similar book on Prussian schools. Mr. Parsons spent a summer in the study of the French school system, and has presented a clear and comprehensive report on the subject. It is accompanied by a special paper on primary instruction in France. The two reports illustrate the educational systems of the two leading countries of Europe which pay the closest attention to elementary schools. Published by C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y.
A valuable and well-arranged manual of the Geography of Africa South of the Zambesi, with notes on the industries, wealth, and social progress of the states and peoples, by William Parr Greswell, is published by a London house which is represented in New York by Macmillan & Co. The author alleges as a reason for the being of his work that the country is marked by the display of the power of European colonization. It "has ceased to be a country of mere sporting adventure or of aimless wanderings. It is gradually being identified with the European system; and by recent international conventions and agreements, under the Salisbury Government, boundaries have been assigned and frontiers surveyed which are likely to be permanent and beneficial to all contracting parties on the east as well as on the west coast." A large proportion of the space is taken up with the account of Cape Colony as the largest of the colonies and countries, and as having many features common to all. Maps are given of Cape Colony, Natal, and British South and Central Africa. Price, $2.
Mr. W. Lee Beardmore, author of The Drainage of Habitable Dwellings (Macmillan & Co., $1.50), has for many years past made a special study of the science of house drainage. In writing the articles, for British technical journals, of which the book has been composed, he touched briefly upon what has been done in an insanitary manner in the past, and pointed out what should be done to render a dwelling thoroughly sanitary in its drainage arrangements. While some critical readers may think he has not gone deep enough into the theory or into the practice, he hopes he has made a hearty endeavor to place before the public what should be done in order to have a truly habitable dwelling.
In Humanity in its Origin and Early Growth (Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago, $1.50), the author, E. Colbert, has endeavored to trace out a few of the salient points in the early unfolding of man and his thought, principally in those ages which preceded the writing of history; to show some of the states of development by which man was evolved from merely inanimate matter, and more especially those by which he rose from the level of his immediate predecessor in the scale of progress; then to sketch the widening out of the human mentality from the infantile phase to that of the child in knowledge, at which point it is left for history to take up the thread of the narrative. The principal object has been to discover primitive ideas about the causation of events and the constitution of things, and to show that to a great extent man's religious creeds and ceremonies, with much of his philosophy, grew out of notions which appear to have been first entertained as a result of observing the stars.
The first number has appeared of the Journal of the United States Artillery, published under the authority of the staff of the Artillery School. As the name of the journal implies, it is devoted to the interests of the artillery. The present number contains articles on sea-coast guns and steel armor, field practice, the English proving-grounds at Shoeburyness, the determination of the velocity of projectiles by sound phenomena, book notices, and abstracts of the contents of service periodicals.
The Department of Agriculture publishes a Report on the Agriculture of South America, with maps and the latest statistics of trade, which has been prepared under the direction of the statistician, Almont Barnes, a gentleman whose long residence in South America as United States consul, and subsequent study of the condition and progress of the South American countries, well qualify for the work. The several countries of the continent are considered each in its separate chapter, with discussions of all the points connected with the general subject.
A preliminary report on Timber Physics, compiled by B. E. Fernow, chief, and published by the Forestry Division of the Department of Agriculture, contains ample statements concerning the purpose, theory, and practical application of the timber tests
