in stacks after being dried. The journey was made in midsummer, and the melting snows fed innumerable streams which were tumbling over the rocks. The scenery was everywhere beautiful and grand.
At Hammerfest no ice forms in tidewater during winter, and steamers continue their trips from Christiania to Tromsöe near Hammerfest as in summer. Snow, however, falls on-the ground quite to the coast, and in great quantity on the mountains. This modification of ocean and coast climate is due to the Gulf Stream.
The author speaks in high terms of the manners, habits, and morals of the Norwegians, but less favorably of the Lapps as respects their culture and refinement. Their morals, however, are good. Those from the mountain districts are rich in their flocks of reindeer. Of these he saw immense droves, but they did not relish the odor of Americans, and he could best approach them against the wind. A chapter is devoted to this animal, and we are promised a volume by Judge Caton on the American and European deer and their domestication.
The Sanitary Journal. Edited by Edward Platter, M. D. Toronto: Dudley & Burns. Monthly. $2.00 per annum.
This is a new venture in the periodical field, having commenced its career a few months ago. Both in its editorial and its selected matter it gives evidence of being conducted with ability. It is to be hoped that the enterprise will be so sustained by the Canadian public, that the editor may be enabled to make good his promise of enlarging the Journal at the beginning of next year.
On the Composition of the Ground Atmosphere, together with some examinations of the Air in Smoking-Cars. By Prof. Wm. Ripley Nichols, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Prof. Nichols presents in this paper the results of interesting investigations of the quantity and properties of air contained in the soil under a great variety of circumstances; and especially in respect to changes produced in it by processes of organic decay in the soil at considerable depths. The paper, which is of much value, is embodied in the "Sixth Annual Report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health."
Navigation in Theory and Practice. By Henry Evers, LL. D. 263 pages, 12mo. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1875. Price $1.50.
This book is one of the volumes of an English advanced science series of popular text-books, republished in this country. The work is intended to give the student a clear insight into the theory and practice of navigation. It has been the aim of the writer to make the subject as easy and practical as possible, by presenting the definitions, illustrations, etc., in every variety of aspect. The book comprises thirteen chapters, treating successively and in detail the following subjects: "Definitions and Preliminary Illustrations," "The Compass and its Declination," "The Log, Log-line, and Log-glass," "Plane Sailing," "Traverse Sailing," "Current Sailing," "The Day's Work," "Parallel Sailing," "Middle Latitude Sailing," "Mercator's Sailing," "Great Circle Sailing," "Sailing to Windward or plying to Windward," "Oblique and Current Sailings," and to each chapter are appended numerous examples, illustrations, and exercises.
Contributions to the Theory of Solubility. By Isidor Walz, Ph. D. Philadelphia: Collins, 1875.
This paper is a reprint from the American Chemist for February, 1875, in which the author attempts to trace some relations between the solubility of substances, their specific volume, and chemical constitution.
Solution he defines to be the penetration of the molecules of one or more substances into the intra-molecular spaces of another substance. Under this definition are given five distinct classes of solubility, thus: of solids in liquids, of liquids in liquids, of gases in liquids, of solids in solids, including alloys, and of gases in solids, as diffusion of gases through metals. The subject is carefully treated, and is presented in a perspicuous and agreeable manner.
Harvard University. Bulletin of the Bussey Institution, Jamaica Plain, Boston, Part IV. Cambridge: Press of John Wilson & Son, 1875.
Of the six articles which compose the present number, four are especially important as giving the results of original re-
