given by the State Geologist, John C. Smock, form a splendid volume of very great practical value as well as of scientific interest.
Three important bulletins (Reports Nos. 5, 7 and 11) of the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, dealing with the investigations upon vegetable fibers, have been recently mailed to correspondents. It is notable that comparatively slow progress has been made in the perfection of methods of cultivation and use of new fiber plants. The time seems at hand for the making of extended and serious attempts to utilize the fiber furnished by ramie and other plants, and the importance of adding a staple of this kind to the products of the country would justify any reasonable expenditure of time and experimentation.
The indexes and bibliographies which are being issued by the United States Department of Agriculture are among the most complete and comprehensive in the fields which they cover, and will be found helpful to persons who are pursuing studies in the various branches of science related to agriculture. The latest contribution in this line is an 'Index to Literature relative to Animal Industry,' prepared by Mr. George F. Thompson. The volume covers the publications issued by the Department of Agriculture from its establishment in 1837 to 1898, and comprises 676 pages, with some 80,000 entries. It includes a wide range of subjects, relating to the care and management of domestic animals, diseases and their treatment, statistics of different kinds of live stock, and investigations upon animal products such as milk, butter, cheese, eggs, wool, meats, etc. In these lines it renders available for convenient reference a large amount of scientific investigation, much of it unsurpassed in its line, which is so scattered through various bulletins and reports as to be easily lost sight of, and difficult for one unfamiliar with the publications of the Department to bring together.
NEUROLOGY, PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION.
The eighth volume of the 'Science Series,' edited by Professor J. McKeen Cattell and published by the Putnams, is Professor Jacques Loeb's 'Comparative Physiology of the Brain and Comparative Psychology.' The author is known as an able investigator of the physiology of the invertebrates and a thinker of daring genius. His book is in no sense a mere compend; it has the life and vigor natural to a student's presentation of his own research and theories. Professor Loeb's aim is to analyze the behavior of animals, roughly attributed to the nervous system, into elements, and to seek the definite factors that account for these elementary reactions; to replace the various hypothetical accounts of the nervous mechanism by the-theory that it is a complex of a number of largely independent segmental organs; and to pave the way for an explanation of nervous action by definite laws of physical and chemical change. The book is thus an important example of the present attempts of students of life-processes to reduce physiology to the more elementary sciences of matter.
In 'Fact and Fable in Psychology' (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), Professor Joseph Jastrow reprints with some alterations a number of essays. The author is eminent among psychologists for his original research, and his clearness and skill in exposition are already known to readers of the Popular Science Monthly, in which most of these essays originally appeared. His wide knowledge and clear judgment fit him admirably to treat the rather delicate subjects with which his book is concerned, namely, that group of facts which arise in our minds at the word 'occult,' matters which have received such diverse treatment by both psychologists and laymen. They are directly dealt with in the essays on 'The modern occult,' 'The problems of psychical research,' 'The logic of mental teleg-
