gineering in Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. As a whole, this "Theory and Practice of Surveying" will be found a very acceptable addition to the literature on the subject. It will be of great value to the student, who will find through it, and in a readable form, access to information which was formerly only attainable in separate books by different authors.
The Town and City Government of New Haven. By Charles H. Levermore. Baltimore: N. Murray. Pp.103. Price, 50 cents.
This is one of the "Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science." The incorporation of New Haven city was achieved in the face of no little opposition, and was wrought out through friction between several strongly defined elements in society. The process is nearly the same as that which all towns have to go through in the course of their development, and Professor Levermore's tracing of it through its several steps may be regarded as an illustration from an example typical in many respects, and as a study in a normal course of municipal evolution. The first aspect presented is that of the jealousy between "town-born" and "interlopers"; then the commercial spirit is introduced through the activity of the interlopers. The first phases of city politics are sketched in the distinctions of Patriot and Tory marking the division-lines at elections. The first municipal charter was obtained in 1784, and after that came question after question to be debated, voted upon, and decided. The charter of 1869 marked a culminating point in the constitutional development of the municipality. Previous to that time it had been a more or less thriving, overgrown village. The gradual growth of municipal power exhibited in succession many slowly shifting phases, but a typical, fundamental conservatism could be discerned. Through their nearly two hundred and fifty years of life, the town and region of New Haven have preserved a local character—a well-defined individuality, separate from those of other old colonial centers. Political affiliations have strengthened rather than diminished its exclusiveness. The rivalry between New Haven and Hartford means much more than commercial competition between two urban populations. It is the contention of regions rather than of cities. It is traceable through the whole history of the State back to the charter quarrel of 1662-'64, when one colony was pitted against the other. The dependence of the former New Haven Colony upon New York, which geographical location necessitated, was encouraged by successive animosities; and, "if a line be drawn diagonally across the State from the northwest corner to the mouth of the Connecticut River, the towns and cities to the west of that line are found to rest upon New York as an economic and social basis, just as those upon the east side derive their inspiration from Boston. Of the former of these tracts, New Haven is the capital; of the latter, Hartford. This division of influences should be borne in mind when we read that, in the Revolution, New Haven and Fairfield Counties contained many Tories, while the eastern part of the State was almost unanimously patriotic; that a Windham County mob forced the New Haven stamp-distributor to resign in 1765; and that, one hundred years later, it was, as usual, the Hartford end of he State—the eastern counties—which held the State firmly for Nation with a big "N," and neutralized, by steady and large majorities, the conservative, oligarchical, and pseudo-democratic tendencies of Southwestern Connecticut."
House-Plants as Sanitary Agents: Or, the Relation of Growing Vegetation to Health and Disease. By J. M. Anders, M. D. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company.
Dr. Anders makes an apology for adding to the number of books, on the ground that he is working in "a branch of scientific literature which, in the form of a book, has not hitherto found an exponent." The apology is not necessary; the book fully justifies its appearance. The purpose of the volume is to set forth, in plain terms, the latest light regarding the effects of some of the various physiological functions in plants and flowers upon the atmosphere in general, and the air of dwellings in particular, as well as the application of this knowledge to the laws of health. Most of the conclusions put forward have been arrived at from
