Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/144

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144
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Prosper. Charles S. The Devonian System of Eastern Pennsylvania and New York. United States Geological Survey. Pp. 81.

Rockhill, William Woodville. Diary of a Journey through Mongolia and Tibet. Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 413.

Root, L. Carroll. New York Bank Currency, Safety Fund vs. Bond Security. New York: Sound Currency Committee. Pp. 24.

Shearman, Thomas G. Taxation of Personal Property Impracticable, Unequal, and Unjust. New York: Sterling Publishing Company. Pp. 63. 30 cents.

Smith, J. Warren. Observations of the New England Weather Service in the Year 1893. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard College Observatory. Pp. 30.

Starr, Frederick. Notes on Mexican Archæology. Pp. 16, with Plates. Comparative Religion Notes. Pp. 6. University of Chicago Press.

Steiner, Bernard C. History of Education in Maryland. Washington: United States Bureau of Education. Pp. 331, with Plates

Tracy, Frederick. The Psychology of Childhood. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. Pp. 170. 90 cents.

Trumbull, M. M. The Free-Trade Struggle in New England. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company. Pp. 288. 25 cents.

Turkey, a few Facts about, under the Sultan Abdul Hamid II. By an American Observer. New York: J. J. Little & Co. Pp. 67.

Ufer, Chr. Introduction to the Pedagogy of Herbart. Translated, etc., by J. G. Zeiser. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. Pp. 123. 90 cents.

Walker, Louisa. Varied Occupations in Weaving. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 224. $1.

West Virginia. Biennial Report of the State Superintendent of Free Schools (Virgil A. Lewis), Charleston. Pp. 320.

Wyoming, University of. The Heating Power of Wyoming Coal and Oil, with a Description of the Bomb Calorimeter. By Edwin E. Slosson and L. C. Colburn. Laramie. Pp. 32.

Webber, H. J. Treatment for Sooty Mold of the Orange. United States Department of Agriculture. Pp. 4.



POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Doggish Sympathy.—A correspondent of the London Spectator writes that he owned a large dog Rose, and a smaller and less beautiful dog Fan, of different breeds, but both passionately attached to a member of the household who was commonly called their best friend. A shawl of this friend's was especially sacred to Fan, and jealously watched, especially as against Rose; and when the best friend was in bed Fan would lie in her arms, opposing with growls the approach of all intruders. One day Rose in jumping over a gate spiked herself badly and was committed to surgical treatment for ten days. "On her return she was cordially welcomed by Fan and myself; but when she rushed upstairs to the room of her best friend (then confined to her bed), my mind foreboded mischief. We followed, and I opened the door. With one bound Rose rushed into her best friend's arms, taking Fan's very own place, and was lost in a rapture of licking and being caressed. Fan flew after her, but, to my amazement, instead of the fury I expected, it was to join in heart and tongue with the licking and caressing. She licked Rose as if she had been a long-lost puppy instead of an intruder; and then, of her own accord, turned away, leaving Rose in possession, and took up a distant place on the foot of the bed, appealing to me with almost a human expression of mingled feelings—the heroic self-abnegation of newborn sympathy struggling with natural jealousy. The better feelings triumphed (not, of course, unsupported by human recognition and applause) till both dogs fell asleep in their strangely reversed positions. After this, there was a slight temporary failure in Fan's perhaps overstrained self-conquest; but on the next day but one she actually, for the first (and last) time in her life, made Rose welcome to a place beside her on the sacred shawl, where again they slept side by side like sisters. This, however, was the last gleam of the special sympathy called forth by Rose's troubles. From that day Fan decidedly and finally resumed her jealous occupation and guardianship of all sacred places and thiugs, and maintained it energetically to her life's end."

Protoplasm for Hot Stars.—A new subject for speculation has been suggested by Sir Robert Ball's observation that life on the heavenly bodies materially hotter or colder than the earth, or differing in other important respects, is exceedingly improbable if not impossible for beings of the forms and composition which we associate with life. But is protoplasm composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and a little sulphur the only physical basis on which life can exist? May there not be protoplasms of other compositions adapted to hot stars or to cold stars, upon which life as vigorous as that upon the earth may exist on such bodies? Prof. Emerson remarked two or three years ago that silicon, when the earth was in an intensely hot stage, played much the same part that carbon does now; and that under the conditions then prevailing the silicon compounds, now immobile, may have been active.