The Life of Robert Fulton, and the History OF Steam Navigation. New York: G. VV. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 507. Price, $1.75.
In this book a great deal of information of an interesting character is packed into a moderate space; and the packing has been well done. Fulton's life is itself full of incident and adventure, illustrating the strong bent of his genius toward a particular line of experiment, and the persistency with which he kept his attention fixed on carrying the objects he had in view to a successful result. The materials for the life have been drawn from many sources, and his career as a whole is presented in an attractive light, and in its main features as an example of well-directed effort. The life of Fulton serves as an introduction, but an important one, to the history of steam navigation, which is very comprehensive. Beginning with Fulton's earliest experiments, as related in the "Life," it traces the history of the Hudson River steamboats, of steamboat navigation on the Mississippi and Ohio, the Great Lakes, Long Island Sound, English, and other foreign waters, from the earliest efforts of each down to the present time; relates the histories, severally, of the various great lines of steamers that have sailed or are now sailing on the ocean between the ports of the different continents, and closes with notices of war-steamers and ironclads. The illustrations represent numerous steamers and parts of steamers, beginning with Jonathan Hill's tow-boat in 1736, and ending with such vessels as the City of Peking, the Pilgrim, and the Alaska.
General Biology. By William T Sedgwick, Ph. D., and Edmund B. Wilson, Ph. D. Part I. Introductory. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 193.
The authors of this book acknowledge that it owes its origin to the influence of Huxley and Martin, authors of the "Elementary Biology." Their aim has been, not to prepare an exhaustive treatise, but rather to lead beginners in biology from familiar facts to a better knowledge of how living things are built and how they act, such as may rightly take a place in general education, or may afford a basis for further studies in particular branches. "It is still an open question," they say, "whether the beginner should pursue the logical, but difficult course of working upward from the simple to the complex, or adopt the easier and more practical method of working downward from familiar higher forms. Every teacher of the subject knows how great are the practical difficulties besetting the novice, who, provided for the first time with a compound microscope, is confronted with yeast, protococcus, or amœba; and, on the other hand, how hard it is to sift out what is general and essential from the heterogeneous details of a mammal or flowering plant. In the hope of lessening the practical difficulties of the logical method, we venture to submit a course of preliminary study, which we have used for some time with our own classes, and have found practical and effective. Believing that biology should follow the example of physics and chemistry in discussing at the outset the fundamental properties of matter and energy, we have devoted the first four chapters to an elementary account of living matter and vital energy. In the six chapters which follow, these facts are applied to a fairly exhaustive study of a representative plant and animal, of considerable though not extreme complexity." The fern is selected as the plant, and the earth-worm as the animal. The last chapter comprises a brief account of the principles and outlines of classification as a guide in subsequent studies. From this the pupil may pass to other books, or to the second part of this one, which is to be published in the course of the following year.
The Menorah. A Monthly Magazine Edited by Benjamin F. Peixotto. Vol. I, No. 2. Pp. 48. Price, 25 cents; $2 a year.
"The Menorah" is the organ of the Order of the B'ne B'rith, which was established in 1843, to provide a bond of philanthropic and patriotic feeling among persons of the Hebrew race in the United States, and which has now more than four hundred lodges and nearly thirty thousand members. It contains a variety of literary articles, including a history of the order, to most of which a peculiar Jewish interest is attached; is divided into an English and a German part; and has departments devoted to Hebrew affairs at large, and to the order which
