Popular Science Monthly/Volume 30/April 1887/Literary Notices
The Geographical and Geological Distribution of Animals. By Professor Angelo Heilprin. "International Scientific Series." Vol. LVII. D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 435. Price, $2.
This volume sustains the high character of the International Scientific Series, and is a timely one, as the need of a compact work on this fascinating study has long been recognized. Wallace's larger work, in two volumes, while graphic in its method and full of interesting reading, is somewhat antiquated in its classification, a fault from which this book is not quite free.
The reader will find brought together a remarkable array of facts from various authors bearing upon the many questions involved in the subject. A vivid sketch is given of the apparently startling contradictions in the distribution of animals, the well-known case of faunal separation between the Islands of Bali and Lombok being cited among others. The author then says: "Mysterious as these various phenomena of distribution may appear, they yet have all their logical explanation. A quarter of a century ago, when the doctrine of independent creation still held sway over the minds of most naturalists, and when the organic universe was reflected in the eve of the investigator as an incongruous agglomeration of disjointed parts, there was, indeed, no necessity for specially accounting for the facts, since they were conceived to be such by reason of a previous ordination. Now, however, when the full value of the evolutionary process is recognized, and animate nature has come to be looked upon as a concrete whole, bearing special relations to its numberless parts, each individual fact seeks its own explanation, which explanation must of necessity stand in direct harmony with some previously observed fact. When, therefore, we seek to unravel the tangle of zoögeography and to harmonize its apparent incongruities, we must at the outset admit that distribution, such as it is, is the outcome of definite interacting laws—laws which stand in relation to each other as absolutely as they do in any other field of action—and not a haphazard disposition, as some would lead us to suppose, setting all inquiry at defiance." Among the many subjects treated of are relations of past faunas; origination of faunas; areas of specific, generic, family, and ordinal distribution; conditions effecting distribution; migrations of animals; dispersions; zoölogical regions accompanied by a colored outline-map; distribution of marine life; nature of marine faunas, such as deep-sea, oceanic, pelagic, littoral; succession of life; faunas of different geological periods; appearance and disappearance of species, reappearance, extinction, and other subjects dealt with from geological evidence. Here the author enters into interesting discussions in regard to possible reappearance of species, quoting opinions and statements from various authors, and leaning somewhat as to the possibility of a species evolving again from the parent or parallel stock. In reading these pages, one is more fully convinced than ever that such apparently inexplicable occurences of identical species in beds widely removed vertically are more rationally explained by the assumption of the very great imperfection of the geological record. As an evidence of this, consider the fact that over two hundred thousand species of insects have been described as living to-day. Now this class of creatures has been in existence since the Devonian, and probably as numerous in species since the Mesozoic as at the present day, and yet the number of fossil insects described from every geological horizon to the present would not exceed in number the species of the smallest order living at present. A species of Lingula, which is found in a few localities on the southern coast of the United States, if fossilized would very closely resemble certain forms in the Silurian. One might scan the Tertiary beds in the Southern States without finding a trace of this species, and yet an elevation of the coast-line of North Carolina might show this ancient worm in great numbers when the deposits below reveal no trace of it. This might appear to a future geologist like a re-evolution of this species, whereas, judging from what we know of the geographical limitations of certain groups, it can only be interpreted as the preservation of colonics under favorable conditions.
Globigeriua still survives, because the abysses of the deep sea probably remain in the same physical conditions as regards temperature, pressure, light, etc., as they did in the Cretaceous, and thus we have this creature and other cretaceous forms persisting to the present day.
We can heartily commend this book as a convenient and compact treatise on a great and voluminous subject.
Physiological Botany. An Abridgment of the Student's Guide to Structural Morphological and Physiological Botany. By Robert Bentley, F. L. S. Prepared as a sequel to "Descriptive Botany," by Eliza A. Youmans, author of "First Book of Botany," editor of "Henslow's Botanical Charts." New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1887. Pp. 292. Price, $1.40.
The author of this work. Dr. Robert Bentley, is an eminent English botanist, who has had more than thirty years of practical experience as a teacher, and whose various text-books hold a first place in his own country. The present treatise is a model of clear, concise, and accurate statement, giving a complete popular view of the minute structures, the functions, and the development of the various organs of plants. Great pains have been taken by Professor Bentley to bring the different subjects treated of down to the present state of science, and much care has evidently been exercised in condensing the numerous details in each department and arranging them in the best manner for the pupil.
As physiological botany is the same in every part of the globe, and might exist in its fullness if there were only one species of plant in existence, the fact that this work is by an English author has no bearing upon its use in this country. The "Descriptive Botany," with its contained Flora, published two years ago in this series, and to which this is a sequel, covers all that portion of botanical science which has local bearings. In the introduction to that work, after explaining and enforcing the reasons for an early beginning of the study of plants by direct observation, it is recognized that physiological botany may be pursued with profit by ordinary school methods, and the publication of the present manual was accordingly promised; and it completes the exposition of botanical science in Appletons' series of science text-books.
The Origin of the Fittest. Essays on Evolution. By E. D. Cope. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 467.
This volume includes twenty-one essays which represent the reflections that suggested themselves to the author while he was engaged in special zoölogical and paleontological studies. These studies related particularly to the vertebrates, but they impressed the conviction that the conclusions derived from them were also applicable to invertebrate animals and plants. The law of natural selection of Wallace and Darwin is regarded by Professor Cope as only restrictive, directive, conservative, or destructive of something already created. It includes no active or progressive principle, but "must first wait for the development of variation, and then, after securing the survival of the best, wait again for the best to project its own variations for selection. In the question as to whether the latter are any better or worse than the characters of the parent, natural selection in no wise concerns itself." The expression, "survival of the fittest," with which Spencer epitomized this law, is pronounced "neat," and "no doubt covers the case, but it leaves the origin of the fittest entirely untouched." It is proposed, then, to seek for the originative laws by which the materials whence the selection is made are furnished—"in other words, for the causes of the origin of the fittest." The laws which have regulated the successive creations, as the author attempts to define them in his essay on the "Origin of Genera," appear to him to have been of two kinds: the first, that which has impelled matter to produce numberless ultimate types from common origins; and, second, that which expresses the mode or manner in which this first law has executed its course, from its beginning to its determined end. The origin of genera is assumed to be a more distinct subject from the origin of species than has been supposed. A descent with modification involves continuous series of organic types through one or many geologic ages, and the coexistence of such parts of such various series at one time as the law of mutual adaptation may permit. These series, as now found, are of two kinds—the uninterrupted line of specific, and the same uninterrupted line of generic characters. These are independent of each other, and have, as it appears to the author, been developed pari passu, so that he conceives it "highly probable that the same specific form has existed through a succession of genera, and perhaps in different epochs of geologic time"; or, as it is otherwise expressed, species may be transferred from one genus to another without losing their specific characters, and genera from one order to another without losing their generic characters." These explanations may help to make more clear the bearing of what may be regarded as the leading doctrines of Professor Cope's theory, which are, in brief, that the development of new characters has been accomplished by an acceleration or retardation in the growth of the parts changed; that an exact parallelism exists between the adult of one individual or set of individuals, and a transitional stage of one or more other individuals—to be distinguished from the inexact parallelism of Von Baer, a law which expresses the origin of genera and higher groups because they can only be distinguished by single characters when all their representatives come to be known (that is, that upon a view of all the individuals the transitional differences are so gradual that hard and fast lines of distinction are obliterated); that genera and various other groups have descended, not from a single generalized genus, etc., of the same group, but from corresponding genera of one or more other groups—the doctrine of homologous groups; and that these homologous groups belong to different geological periods and different geographical areas, and are related to each other in a successional way like the epochs of geological time. To these are added the law of repetitive action, by which the structures of animals are shown to have originated from simple repetitions of identical elements; and the existence of a special force exhibiting itself in the growth of organic beings, called growth-force, or bathmism, the location of which at certain parts of the organism, indicating abstraction from other points, determines the direction of development. The location of the growth-force is accomplished by use or effort, which is exerted so as to modify the environment, and is modified by it. The location of this energy, to produce the change of evolution, is due to an influence called "grade-influence," which is, further, an expression of the intelligence of the animal, adapting its possessor to the environment by an "intelligent selection." Inheritance is a transmission of this form of energy. The part performed by intelligence in evolution is correlated with the fact deduced from the observation of the birds and mammals, that all animals are educated by "the logic of events," that their intelligence, impressed by changed circumstances, can accommodate itself more or less to them, and that there is nothing in this part of their being opposed to the principle of "descent with modification." The genus homo, according to the author's conclusions, "has been developed by the modification of some pre-existent genus. All his traits which are merely functional have, as a consequence, been produced during the process. Those traits which are not functional, but spiritual, are of course amenable to a different class of laws, which belong to the province of religion." The evolution of moral qualities may be related with the reproductive instinct, from which the social affections are developed. The struggle for existence among men ranges all the way from a rivalry of physical force to a rivalry for the possession of human esteem and affection. "The ultimate prosperity of the just, assured and foretold by prophets and poets, is but a forecast of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. The unjust are sooner or later eliminated by men from their society, either by death, seclusion, or ostracism." But lines of men in whom the sympathetic and generous qualities predominate over the self-preservative, are doomed to extinction. Hence, evolution can produce no higher development of the race than an equivalency of these two classes of forces.
The matter of the volume is arranged in four parts, or series of essays: First, appear the papers on "General Evolution," in which the general principles of the author's theory are aid down or foreshadowed. Following this part come, successively, papers on the "Structural Evidences of Evolution," on "Mechanical Evolution," and on "Metaphysical Evolution." In the concluding paper, the "Origin of the Will" is discussed.
Our Arctic Province. Alaska, and the Seal Islands. By Henry W. Elliott. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 465. Price, $4.50.
Mr. Elliott has given a most attractive volume, full of general and of scientific interest. The scientific matters are presented so as to be popular reading, and that which may be classed as of general interest is very far from not being of scientific merit and value. It is impossible to give, in an ordinary book notice, a summary of a work embodying so great a variety of matter; and we can not, perhaps, make a more comprehensive characterization of its contents than to say that it is devoted to the description and illustration of Alaska and all that pertains to it. First we have the history of the discovery of the country, its occupation by the Russians, and its transfer to the United States. This is followed by an account of the features of the Sitkan region, and a description of the aboriginal life of the Sitkans. Accounts are given of "The Alpine Zone of Mount St. Elias," with its superb and lofty peaks seen one hundred and thirty-five miles away, and including Mount Wrangel, the highest mountain in North America; of the warm springs near Sitka, of the forbidding character of the coast of the mountain-region, and the grand but gloomy scenery of Prince William Sound. Succeeding chapters are devoted to "Cook's Inlet and its People," "The Great Island of Kodiak," and "The Great Aleutian Chain," which stretches so far to the west as to make San Francisco a halfway city in crossing our country. Chapters are devoted to "The Quest of the Otter," "The Wonderful Seal Islands," and the management and methods of the seal industry. Other peculiar animals to receive due notice are the Alaska sea-lion, the moose, walrus, and polar bear. Far removed in space and character from the Sitka region and the Aleutian Islands are the Innuits, or people of the Esquimo race, who furnish material for a chapter of distinct interest; and the valley of the great Yukon River, and "The Great Northern Wastes," are the subjects of another chapter of equally distinct interest. The graphic descriptions are heightened by pictures of scenery, human life, and occupations, and the constructions of the natives. "How differently," says the author, "a number of us are impressed in the viewing of any one subject, by which observation we utterly fail to agree as to its character and worth! "The remark is pertinently illustrated in this book. The general impression has been that there is not much of value or interest in Alaska. The impression is inevitable, after reading "Our Arctic Province," either that Alaska is one of the most interesting regions of the earth, or that the author is one of those rarely gifted observers who know how to seek out and find matters of interest and beauty where ordinary men would only grope blindly.
A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists, and Compendium of Useful Knowledge for Ornithologists. By Robert Ridgway. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. Pp. 129, with Seventeen Plates.
The preparation of this book has been instigated by the author's feeling of a want while pursuing his own studies as an ornithologist. He could find, on one side, no authoritative nomenclature of colors, and, on the other hand, no compendious dictionary of technical terms used in ornithology, with specific references to the exact parts of the bird to which they were intended to apply. In both cases, approximate identification was the most that could be expected. The identification of color-tints offers peculiar difficulties. The variations are almost infinite, and are subject to modifications by the changing aspects and incidence of the light. Very few natural colors or artificial ones are permanent; most of them are liable to change with time or under chemical influences. The author, in treating of those points, gives a chapter to the discussion of the "Principles of Color," in which he lays down ten color-elements, formed from the primary colors, which in their binary combinations give ninety more or less distinct colors; and these are susceptible of great diversites of intershadings. Seventeen pages are occupied with a "Comparative Vocabulary of Colors," giving equivalent names of colors and shades in six languages. A series of plates gives some two hundred of these colors in actual chromatic illustrations composed out of fine artists' pigments selected from the shops of the best makers as those most likely to be true and permanent in tone. The bibliography gives the names of eight books consulted, in the order of their importance. The second part of the book (the "Ornithologist's Compendium") contains a glossary of technical terms used in descriptive ornithology, and comparative tables of millimetres and English inches and decimals. Six plates in outline are intended to show and localize the parts of the bird and the forms of feathers and eggs.
A Trip around the World. By George Moerlein. Cincinnati: M. &; R. Burgheim. Pp. 205, with Chromolithographic Plates.
This work is attractive on account of its illustrations. The author made the journey which he describes in 1884-'85, for pleasure and recreation, with two companions, who went by his invitation upon a similar errand. The journey included Japan, China, India, and Ceylon, and other Eastern countries, and Europe. The account here given is confined almost entirely to the far East, because it was there the party sojourned the longest, and had the opportunity of viewing the many (to them) strange sights and scenes. A straightforward narrative of what they saw and heard is given, without pretense to learning or literary elaboration, with historical and statistical information obtained from the most reliable sources. The illustrations represent various phases of life and scenery in the East, and are of a very satisfactory character. They were carefully chosen, we are told, from a collection of more than eight hundred original pictures collected during the journey, and are colored true to nature.
Commercial Organic Analysis. By Alfred H. Allen, F. I. C, F. C. S. Second edition, revised and enlarged. Vol. II. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 583. Price, $5.
The worth of this originally valuable treatise has been vastly increased by its revision and enlargement. The first edition comprised two volumes, but the work has been so much extended that it was found necessary to issue this edition in three. The first volume was noticed in the "Monthly" for November, 1885. The second volume, which is now at hand, is devoted to fixed oils and fats, hydrocarbons, phenols, etc. Somewhat more than half of the volume is occupied by the first of these divisions. The physical characters of the oils are described first, and then the reactions based on the chemical properties. These sections are succeeded by a tabular classification of the oils based on a joint consideration of their origin, physical characters, and chemical constitution. Then follow methods of examining fatty oils and waxes for foreign matters and of identifying them, and after that come special methods of assaying some thirty of the principal commercial fixed oils. The next section, on the examination of lubricating oils, and that on mineral lubricating oils, which comes later, contain much matter of interest to the mechanical engineer as well as to the chemist. Appended to this division are descriptions of the chief saponification products of fixed oils—the higher fatty acids, soaps, glycerin, etc. The author has given much personal attention to methods of determining the density of fixed oils, for this property, being largely dependent on the constitution of the oils, is a more or less important means of identification. He especially recommends the Archimedean or plummet method of taking specific gravities, using Westphal's hydrostatic balance. In discriminating between butter and its imitations, he has found the specific gravity test valuable. He also recommends for examining butters the determination of the volatile fatty acids by Reichert's distillation process.
The temperature at which a mixture of the melted fat with glacial acetic acid becomes turbid on cooling is deemed by him another important indication, but he says that further experience is necessary before the trustworthiness of this test can be considered fully established.
The accurate determination of glycerin in a complex mixture is a problem which the author does not consider has received a satisfactory solution under all circumstances. After giving several methods of isolating glycerin in an approximately pure state, available in various circumstances, he proceeds to describe certain processes based on the chemical reactions of glycerin. A method originally suggested by J. A Wanklyn, has been very fully investigated in the author's laboratory, and proved to give very accurate results under certain conditions. This method is based on the oxidation of the glycerin by treatment with permanganate in presence of excess of caustic alkali, whereby it is converted into oxalic acid, carbon dioxide, and water. The excess of permanganate is then destroyed by a sulphite, the filtrate acidulated with acetic acid, and the oxalate determined as a calcium salt. In the presence of foreign bodies yielding oxalic acid on oxidation, the process is evidently useless.
In the second division, after some general description of the hydrocarbons, the tars of various origins are considered, and then the bitumens. The important commercial products derived from petroleum and shale are duly described, after which are taken up the terpenes, benzene and its homologues, naphthalene and anthracene. The properties and methods of assay of monohydric and dihydric phenols are given in the concluding division. The chapters on the aromatic acids and tannins have been deferred to the third volume, which will contain also chapters on coloring-matters, cyanogen compounds, organic bases, albuminoids, etc.
The Swiss Cross: A Monthly Magazine of the Agassiz Association. Vol. I, Nos. 1 and 2, January and February, 1887. Edited by Harlan H. Ballard. New York: N. D. Hodges, 47 Lafayette Place. Pp. 40 each. Price, 16 cents a number, $1.50 a year.
The Agassiz Association is an organization for the practical study of Nature, which originated some ten years ago, under an impulse given by the editor of "The Swiss Cross," in the Lenox High-School, Massachusetts. Other societies joined the original society to co-operate with it; and these affiliated local societies or "chapters" have increased till they number nine hundred and eighty-four, having from four to one hundred and twenty members each, of all ages from four years to eighty-four years, distributed in nearly all the States and Territories, and in Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, Chili, Japan, and Persia. The chapters are of four different sorts: family chapters, composed of the parents and children of a single family; chapters in schools in which teachers and pupils may join; chapters organized and conducted entirely by young persons: and chapters of adults. The chapters of single States are brought into harmonious action through confederations, which are called Associations, of which the ones most prominent at present are the Philadelphia Assembly and the State Assembly of Iowa. Until this year the Agassiz Association has found in the "St. Nicholas" a medium of communication between its branches and members and with the public; but finding it needed more space than that journal could afford, it was determined to establish a special organ of its own, and "The Swiss Cross" is the result. The opening number is adorned with a full-page portrait of Professor Agassiz. The editor gives a history of the Agassiz Association, from which we derive the facts we have related; and then the real work of the magazine begins. This consists in the publication of papers in natural history, science, experiment, and observation, contributed by members of the Association or other writers; of a "Children's Hour" (in large type); of miscellaneous matter; and of "Reports from Chapters." With these regular features, the second number gives a sketch and portrait of the late Isaac Lea, "the Nestor of American naturalists." The editor has plans for correspondence schools and for association tables at the biological laboratories, some of which are already begun.
Ham-Mishkan, the Wonderful Tent. By the Rev. D. A. Randall, D. D. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co. Pp. 420.
This book is described as "an account of the structure, signification, and spiritual lessons of the Mosaic Tabernacle erected in the Wilderness of Sinai." Its design is to give as clear and intelligent a statement as is possible of the literal structure of the tabernacle, and in connection with that to present the spiritual lessons the different parts of the building and its furniture suggest or are designed to teach. The author hopes also that the effect of his work may be to promote the development of the religious faculty of his readers. To make the account more life-like, it is cast in the shape of a narrative of a journey through the wilderness—which the author actually made—and of conversations among the scenes associated with the tabernacle. The account is preceded by a biography of the author, with a portrait.
Geological History of Lake Lahontan, a Quaternary Lake of Northwestern Nevada. By Israel Cook Russell. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 228.
The explorations reported in this volume are a continuation of the "Quaternary Geology of the Great Basin," begun by Mr. G. K. Gilbert when the present geological survey was organized, and have been carried out by the author and his assistants under Mr. Gilbert's direction. The theory of the work is based upon the conclusion to which the geological evidence points, that the valleys of the Great Basin were at one time—which is determined to have been in the Quaternary period—occupied by an extensive series of lakes, of which those to which the names of Lahontan (after Baron La Hontan, one of the early explorers of the head-waters of the Mississippi) and Bonneville have been given. Lake Lahontan filled a valley along the western border of the Great Basin at the base of the Sierra Nevada; Lake Bonneville occupied a corresponding position on the east side of the Great Basin, at the foot of the Wahsatch Mountains. The former was mostly within the limits of the present State of Nevada, the latter in Utah. Lake Bonneville covered 19,750 square miles, and was 1,000 feet in its greatest depth; Lake Lahontan covered 8,422 square miles, and had an extreme depth, where Pyramid Lake now is, of 886 feet. Lake Bonneville overflowed northward; Lake Lahontan did not overflow. Both lakes had two eras of high water, separated by a period of desiccation. As Lake Lahontan did not overflow, it became the receptacle for all the mineral matter supplied by tributary streams and springs; of which that in suspension was deposited as lacustral sediments, and that in solution as calcareous tufa, or appeared as desiccation products after the lake evaporated. The present lakes of the basin are of comparatively recent date, and are nearly fresh, for the reason that the salts deposited when the Quaternary lakes evaporated were buried or absorbed by the underlying clays and marls. Mr. Russell's monograph is an attempt to study out the history of Lake Lahontan, so far as the details of it can be deduced from the geological evidences. It considers the "Physiography of the Lahontan Basin," the physical and chemical and life (animals and plants) history of the lake; the climate of the Quaternary period; the geological age of the lake; and the "Post-Lahontan Orographic Movement."
The Conflict of East and West in Egypt. By John Eliot Bowen, Ph. D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 204. Price, $1.25.
This essay was prepared originally as a dissertation preparatory to receiving the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Columbia College. The matter of it is of public interest, and, in the shaping which the author has given it, is presented in a form to make accessible to the public and to inform it concerning a subject respecting which its present knowledge is rather vague. The subject concerns the condition of affairs in Egypt, and how they came to be in that condition, together with the relations of the powers to the questions at issue. Of these matters, Mr. Bowen gives a concise, intelligible account, beginning with the inception of the Suez Canal enterprise in 1854, and following the events and negotiations through the reigns of Said, Ismail, and Tewfik. It presents M. de Lesseps's struggles to get the Suez Canal under way and construct it, and England's efforts to balk the work because it was a French one; the brilliant but reckless career of Ismail, his enterprising views and extravagant speculations, ending in his fall; the attempts, under Tewfik, to remedy the distress which Ismail had brought on; the rebellion of Arabi and the raid of the Mahdi, with Gordon's unfortunate career. England's record, through all these events, has been rather spotted, but Mr. Bowen concludes that "England, in spite of all her mistakes, has had a beneficent influence on Egypt," and that the hope of the country hangs largely on its independence of Turkey being assured.
The Poison Problem. By Felix L. Oswald, M. D. New York: D. Appleton & Co, Pp. 138. Price, 75 cents.
In this little volume, Dr. Oswald, than whom no writer is braver, more pungent upon occasion, or more readable, discusses the cause and cure of intemperance. In the beginning he calls attention to the extent and enormity to which the consumption of liquors has grown, and the power the liquor-traffic has acquired, which are really facts to be alarmed about. The argument is based upon the assumption, which is maintained by many considerations, that alcohol is a poison without any beneficial qualities to the system, the appetite for which, when once acquired, grows, and can not be mitigated by any measures of mere temperance, or by compromises. No moral or social evil is greater than those to which it conduces. "Judging from secular standpointes," says Dr. Oswald, "we should be inclined to think that alcohol is doing more mischief in a single year than obscene literature has done in a century. . . . And, unhappily, it also involves the loss of self-respect, and thus destroys the basis on which the advocate of appeals to the moral instinct would found his plan of salvation. The power of moral resistance is weakened with every repetition of the poison-dose, and we might as well besiege a bedridden consumptive with appeals to resume his place at the head of an afflicted family." The banishment of alcohol from the sick-room, as well as from the banquet-hall, is demanded. "Thousands of topers owe their ruin to a prescription of 'tonic bitters.' . . . Taught by the logic of such experiences, the friends of reform will at last recognize the truth that the 'temperate' use of alcohol is but the first stage of a progressive and shame-proof disease, and that, moderation and repudiation failing, we must direct our blows at the root of the upas-tree, and adopt the motto of 'eradication.' Truce means defeat in the struggle against an evil that will reproduce its seed from the basis of any compromise." For remedies against the spread of the alcohol-habit, the author proposes instruction respecting the physiological effects of the drug, such as is provided for in the school systems of several States; proscription of its use under all circumstances; the provision and encouragement of healthier amusements, from which alcohol shall be conspicuously absent, as it is now conspicuously present in or near most ordinary amusements; and prohibitory legislation. Our temperance friends will hardly find a stronger document in support of their cause than Dr. Oswald offers them.
The Old Order changes. By W. H. Mallock. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 513. Price, $1.
Mr. Mallock, the author of "Is Life worth Living?" is well known as a forcible writer on morals and social questions. The present book is a love-story, in which are interwoven discussions of the "labor problem" and "scientific morals." The bearing of the whole may, perhaps, be learned from the motto, which is a sentence of Bastian's, translatable into—"This importunate political economy insinuates itself everywhere, and mixes itself in everything, so that I really believe that it is it that says, 'I think nothing human foreign to me.'"
Bugbee, James M. The City Government of Boston. Baltimore: N. Murray. "Pp. 60. 25 cents.
Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co., New York. The Source of the Mississippi. Pp. 16.
Coomes, M. F. and Marvin J. B. The "Southwestern Medical Gazette." Monthly. January, 1887. Louisville, Ky. Pp. 32. $1 per annum.
Henderson. J. T. Report of the Department of Agriculture of Georgia. Atlanta. Pp 36.
Philosophical Society of Washington. Bulletin for 1886. Smithsonian Institution, Washington. Pp. 57.
James, Joseph F. Protozoa of the Cincinnati Group. Oxford, Ohio. Pp. 9.
Report of the School of Expression. Boston. Pp. 3.
Emerson, J. S., Van Slyke, L. L., and Dodge, F. S. Killauea after the Eruption of March. 1886. Dana. J. D. Volcanic Action. Pp. 28, with Plate.
Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station, for 1886. "Advertiser" Association Print. Elmira, N. Y. Pp. 398.
Proceedings of the United States National Museum. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 127.
Altgeld, John P. Arbitration in Labor Troubles. Chicago. Pp. 12.
Dunlap, Lauren. Report of the Commissioner of Immigration of the Territory of Dakota. Bismarck, Dakota. Pp. 73.
Report of Johns Hopkins University for 1886. Baltimore, Md. Pp. 100.
Ward. Lester F. The Use and Abuse of Wealth. New York. Pp. 10.
History and Work of the Warner Observatory. Rochester, N. Y. Pp. 70.
Richey, S. O. Prophylaxis in Rhinitis Sympathetica. Chicago. Pp. 4.
Gruwell. J. P. A Reformed Alphabet of the English Language. "Enterprise" print. Brighton, Iowa. Pp. 16.
Varieties of Apples for Market. Bulletin of the Agricultural College of Michigan. Lansing: Thorp & Godfrey. Pp. 6.
Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Pocket Atlas of the World. Pp. 191.
"The Earth." Fortnightly. London: Parry & Co. Pp. 8. One penny.
The Bancroft Historical Library. San Francisco, Cal.: The History Company. Pp. 38.
The Bibliotheca Sacra. Oberlin, O.: E. J. Goodrich. Pp. 200.
Rutgers College Catalogue for 1886-'87. Pp. 71.
Crosby, W. O. Geological Collections of the Boston Society of Natural History. Pp. 184.
Rosebruch, Dr. A. M., Canada. Telegraphing to and from Railroad Trains.—Duplex Telephony. Pp. 11.
Medico Legal Society of New York; Transactions of. Pp. 30.
Chemical Society of Washington. Bulletin No. 2. February 11, l886, to January 13, 1887. Pp. 48.
Meriden Scientific Association; Transactions. Vol. II, 1885-'86. Meriden, Conn. Pp. 64.
Baker, James H. The Sources of the Mississippi; their Discoverers, real and pretended. St. Paul, Minn. Pp. 28.
McLaughlin, J. W., M. D., Austin, Tex. Researches into the Etiology of Dengue. Pp. 23.
Alabama Weather Service, Auburn. Report for January, 1887. Pp. 6.
Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society Journal of 1885-'86. F. P. Venable, Secretary, Chapel Hill, N. C. Pp. 146.
Arnold, Matthew. General Grant, an Estimate. Boston: Cupples, Upham & Co. Pp. 66. 25 cents.
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Barnard, J. G. Analysis of Rotary Motion. New York: D. Van Nostrand. Pp. 66. 50 cents.
Schroeder, Seaton. The Fall of Maximilian's Empire. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 130. $1.
Bowen, John E. The Conflict of East and West in Egypt. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 204. $1.25.
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Feuillet, Octave. The Romance of a Poor Young Man. New York: William S. Gottsberger. Pp. 319. 90 cents.
Ridgway. Robert. A Nomenclature ol Colors. Boston: Little. Brown & Co. Pp. 129.
Report of the Chief Signal Officer of the Army, for 1885. Two Vols. Vol. I, pp. 440. Vol. II, pp. 609. Washington: government Printing-Office.
Lockyer, Norman. Chemistry of the Sun. London and New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 457. $4.50.
Geobel, K., M. D. Outlines of Classification and Special Morphology of Plants. New York and London: Macmillan &. Co. Pp.472. $5.25.
Henry. Joseph. Scientific Writings. Two vols. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. Vol. I, pp. 523. Vol II. pp. 559.
Murrell, William, M. D. Massago as a Mode of Treatment. Second edition. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 100. $1.25.
Wells, David A. A Study of Mexico. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 254. $1.50.
Wood, H. C, M. D. Nervous Diseases and their Diagnosis. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. Pp. 501.
United States Geological Survey; Mineral Resources of the United States, 1885. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 576.
Sutton, Francis. Volumetric Analysis. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 491. $4.60.
Crosby, W. O. Tables for the Determination of Common Minerals. Boston: J. Allen Crosby. Pp. 74.
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