unhealthy that the inhabitants are constant sufferers from rheumatism, so that walking would be painful to them. They would call walking an evil. "But in this their thought would be false. They would be feeling a good thing painful because they did not understand their own condition. And if it could be explained to them that the cause of their pain was not anything bad in walking, but only their own disease, that itself would be a gain to them. . . . Now, this is the idea I have tried to explain in this little book; namely, that things which we have inevitably called evil may yet be truly good. My thought was that all which we feel as painful is really giving something that our fellows are better for, even though we can not trace it; and that giving is not an evil thing, but good, a natural delight and good of man; and that we feel it painful because our life is marred." To quote from Dr. Nichols again, the cure for pain which Dr. Hinton suggests "rests on a religious basis; and hence has no meaning or significance to those destitute of religious faith."
Observations on Volcanic Eruptions and Earthquakes in Iceland within Historic Times. Translated and condensed by George H. Boehmer. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 46.
This paper has been prepared in connection with the Smithsonian Report for 1885, and is abridged from a larger paper by Th. Thoroddsen. Although the volcanoes and hot springs of Iceland are treated of in a work written at about the middle of the thirteenth century, in which some superstitious ideas are advanced as to their origin, and an eruption is recorded in the present paper which took place about A.D. 900, the geology of Iceland was not thoroughly studied till the beginning of this century, and is still little known. The active volcanoes of Iceland are described as in eight groups of from one to five volcanoes each. Within historic times, eruptions have occurred at about twenty different places. Among the large volcanoes, Hecla occupies the first place, with twenty-one eruptions; while others follow, with twelve or thirteen, ten, six, and one each. The largest numbers of eruptions took place in the fourteenth century (thirteen), and in the eighteenth century (fourteen). The earthquakes have been in direct connection with the eruptions. A copious bibliography is appended to the paper.
Cassell's National Library. Edited by Professor Henry Morley. New York: Cassell & Co. Thirty-five weekly volumes to date, averaging 192 pages each. Price, 10 cents each.
This library gives more for the money—meaning by more, actual value rather than quantity—than any other popular series that is published. It gives in clear, open type, suitable to all eyes that can read at all, and in a shape convenient for the pocket, selections from the best literature of all ages, and particularly from English literature, in works that are complete in themselves. The books have all been named in our monthly acknowledgments of "Publications received," and it is hardly necessary to say more of them particularly than to refer to the titles and authors as there given. In the list are represented by their best works such writers as Silvio Pellico, Lord Byron, Benjamin Franklin, Izaak Walton, Plutarch, Herodotus, Lord Bacon, Horace Walpole, Dean Swift, Sir Walter Scott, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Sir John de Manndeville, Shakespeare, and other authors whose names are fixed in the world's literature, but whose works are not easily got in as accessible form as that in which they are here presented.
Historical Society of Southern California. Los Angeles, January, 1886. Pp. 43.
We do not find anywhere in this report a line from which we may form a conception of the age of the society. Lists of officers for 1885 and 1886 are given, from which we are assured that it is at least about two years old; but it would be interesting to know more exactly how long it has been at work encouraging the study of the history of that district of romantic story in which its peculiar field lies. The address of the retiring president informs us that it enjoys a credit balance which it is hoped may be the beginning of a building fund, and that its monthly meetings are regularly held and attended with lively and interest-
