book will seem to some a mere medley. Is it a text-book of logic, a pious exhortation, or a treatise on mythology?" The ordinary person will get exactly this impression from a first glance at the book; but he can not help feeling a respect for the author's mind from the fact that she realizes so well the character of her own work. It consists of a number of essays, dealing chiefly with metaphysics, the Hebrew religion, and educational methods. One object of the volume being to combat monotony and specialization in teaching, the chapters are far from being severely methodical in scope or arrangement. The author insists that too little regard is commonly paid to the bearing of different fields of knowledge upon each other. She makes many references to the work of George Boole, and frequently quotes from his Laws of Thought. Another of her authorities is Gratry, author of the Logique.
Æschines against Ctesiphon, edited by Prof. Rufus B. Richardson (Ginn), has been added to the College Series of Greek Authors. A life of Æschines is prefixed to the volume, and notes occupy about two thirds of each of the pages on which the text is printed. The book has a Greek index and an index of subjects.
A Report of Explorations in the Alleghany Region, made by Prof. David Starr Jordan, has been published by the United States Fish Commission. This examination had two general purposes: first, to ascertain the general character of the streams of the Alleghany region of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, and of western Indiana; their present stock of food-fishes, and their suitability for the introduction of species not now found there; second, to catalogue the fishes native to each stream, whether food-fishes or not, in order to complete our knowledge of the geographical distribution of each species, and to throw light on the laws which govern geographical distribution. The results of the observations recorded in this paper accord with a previous conviction of the author, that the question of distribution reduces itself to a question of barriers of various sorts. Each species extends its range in every direction, and holds the ground thus taken if it can.
The Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission for 1887 consists of reports and correspondence on a wide variety of topics. Among the more extended articles are reports on the fishes observed in Great Egg Harbor Bay, New Jersey, in 1887, and on the investigations by the schooner Grampus on the Southern mackerel-grounds, and a review of the mackerels of America and Europe (with plates). A fully illustrated paper of over one hundred pages, by J. W. Collins, describes the beam-trawl fishery of Great Britain. Among the articles of more popular interest are an account of the American Sardine Industry in 1886, by R. E. Earll and H. M. Smith; and The Aquarium: a Brief Exposition of its Principles and Management (illustrated), by William P. Seal.
An account of The History of the Niagara River, by G. K. Gilbert, included in the Report for 1889, of the Commissioners of the State Reservation at Niagara, has been reprinted in pamphlet form. It contains the substance of the lecture which the author gave before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at its Toronto meeting in 1889, and is written in a style which makes it attractive to the generally intelligent person as well as interesting to the geologist. Mr. Gilbert discusses the changes of outlets of the Great Lakes caused by the advance and retreat of the ancient ice-sheet, and shows their bearing on the history of the Niagara River. He then describes the work of the cataract in cutting out its gorge, and concludes with a list of questions which must be considered before any satisfactory estimate of the rate of recession of the falls can be reached. The paper is illustrated with eight plates.
Three monographs by Mr. Robert Ridgway, published in the Proceedings of the United States National Museum, comprise a Review of the Genus Xiphocolaptes of Lessor, in which the existence of a much greater number of clearly defined forms than have been recognized by leading authorities was made apparent; a Review of the Genus Sclerurus of Swainson—in which several forms that had been "lumped together" had to be distinguished; and a List of Birds (sixty-six species) collected on the Island of Santa Lucia, West Indies, Abrolhos Islands, Brazil, and at the Straits of Magellan, in 1887-'88, by the Fish Commission steamer Albatross.
