the two Houses, this volume appears earlier than has been usual. It also covers a shorter length of time, or only half of the year. The report reviews the progress of work in all the departments of the Institution; the explorations in which it has been interested, in all parts of North America, with researches in the remains of prehistoric man in parts of France; publications, including Dr. Rau's "Prehistoric Fishing in Europe and North America"; Vols. XXIV and XXV of the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge"; the "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections," in which are included several monographs; the scientific writings of Professor Joseph Henry; the "Report on the Reptiles and Batrachians of North America"; the "Bulletin," and "Proceedings" of the National Museum; and the publications of the National Museum. Information is given concerning international exchanges, and lists of some four thousand foreign correspondents and of the institutions in the United States to which the Smithsonian publications are sent. In the "Appendix" are found the record of scientific progress in 1885, in the several departments of research; various papers relating to anthropology; an "Index to the Literature of Uranium," by H. Carrington Bolton; and a priced list of Smithsonian publications.
Willem Usselinsk, Founder of the Dutch and Swedish West India Companies. By J. Franklin Jameson. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 234, paper. Price, $1.
This memoir is one of the papers of the American Historical Association (Vol. II, No. 3). It is devoted to one of that class of promoters of American settlement to whom the author thinks that less than full justice has been given—"of those who, without themselves having come to this country, or shared in the picturesque adventures of the age of settlement, stood behind all efforts toward colonization, and assisted them in ways more prosaic, but not less efficient, nor less deserving of grateful remembrance—the class of colonial projectors. . . . It is the object of the present essay to relate in sufficient detail to enable its importance to be correctly estimated, the career of a member of this latter class, a man almost unknown to the English-reading public, yet who was, though not directly the founder, at any rate the originator of two of our colonies—that upon the Hudson, and that upon the Delaware." In another place Usselinsk is styled "the Lesseps of the seventeenth century." The materials for the biography have been derived from the books and pamphlets of Usselinsk, his manuscripts, and manuscripts concerning him. The abundance and scope of these sources are illustrated by the copious bibliography which is affixed to the end of the work.
Voice, Song, and Speech. By Lenox Browne and Emil Behnke. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 248.
This is the seventh edition of a work to the merits of which we have already called attention in a notice of a previous edition in the "Monthly" for July, 1884. It owes its origin to the fact that each of the authors—one a surgeon, and the other a teacher—having contributed to the literature of the human voice, both found their views one-sided and needing to be complemented from the experience of the other. They therefore joined to produce a single comprehensive work. In the present edition, as well as in the sixth, the substitution of engravings for the expensive photographs of the larynx and soft palate has made possible a very considerable reduction in price from that of the earlier editions.
Local Government in Canada. By John George Bourinot. Baltimore: N. Murray. Pp. 72. Price, 50 cents.
This is an historical study in the series of Johns Hopkins University. The author, by the public positions he has held, and by the preparation of an account of the "Origin and Growth of Parliamentary Institutions in the Dominion," has enjoyed excellent opportunities for qualifying himself for this special research. His attention was drawn to the subject through the interest awakened by reading the histories of local government in various of our own States, which have appeared in this series. He was convinced that a similar paper on local government in Canada would be of value to students of political science. The
