dam, and bridge sites; the location of ditches and pipe-lines; and, in fact, to surveys of any kind demanding a knowledge of the topographical features or of the contours of the ground. He has had, as objects in view in preparing the work, to make a manual useful to students and in the work in the
