Popular Science Monthly/Volume 18/December 1880/Literary Notices
Odontornithes: A Monograph on the Extinct Toothed Birds of North America. With Thirty-four Plates and Forty Wood-cuts. Forming Vol. VII of the Geological Survey of the Fortieth Parallel. By Othniel Charles Marsh, Professor of Paleontology in Yale College, New Haven, Conn.
Fossil anatomy is generally regarded as one of the driest of subjects; but, when the vestiges of old bones become the keys to the history of the world and the mysteries of the universe, their study acquires an intense interest. No better exemplification of this can be found than that furnished by the author of the splendid monograph before us. Professor Marsh, as is well known, has been engaged for the last ten years in exploring the Kooky Mountain regions in search of fossils, and his enthusiasm, untiring energy, and whole-souled devotion to the work well attest the fascination there is to the scientific mind in inquiries which the mass of people are apt to regard with indifference.
Two circumstances combined to give especial and powerful interest to the investigation. The region was rich in new material for paleontological science, and the facts discovered were certain to have great significance in their bearing upon biological theory and our whole view of the economy and order of nature.
Geology tells us, in the first place, that the North American stratified rocks, over vast areas west of the Mississippi, were deposited in a continuous, tranquil way, and were so little disturbed by revolution and upheaval that the formations are found in a remarkably unbroken sequence. The geological systems follow each other regularly, so that the record is in an unusual degree complete. But, while the strata under the vast prairies remain nearly horizontal as they were left by deposit and subsidence, the beds have been denuded, and thrust up here and there so that the outcropping strata are open to examination. The maximum thickness of these formations is estimated at some seven or eight miles, and the "stratigraphical succession" is so perfect as to be most favorable for the study of the order and dependence of the extinct forms of life. Thus the field was not only fresh, but propitious for new paleontological exploration. In the second place, this interest was heightened by the crisis of biological speculation. The theory of the continuous evolution of living forms by descent with variation had got a foothold with naturalists, but evidence was sorely wanting to supply the missing links in the chains of organic succession. There was a demand for "intermediate types," and that the connecting forms predicted by the evolutionists should be forthcoming. The research had a factitious interest from these circumstances. Professor Marsh was, of course, animated by the genuine scientific motive of finding out the facts, whatever theories they might favor; but he could not be insensible to the import of his labors.
Some idea of the immense value of Professor Marsh's contributions to paleontology, as well as the immense labor that they have cost, may be gathered from the fact that in the last twelve years he has enriched the museum of Yale College alone with about one thousand new species of extinct vertebrates, at least one half of which remain to be studied out and described. That which is remarkable about these collections is the excellence of their preservation, and the profusion of specimens by which it becomes possible to restore nearly completed skeletons. Paleontologists have hitherto had to work much from fragmentary specimens; but Professor Marsh is now enabled to restore the extinct vertebrate forms of the Western Cretaceous beds with such fullness of detail as seriously to affect the literary treatment of the subject. His large memoirs will be confined to a few restorations, but the work in each case will be a finished contribution to which little can ever be added.
The present memoir on "Extinct Toothed Birds" is his first systematic publication on the Western fossils, and forms Volume VII of the "Geological Survey of the Fortieth Parallel," conducted by Mr. Clarence King; and it also forms Volume I of "Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Yale College." In regard to its contents, we can not do better for our readers than to reproduce the following extract from a notice of it in "Nature," by Professor Geikie, the able head of the Geological Survey for Scotland:
Among the organic wonders of which from time to time during the past decade announcements have appeared, none have been received with more interest than the discovery of birds with teeth, made by Professor Marsh near the end of the year 1870, in the middle Cretaceous rocks, which in Kansas and Colorado spread out eastward from the base of the Rocky Mountains. So perfect a matrix do the peculiar buff, chalky, or marly beds of the Kansas middle Cretaceons formations furnish for the preservation of organic remains, that almost every bone of the skeletons of some of the birds has been recovered. The material for the study of their osteology is thus almost as ample as that for any living bird. Full advantage of this abundant store of material has been taken. The cases and cellars in the Peabody Museum at New Haven contain the remains of about fifty different individuals of a single bird. Every bone of its skeleton, with the exception of one or two terminal toe bones and the extreme point of the tail, has been recovered, and is here carefully drawn of the natural size. Never before has it been possible, we believe, to reconstruct so perfectly so ancient an organism.
The volume is divided into two parts. In the first of these the detailed structure is given of the bird on which the author has bestowed the name of Hesperornis. The skeleton of this animal if extended to its full length would measure about six feet from the point of the bill to the end of the tail. It must have been a typical aquatic bird, without any power of flight, but with strongly developed limbs and a long, flexible neck, whereby it was doubtless endowed with remarkable powers of diving and swimming, and of seizing the abundant fishes of the shallow seas in which it lived. Compared with our modern birds, the two features of this ancient form which most forcibly arrest attention are the teeth and the legs. The teeth were covered with smooth enamel, terminating upward in conical pointed crowns and downward in stout fangs, closely resembling those of mosasauroid reptiles. Their mode of growth and replacement have been determined to have taken place in a manner very similar to that in some reptiles, the young tooth forming on the inner side of the fang of the tooth in use, and increasing in size, while a pit for its reception was gradually made by absorption. The old tooth, being progressively undermined, was finally expelled by its successor, the number of teeth thus remaining unchanged. The teeth were implanted in a common alveolar groove, as in Ichthyosaurus. In the upper jaw they were confined to the maxillary and entirely absent from the pre-maxillary bone; in the lower jaw they extended from near the anterior extremity of the ramns along the entire upper border of the dentary bone. Mr. Marsh believes that they were held in position by cartilage which permitted some fore-and-aft movement, but on the decay of which after death the teeth readily became displaced and fell out of the jaw. This is an important fact in its bearing upon the nature of the teeth found on the same slab of Solenhofeu limestone with the well-known Archæopteryx. These teeth, it will be remembered, were referred by Mr. Evans to the bird itself—a reference fully confirmed by Mr. Marsh, who says that he at once identified the teeth as those of birds and not of fishes, and by the subsequent discovery of other remains of the bird. In Hesperornis regalis there appear to have been fourteen functional teeth in the maxillary bone, and thirty-three teeth in the corresponding ramus of the lower jaw. The wings are rudimentary or aborted, a remnant of the humerus alone existing. They may have gradually diminished from disuse until, as the power of flight ceased, the legs and feet increased in proportion, and assumed the massive dimensions shown in these specimens, or, as Mr. Marsh suggests, the bird may have been a carnivorous aquatic ostrich, never having possessed the power of flight, but descended from a reptilian ancestry, which is strongly recalled by different portions of the skeleton. Among recent birds, the peculiar legs and feet of Hesperornis find their nearest analogues in the Grebes of the genus Podiceps. They were admirably adapted for propulsion in water, but scarcely served for walking on land. Locomotion must have been entirely performed by the posterior limbs—a peculiarity which distinguishes Hesperornis from all other aquatic birds, recent or fossil. The tail appears to have been composed of twelve vertebræ, unique in their peculiar, widely-extended, transverse processes and depressed horizontal plowshare bone. Broad and flat, somewhat like that of the beaver, it must have been a powerful instrument in steering the bird through the water.
The second part is devoted to a description of the remains which have been found of birds belonging to a second order of Odontornithes, termed Odontotormæ. Unlike Hesperornis, they seem to have been all of comparatively small size and to have possessed powerful wings, but very small legs and feet. From that contemporaneous form, and from all other known birds recent and fossil, they are distinguished by certain types of structure which point back to a very lowly ancestry, lower even than the reptile. Their bones, being mostly air-filled, would enable the carcasses to float on water until, by decay or the rapacity of other animals, they were separated and dispersed. Hence skeletons of these flying birds are less entire than those of the massive-boned Hesperornis. Nevertheless, the remains of no fewer than seventy-seven different individuals have been disinterred. These are included in two well-marked genera, Ichthyornis and Apatornis, and were all small birds, reminding us by their strong wings and delicate legs and feet of the Terns, like which they were probably also aquatic in habit. Besides the reptilian skull and teeth, the birds of this second order were marked by the character of their vertebræ, which in their biconcave structure recall those of fishes. This is the more remarkable, as in Hesperornis the vertebræ are like those of modern birds. Yet these two utterly dissimilar types were contemporaries, and their remains have been preserved in the same strata. Mr. Marsh points out that the transition between the two vertebral types may be traced even in the skeleton of Ichthyornis itself, where the third cervical vertebra presents a modification in which the ordinary avian saddle-shaped form appears as it were in the act of development from the biconcave ichthyic form.
This memoir and those which will succeed it have a weighty interest as contributions to the doctrine of organic evolution. There is no other possible way of explaining the numerous facts than by this theory. Professor Marsh's discoveries are new demonstrative proofs of the law, which he has done more to confirm by these fossil revelations than any other living man, or all contemporary naturalists put together.
It remains only to add that the volume in all its elements—paper, printing, drawing, and engraving—is superb. The illustrations, all executed in New Haven, and by the most skillful hands the world affords, are the perfection of art. Professor Geikie pays them the following high but deserving compliment: "They are strictly and rigidly scientific diagrams, wherein every bone and part of a bone is made to stand out so clearly that it would not be difficult to mold a good model of the skeleton from the plates alone. And yet, with this faithfulness to the chief aim of the illustrations, there is combined an artistic finish which has made each plate a kind of finished picture." Should the series of memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Yale College, of which this is the first, be carried out on a scale and with a thoroughness here attained, it will form one of the great scientific monuments of the century.
German Thought. By Karl Hillebrand. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1880. Pp. 298. Price, $1.75.
In these six lectures before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Professor Hillebrand has traced in outline the rise of modern German thought and its influence in forming modern German political life. The period covered by his review is that from the Seven Years' war to the death of Goethe, but he glances briefly at the part taken by the other nations in the work of modern culture, as an indispensable preliminary to the subject proper. His review leads him to a consideration of the Italian Renaissance, in which Italy led the way in breaking from the thralldom of mediæval tradition and authority; the reaction against the sensuous view of life that this introduced, which in Spain was expressed by the founding of the Society of Jesus, and in Germany by the Reformation; and the passing to England and Holland, and later to France, of the leadership in the thought and spirit that have made modern Europe. Though Germany held an important place in the initial movement, she took but little part. Professor Hillebrand points out, in the subsequent progress of it. She had been engaged in one of the most notable struggles in history, and came out of it prostrate. The Thirty Years' war not only left her in entire intellectual, moral, and material poverty, but it completely broke the thread of her history, and threw her back full two hundred years. It was not until 1760 that she began "to react against the too absolute thought of France, and to begin the work of restoration on a sounder basis than that which Spain had tried to lay two centuries before." Her restoration was due to two things—the Prussian state and the Protestant religion. The one has gradually molded out of an heterogeneous mass of petty principalities a powerful state, and the other awakened thought, and furnished the conditions in which free inquiry could thrive. The impulse to a large intellectual life came from without, but, once given, a literature grew up which has expanded into a rich and varied product. It has now become national in its tone and feeling, but at first it was purely individual. It is the peculiarity of German literature that it arose, not, as in other countries, after a coherent state had been formed, but before, while yet the nation did not exist, and Germany was but a collection of petty states. It had the task not only of responding to a national spirit, but of forming that spirit. At first, as Germany began to recover from the prostration of its protracted war, the literature was but a soulless copy of foreign models, but with time it grew to be more and more national, and under the impulse of the Seven Years' war it took definite form, and prepared the ground for the generations of great writers which have finally placed Germany abreast of the other foremost nations of Europe. The three generations of writers who did the great literary work of Germany were those born in the sixty-five years from 1715 to 1780, and which followed each other at periods of twenty years. In the first were Klopstock, Wieland, Winckelmann, Kant, Mendelssohn, and Lessing; the second included Herder, Voss, Klinger, Bürger, Goethe, and Schiller. The third and final generation gave to Germany the two Schlegels and the two Humboldts, Rahel, Tieck, Schleiermacher, Niebuhr, Savigny, and Schelling. The "two schools," says Professor Hillebrand, "which from 1825 to 1850 influenced the German mind most powerfully, the school of Hegel and that of Gervinus, only continued, developed, summed up, applied, or contradicted the main ideas of the three preceding great generations." The period of the first two generations was the creative one, when Lessing and Kant, Herder and Goethe and Schiller were leading German thought into new channels. The later period—that of the Romanticists—was essentially a reactionary one, a period in which the middle ages became the ideal. It was, however, a necessary one, and under its influence the past of Germany was brought into prominence, and this prepared the later generation for the constructive work of organizing the German state and arousing the feeling of patriotism essential to its success. When this task has been fully accomplished, Germany can again take up the work of intellectual progress and occupy her place in the general movement of European thought. Professor Hillebrand writes in a very agreeable style, and, though he is confined to a brief outline, he invests his subject with an interest that is sustained to the end.
The Elementary Principles of Scientific Agriculture. By N. T. Lupton, LL. D., Professor of Chemistry in Vanderbilt University. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 107. Price, 50 cents.
This little primer of agriculture for the public schools had the following origin: The Legislature of Tennessee passed a law authorizing the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Commissioner of Agriculture to procure the preparation of a suitable elementary work on agricultural science, to be used in the common schools of that State. The Commissioner selected Dr. N. T. Lupton, Professor of Chemistry in the Vanderbilt University, to prepare the book, and this little volume is the result. As our public schools are constituted, it is perhaps as good an introductory book as could be got upon the subject. It is written in a clear and easy style, with the smallest possible amount of technical scientific talk that is consistent with a rudimentary exposition of agricultural principles. After some appropriate opening remarks on the development of scientific agriculture, the author takes up the origin, composition, and classification of soils, the composition of plants, the composition and properties of the atmosphere, and the sources of plant-food and how it is obtained. This is the most purely scientific part, as all the explanations depend upon chemistry. The author then takes up the questions of the improvement of soils, the use of manures, mineral fertilizers, rotation of crops, and the selection and care of livestock. This is the more practical portion of the book, and is full of well-digested information which should be got early into the heads of farmers' boys. There is an appendix describing a few simple experiments, and then the customary questions to aid the teacher in the recitations.
Summer-Land Sketches, or Rambles in the Backwoods of Mexico and Central America. By Felix L. Oswald. With numerous Illustrations. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. Pp. 425. Price, $3.
This is a book of travel, adventure, and observation in a wild and picturesque region, upon which pen and pencil have been hitherto but little employed. It is besides a scholarly study of the scenery, the natural objects, the art-works, and the habits and characters of the people that were met with, and it is full of acute reflections and an instructive philosophy thoroughly imbued with the modern scientific spirit. Its style is, moreover, vivid, racy, crisp, and lively, so that altogether the work may be commended to the reader as fresh, original, brilliant, and solid.
Dr. Oswald was stationed at Medellin, near Vera Cruz, in 1867, as director of a military lazaretto. Transferred afterward to the Vera Cruz City Dispensary, he lost his health, and, having got a notion that the mountains of Mexico have great sanitary claims, he resolved to go there and if possible reëstablish his constitution. He rambled about for several years, and this volume is one of the results of his experience. Dr. Oswald has very decided views in regard to some of the evil tendencies of civilization, and was very happy in the great region that has not yet been invaded by the destructive agencies of civilized life.
The following extract from his introduction, shadowing forth this idea, explains the production of the book, and illustrates the characteristics of the author's writing:
We vaunt our proficiency in the art of subjugating Nature, but in the New World the same ambition has led to a very dear-bought victory which the countries of the East have paid with the loss of their manhood; their wild woodlands have been tamed into deserts, and their wild freemen into slaves; the curse of the blighted land has recoiled upon its devastators. In our eagerness to wrest the scepter from our Mother Earth, we have invaded her domain with fire and sword, and instead of increasing the interest of our heritage we have devoured the principal; the brilliant progress of the vain god of earth la tracked by a lengthening shadow—the day-star of our empire is approaching the western horizon.
Where shall it end? Mold, sandy loam, and sand, is Liebig's degeneration scale of treeless countries; the American soil may pass through the same phases, and what then? Will the sunset in the West be followed by a new Eastern sunrise? Shall Asia, the mother of religions, give birth to an earth-regenerating Messiah, whose gospel shall teach us to recognize the physical laws of God? Or shall the gloaming fade into the night of the Buddhistic Nirvana, the final extinction of organic life on this planet? It is not much of a consolation to think that in the latter case the nations of the higher latitudes might count upon a protracted twilight. The westward spread of the land-blight will drive the famished millions of the Old World upon our remaining woodlands, but the resources of the last oasis will probably be husbanded with Scotch canniness and Prussian systematism, and before we share the fate of the Eastern nations we may see the dawn of the bureaucratic millennium, when all our fields shall be fenced in with brick walls, all rivers with irrigation-dikes, and all functions of our domestic life with official laws and by-laws. My trust in the eternal mercy of Providence lets me expect another deluge before that time; but the recuperative agencies of unaided Nature seem powerless against the greatest of all earthly evils. National and territorial marasmus are incurable diseases; the historical records of the Eastern Continents, at least, prove nothing to the contrary. The coast-lands of the Mediterranean were the pleasure gardens of the Juventus Mundi, the Elysian Fields whose inhabitants celebrated life as a festival; and now? Spain, southern Italy, Turkey, Greece, and Persia have been wasted to a shadow of their former self; ghouls and afrits haunt the burial-places of the north African empires; and no invocation can break the death slumber of Asia Minor. Acorns perish in the Boil which once nourished the oaks of Bashan; outraged Nature refuses to be reconciled. With the glory of the Orbis Romanus the spring-time of our earth has departed, and what America mistakes for the prime of a new year is but the lingering mildness of an Indian summer.
The career whose swiftness is our national boast has led us upon a road which has never been far pursued with impunity; the rapidity of the destruction of our tree and game production is far more unparalleled than the growth of our cities; the misery of the Old World has not taught us to avoid its causes, and the history of its effects will not fail to repeat itself. On the frozen shores of Lake Winnipeg and the inaccessible heights of the central Rocky Mountains a few remnants of the old forests will probably survive; but the great East-American sylvania is already doomed; if we persist in our present course, our last timber-States, Maine, Michigan, and North Carolina, will be as bald as northern Italy in fifty years from now, and our last game will soon retreat to the festering swamps of southern Florida.
The temperate zone of America will soon be the treeless zone, with a single exception. In the sierras of southern Mexico large tracts of land still combine a generous climate with a rich arboreal vegetation. Mexico, like our own republic, has her backwoods States, but their security from the inroads of the destroyer is guaranteed by better safeguards than their remoteness from the great commercial centers. The ruggedness of the surrounding sierras, the supposed or real scarcity of precious metals, and the independent character of the aboriginal population, all conspire to make the alturas or mountain forests as unattractive to the imperious Spaniards as they are inviting to freedom loving visitors from the North.
To my rambles and adventures in these alturas, to their scenic charms, their strange fauna and vegetable wonders, I have devoted this volume; but I have rarely touched upon the mineral and agricultural resources of a region which should remain consecrate to the Hamadryads and their worshipers. The cities of the intervening "civilized" districts, too, I have only mentioned as wayside stations for the benefit of non-pedestrian tourists. New Spain makes no exception from the general rule that the nations of Europe have transformed their American dependencies after the image of their mother countries, and only he who leaves the cities far behind can forget that Mexico was colonized under the auspices of St. Jago and Ximenes.
This collection of "Summer-hand Sketches" is, therefore, neither a record of a pilgrimage to the shrines and cathedrals of Spanish America, nor a bid for the patronage of Southwestern land-agencies, but rather a guide-book to one of the few remaining regions of earth that may give us an idea of the tree-land eastward in Eden which the Creator intended for the abode of mankind. In the terrace-lands of western Colima and Oaxaca, near the head-waters of the Rio Lerma and the mountain-lakes of Jalisco, and in the lonely highlands of Vera Paz, we may yet see forests that have never been desecrated by an axe, and free fellow-creatures which have not yet learned to flee from man as from a fiend.An Elementary Treatise on Analytical Geometry, embracing Plane Geometry AND AN Introduction to Geometry of Three Dimensions. By Edward A. Bowser. New York: D. Van Nostrand. 1880. Pp. 287.
Professor Bowser has produced a very excellent text-book, and has successfully accomplished his object of presenting his subject in a clear and concise manner, suited to the ready comprehension of the class of students for which it is designed. The demonstrations have been selected with regard to their being of recognized excellence, from all available sources, and when a line of proof could be simplified it has been done.
The Minor Arts. By Charles G. Leland. London: Macmillan & Co 1880. Pp. 148. Price 90 cents.
The regard in which decorative work of all kinds is at present held has given a commercial value to many of those minor arts which have been heretofore viewed only in the light of accomplishments, and pursued only as a pastime. A large field of remunerative and agreeable employment is thus opened up to numbers of persons who could in no other way use their time and abilities to such advantage. These arts are mostly simple, and can be learned sufficiently well to enable the student to do at least passable work with a fair amount of diligence and at an inconsiderable cost. With the object of presenting such practical instruction in the use of the materials and the kind of work that can be made from them as the novice needs, in a convenient and easily accessible form, Mr. Leland has prepared the present little manual. The volume opens with a consideration of leather-work, of which there are three kinds, that known as cuir bouilli, in which the leather is softened and then molded, stamped, or otherwise shaped; sewed leather, and sheet-leather ornaments, such as leaves, flowers, etc. Mr. Leland devotes his attention chiefly to the first kind, which he shows is capable of producing in a very simple way many elegant articles. In the chapter on porcelain-painting, the character of the pigments, the mode of drawing on porcelain, and the kinds of glaze produced are briefly touched upon. Simple instructions are given in the chapter on woodcarving, as also in the one on molding in plaster and gelatine. Other chapters treat of designing and transferring patterns, stenciling, mosaic-work, repoussé-work, and silver-chasing, and some minor manufactures not in themselves of sufficient importance to be given a separate place. The volume closes with a collection of useful receipts of cements, etc.
The Textile Record of America. By James W. Nagle & John W. Ryckman. Published monthly at Philadelphia, $3 per year.
This is a handsomely printed thirty-six page monthly journal devoted to the interests of those engaged in producing textile materials and in weaving them into fabrics. The first and second numbers, for September and October of this year, have varied tables of contents, and the journal promises to be very serviceable to the trade of which it is the exponent. It is under the editorial direction of Mr. Lorin Blodget, and is, like everything else published in Pennsylvania, thoroughly protectionist in creed. A department devoted to coloring-improvements, both in dyes and their use, is conducted by Dr. Alfred L. Kennedy.
Diseases of the Throat and Nose. By Morell Mackenzie, M. D. London: Vol. I. Philadelphia: Presley Blakiston. 1880. Pp. 570. Price, $4.
This is an American reprint of the valuable work of Dr. Mackenzie, of London, whose long experience and extensive acquaintance with diseases of this class eminently fit him to treat of them. The work is addressed to the profession, and is, as it professes to be, a systematic treatise upon the subject. The matter of this first volume is arranged under the three headings of "The Pharynx," "The Larynx," and "The Trachea." Under each the anatomy of the organ is first considered, next the instruments used in operating upon it, and the diseases to which it is subject, and the method of treatment. The complete work will be in two volumes, the second treating of the diseases of the œsophagus, nasal cavities, and neck. This volume is now in press, and will shortly appear.
Memoirs of the Science Department, University of Tokio, Japan. Vol. III, Part I. Report on the Meteorology of Tokio for the Year 1879. By T. C. Mendenhall. Published by the University. Government Printing-office. 1880. Pp. 42.
This memoir comprises the meteorological observations made at the observatory of the University of Tokio during the year 1879. The results are tabulated, and numerous charts show graphically the variations in temperature, in barometrical readings, force of wind, etc. Professor Mendenhall does not consider that any general conclusions can be drawn from observations extending over such a brief period of time; but, as they are to be continued, the data will in time be collected from which such conclusions can be safely drawn. The observations of the barometer and thermometer were made three times a day, and those on the direction of the wind at more frequent intervals. They were made by Japanese under the direction of Professor Mendenhall, and every care has been taken to have them accurate. The volume is issued in excellent style, and is entirely of Japanese manufacture.
L'Année Artistique (The Artistic Year). The Fine Arts in France and Abroad. By Victor Champier, Secretary of the Museum of Decorative Arts. Second Year: 1879. Paris: A. Quantin. 1880. Pp. 644.
Répertoire Politique et Historique (Political and Historical Repertory): containing a Political Review of the Year. Fourth Year: 1879. Published under the direction of M. Charles Valframbert. Doctor in Laws, Advocate of the Court of Appeals of Paris, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Paris: A. Quantin. 1880. Pp. 592.
L'Année Archéologique (the Archeological Year): Archeological Calendar, Centenaries, Review of the Year in France and Abroad. By Anthyme Saint-Paul. Year 1879. Paris: A. Quantin. 1880. Pp. 340.
Sugar Analysis: a Description of the Methods used in estimating the Constituents. By M. Benjamin, Ph. D. Illustrated. New York. 1880. Pp. 18.
Plan of the Cerebro-Spinal Nervous System. By S. V. Clevenger, M. D. Illustrated. Chicago. 1880. Pp. 39.
The Trenton Gravel and its Relation to the Antiquity of Man. By Henry Carvill Lewis. From the "Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia." Pp. 16.
Notes on the Management of Orthopedic
Cases. By V. P. Gibney, M. D. Louisville, Ky. 1880. Pp. 9.
Perinephritis: Remarks on Diagnosis and Prognosis. By V. P. Gibney, M. D. Chicago. 1880. Pp. 30.
Science Education: an Address delivered at the Commencement of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama. By William Le Roy Brown, LL. D. Auburn, Ala. 1880. Pp. 16.
The Unification of Science. By Alfred Arnold. St. Augustine, Fla. 1880. Pp. 15.
On Rotting Wood. By Professor William H. Brewer, of Yale College. Read before the American Public Health Association, November 19, 1879. Pp. 3.
Culture of Sumac in Sicily, and its Preparation for Market in Europe and the United States. By William McMurtrie, Ph. D. Special Report No. 26, Department of Agriculture. Washington: Government Printing-Office. With 8 Plates. 1880. Pp. 18.
Tide Tables of the Pacific Coast of the United States. Pp. 63.—Tide Tables of the Atlantic Coast of the United States. Pp. 129. United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Office. Washington: Government Printing-Office. 25 cents each.
Quarterly Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, Treasury Department. Three Months ending June 30, 1880. Washington; Government Printing-Office. 1880. Pp. 92.
Medical Hints on the Production and Management of the Singing Voice. By Lennox Browne, F. R. C. S. Edin. New York: M. L. Holbrook & Co. Pp. 77. 25 cents.
The Devonian Insects of New Brunswick. By Samuel H. Scudder. Anniversary Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History. With I Plate. Boston. 1880. Pp. 41.
A Text-Book of the Physiological Chemistry of the Animal Body. By Arthur Gamgee, M. D., F. R. S. With Illustrations. Vol. I. London: Macmillan & Co. 1880. Pp. 487. $4.50.
On Slight Ailments: their Nature and Treatment. By Lionel S. Beale, M. B., F. R. S. Philadelphia: Presley Blakiston. 1880. Pp. 353. $1.50.
A Manual of Classical Literature. By Charles Morris. Chicago: S. R. Griggs & Co. 1880. Pp. 418. $1.75.
The Ocean as a Health Resort. By William S. Wilson, L. R. C. P. Loud. Philadelphia: Presley Blakiston. 1880. Pp. 260. $2.50.