coals, clays, peats, salines, and mineral waters, marls, cements, building-stones, and other useful materials, the value of said substances for economical purposes and their accessibility; also an accurate chemical analysis of the various rocks, soils, ores, clays, peats, marls, and other mineral substances, of which complete and exact records shall be made."
The natural-history survey will "include, first, an examination of the vegetable productions of the State, embracing all trees, shrubs, herbs, and grasses, native or naturalized in the State; second, a complete and scientific account of the animal kingdom as properly represented in the State, including all mammalia, fishes, reptiles, birds, and insects.
There is also to be a meteorological investigation of the climate of the State, barometrical and thermometrical observations and measurements of elevations and depressions of the land, with a view to the formation of an authentic map.
It will be a part of the work to collect specimens of "all rocks, soils, ores, coals, fossils, cements, building-stones, plants, woods, skins, and skeletons, of animals, birds, insects, and fishes, and other mineral, vegetable, and animal substances and organisms discovered or examined in the course of said surveys, to be preserved for public inspection, free of cost, in the University of Minnesota, in rooms convenient of access and properly warmed, lighted, ventilated, and furnished, and in charge of a proper scientific curator; and they shall also, whenever the same may be practicable, cause duplicates, in reasonable numbers and quantities, of the above-named specimens to be collected and preserved for the purpose of exchanges with other State universities and scientific institutions."
The movement in this case, it is evident, has been initiated mainly in the interest of the geological survey, but it is to be hoped that the larger objects of education to which it is a means will not be lost sight of. The university will undoubtedly be benefited by taking the responsibility of the work, but the movement will fall greatly short of the good it might accomplish if it is not vitally connected with the educational system of the State. In the cities of Minnesota are growing up numerous normal schools and high-schools, which have a right to share in the general benefits of the undertaking. The specimens obtained by the several departments of the survey are to be collected in the University Museum at St. Anthony, and we are told that duplicates will be exchanged with other State universities and with scientific societies. But should not the claims of the people of the State be considered first, and should not the local schools be furnished with materials for cabinets representing the resources of their own State, and be encouraged to contribute something toward the general object by observations and collections in their own districts? We should be glad to see this element incorporated in the Minnesota experiment.
International Scientific Series, No. III. On Foods. By Edward Smith, M. D., F. R. S. D. Appleton & Co.
A good, popular book on foods has long been wanted, and, as the object of the International Scientific Series is to furnish valuable and instructive reading for the general public, this subject was early provided for by securing the best authority in England to treat it. Dr. Smith is well and widely known by his extensive course of physiological experiments on the influence of foods and alcoholic liquors upon the human system, published in the "Philosophical Transactions" in 1859; by his official work as government inspector of practical dietaries for hospitals and almshouses; and by his various publications upon the subject of food and diet. A new work was, how-
