voted to the promotion of intercourse among those interested in the study of Nature; and the wide separation of investigators in different centers of educational and civic life makes such a journal almost a necessity. Science, under its new auspices, will be conducted by an editorial committee of chosen students, each representing a field in which he is a specialist, and under the general editorial direction of Prof. J. McKeen Cattell. In the first number of the new Science, Prof. Newcomb explains the scope of the journal, and President Gilman invites communications from those who have matter suited to it. The leading place among the regular articles is given to a part of Dr. Brinton's American Association address on the Character and Aims of Scientific Investigation—a most appropriate subject with which to open the first number of the new journal; which is followed by the equally appropriate review of America's Relation to the Advance of Science, by G. Brown Goode. Prof. T. C. Mendenhall gives an account of the Legal Units of Electrical Measurement, now sanctioned by act of Congress. Major Powell discusses what in education are technically called the Humanities; Prof. C. Hart Merriam furnishes notes on Zoölogical Nomenclature; S. H. Scudder discusses the study of North American Orthoptera; several reviews of books appear; and notes are published on a variety of subjects.
Sea and Land. By N. S. Shaler, Professor of Geology in Harvard University. Illustrated. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 252. Price, $2.50.
Every thoughtful person who visits the seaside must have queried why there is in one place a gently sloping beach of sand, in another a stretch of loose stones, and elsewhere a ragged cliff rising abruptly from the water's edge, with a fringe of fragments at its foot. He who has voyaged upon the open sea has wondered how the fantastic icebergs that float by him were formed and what the dark depths of water beneath him may conceal. To answer these and similar questions Prof. Shaler's book has been prepared. He explains first what forces are at work carving the edge of the land and how different effects are produced under different conditions. Passing to the depths of the sea, he tells how our knowledge of the ocean floor has been obtained, and describes the processes going on upon it. The career of an iceberg is then sketched, after which the subject of harbors is discussed at some length. The different kinds of harbors are distinguished, and the ways in which they are formed or destroyed are described, the effects of tide and the work of animal and vegetable organisms finding place under the latter head. The book is handsomely printed and is embellished with many full-page illustrations as well as smaller pictures in the text.
An Elementary Chemistry. By George Rantoul White, A. M. Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp. 272. Price, $1.10.
The teacher who likes to roll along in a rut would be a good deal disturbed by this book; it is so different from other books. It is an experimental text-book, but it is different from others of this class. The various chemical properties and relations of matter are taken up in the order in which the author believes they can be learned most readily and profitably—not according to any logical or systematic arrangement. The first thing the student is told to do is to test the properties of iron, and cause it to combine with oxygen. The method of the book is to require the student to start from observations upon things and to arrive at general laws and principles by induction. Taking statements on authority is discouraged. In the words of the preface: "At first the student is told little or nothing. He is compelled to find out all things for himself. To assist him in finding the essential, and to make sure that he has succeeded in this, frequent questions are inserted in the text of the experimental part." Gradually proceeding to more complicated cases, the author finally puts before the student, under the head of A Chemical Investigation, such a problem as the chemist has who is working on the borderland of the science. After going through this experimental drill the student is led to trace the history of chemistry, "to note what observations lead to the establishment of certain theories, and the recognition of what facts lead to the overthrow of these same theories; to recognize the gradual unfolding of chemical law; and, finally, to
