Popular Science Monthly/Volume 37/September 1890/Literary Notices
The Art of Authorship. Compiled and edited by George Bainton. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 355. Price, $1.25.
This book is described in its sub-title as Literary Reminiscences, Methods of Work, and Advice to Young Beginners, personally contributed by Leading Authors of the Day; and, rightly used, it may be of great assistance to all persons who desire to write well. The compiler, seeking material for illustrating a lecture on the Art of Composition and Effective Public Speech, bethought himself to secure, if possible, personal experiences and counsels from a few of the leading writers and speakers of the day. The volume is the outcome of that effort. Replies are published from one hundred and seventy-nine English and American authors—poets, novelists, essayists, historians, and scientific writers—each giving an account of his literary history, methods in composition, or his impressions of what constitutes good writing, and how the object is attained. Many of the contributors compress their views into a sentence or even a maxim; and there is a singular unanimity in the conclusion which they all reach. The whole lesson of this book of the experiences of more than a hundred and seventy-five successful authors may be expressed by saying that the art of good writing consists in having something to say .and saying it in the clearest manner possible. A few of the expressions of representative authors in different fields may be quoted. The compiler has attempted to classify the observations under such headings as Good Writing: a Gift or an Art? Methods, Conscious and Unconscious; On Literary Style; The Strength of Simplicity; A Protest against Obscurity; and Truthfulness to One's Self; but the divisions so blend into one another, and all cluster so immediately around the single principle already stated, that we have found it impossible to keep the lines distinct. Prof. Huxley would advise the young writer, rather than ape the great writers, to make his style for himself, as they did. They were great "because, by dint of learning and thinking, they had acquired clear and vivid conceptions about one or other of the many aspects of men and things; . . . because they took infinite pains to embody those conceptions in language exactly adapted to convey them to other minds; . . . and because they possessed that purely artistic sense of rhythm and proportion which enabled them to add grace to force, and, while loyal to truth, make exactness subservient to beauty." To Prof. Tyndall, to think clearly is the first requisite; next, to express clearly in writing what he thinks. But this is not enough, and, with a good ear, sound judgment, and a thorough knowledge of English grammar, one must have a peculiar sensitiveness to the charm of a good style. The only tendencies that enable Mr. Francis Galton to write intelligibly "are a great desire to be clear in thought and distinct in expression, and an inclination to take much pains." He has, further, a clear appreciation of good and clear writing by others, and a love of getting at the exact meaning of words. Sir John Lubbock thinks that "there is no better way to improve one's style than by the study of the greatest masters of English." Grant Allen attaches much importance to the average classical education, and looks out deliberately for the most graphic and interesting way of putting things. John Burroughs believes that "earnestness is the great secret of forcible composition." Mr. Lowell has formulated the rule that every sentence must be clear in itself and never too long to be carried, without risk of losing its balance, on a single breath of the speaker. Mr. Stedman would advise the literary aspirant that the first thing is to have "something he must say or express, and then he will say it in his natural and special way; and his way forms his style, and his style is thus the man." Mr. R. D. Blackmore, author of Lorna Doone, first makes sure what he means, then arranges the words in straight order without waste, and then looks at them, with a stranger's mind, to learn whether he would take them as himself had done. Mr. Edward Dowden regards as the most important thing, in writing narrative, "to discover and then conceal a rational order in the sequence of topics." In many cases the "logic" would be one of the emotions rather than of the intellect. Mr. F. Marion Crawford advises boys to cultivate style by taking pains about their letters. Mr. Thomas Hardy's impression is that if one "has anything to say which is of value, and words to say it with, the style will come of itself."
Semitic Philosophy: Showing the Ultimate Social and Scientific Outcome of Original Christianity in its Conflict with Surviving Ancient Heathenism. By Philip C. Friese. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. Pp. 246.
The speculative theories of the Semites are not discussed in this work, as might be supposed from its title. It is named Semitic to distinguish it from "the philosophies of Greece and Rome and the Orient," and because the author of its great revival was a Semite. We learn that it is "the Christian doctrine of the kingdom of God," and that this formula implies a philosophy "all of which may be grasped into the one first principle as the uniformity of the uniformities of God's action." Christ did not intrust this precious system to writing because language is defective, but he "referred its keeping" to a better vehicle of thought, "the sensuous ideas." These are explained as possessing magnitude, color, motion, and relative place; superior to the differentials of mathematics, in that they are qualitative as well as quantitative, and, to cap the climax, they are "constructed, like the rest of the body, by man's spirit"! In spite of the inefficiency of. language, Mr. Friese gives us "An Ideal Written Social Constitution," and describes in another chapter a general social reformation. Whether we agree or not with his remedies and conclusions, he fully persuades us that words are poor instruments, and a snare for the unwary.
Monographs of the United States Geological Survey. Volume XV. The Potomac or Younger Mesozoic Flora. By William Morris Fontaine. Part I, Text; Part II, Plates. Washington. Pp. 377, Plates 180.
In his introduction the author states that the formation whose flora he describes was for a long time included in the so-called Trias of the Atlantic slope. Prof. W. B. Rogers, however, early recognized the difference between this group of strata and most of the Mesozoic of Virginia. Nearly all the plants described in this work were collected by the author in Virginia; the few others were obtained from Maryland. The extent of the ground that Prof. Fontaine has examined makes him confident that the fossils herein described give a fair notion of the flora of the "Potomac" period. He gives the locations of the places in which plants have been found, and describes the mode of occurrence of the specimens. He describes also the location and geology of the Potomac beds. The botanical descriptions of the species to the number of three hundred and sixtyfive occupy the greater portion of the volume of text. A series of tables, comparing the Potomac plants with previously described fossil floras, are appended by permission of Prof. Lester F. Ward, by whom they were prepared, for his own use.
Bulletins of the United States Geological Survey. Nos. 54, 55, 56, and 57. Washington.
The first of these four bulletins is a volume of over three hundred pages by Carl Barus, entitled On the Thermo-electric Measurement of High Temperatures. In the introduction a general account of methods of pyrometry is given. The first chapter deals with the degree of constant high temperature attained in metallic vapor baths of large dimensions. The calibration of electrical pyrometers, by the aid of fixed thermal data and by direct comparison with the air thermometer, is fully described. A chapter is devoted to certain pyro-electric properties of the alloys of platinum, and the pyrometric use of the principle of viscosity is set forth at length. The monograph is copiously illustrated with cuts of apparatus, charts, and diagrams.
No. 55 is a Report of Work done in the Division of Chemistry and Physics, by Frank W. Clarke, Chief Chemist. It embraces papers recording examinations of a number of minerals, and miscellaneous analyses of various minerals and waters.
No. 56 is a paper on Fossil Wood and Lignite of the Potomac Formation, by Frank H. Knowlton, giving a history of the study of the internal structure of lignites, and systematic descriptions of silicified species.
No. 57 is a A Geological Reconnaissance in Southwestern Kansas, by Robert Hay. It gives an outline of the geological features of the region, incidentally touching upon points that have an economic bearing. The paper Is accompanied by a geologic map of southwestern Kansas, and by diagrams of sections and buttes.
Pestalozzi, his Life and Work. By Roger de Guimps. Authorized Translation by J. Russell, with an Introduction by the Rev. R. H. Quick. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 488. Price, $1.50.
It is very proper that the Life of Pestalozzi should be the first biographical work to be incorporated in the International Education Series. No one, perhaps, of the devoted men who have labored for the advancement of education has singly contributed more to its improvement or left a broader mark upon its after-course than he. It is to him, says the author of this work, that we owe the reform of elementary education—a reform, however, which, notwithstanding the progress already made, is far from complete; and his history must, above all, be a history of the great idea which, in its successive stages, he sought to put into practice. This idea was the education of all the people, and that by drawing out their faculties. The conception of a learned education had already been worked out before his time, but this could only be for the few. Pestalozzi's life was an effort to realize his idea of the extension of the privileges of education. It was, Dr. Harris remarks, "a succession of experiments, each ending in a failure of some sort. These failures are followed by a period of depressive reflection, in the course of which Pestalozzi seems to become conscious of the personal weakness or unwisdom that had caused his plans to go wrong. He puts the fruits of his experience into a treatise, and is inspired to begin again a new experiment." These experiments and reflections are set forth in detail in Baron de Guimps's vivid memoir, which is prepared very largely from Pestalozzi's letters. His first experiments were made with his son, upon whom he intended to apply Rousseau's ideas. But he was compelled at every step to stop and fall back upon his own observations and the memory of the teachings of his mother, who had devoted herself with complete abnegation to the education of her children. "Struck by the child's natural need of continual activity, and by the abundance and versatility of its physical, moral, and intellectual faculties, it occurred to him that by guiding all these powers aright, and by varying work in such a way as to prevent fatigue, it would be possible to teach children not only to earn their bread, but to cultivate their intellectual and moral nature at the same time." So he projected his agricultural and manual labor institution at Neuhof, the close of which, after five years, was followed by the publication of a series of works in which his ideas were presented free from all foreign alloy. The results of his succeeding experiment at Stanz, as summed up by Morf, show forth the essential principles upon which the general reform of elementary education in the present century has been conducted. His career at Burgdorf is chiefly remarkable for the illustrations it afforded, in his method and in the books he made there, of the doctrine of sense-impressions as the foundation of instruction. The lamentable failure at Iverdun left Pestalozzi at eighty years of age with his hopes disappointed and his illusions dispelled. But it did not break his courage or stop his activity. He immediately set himself to work, and wrote the Song of the Swan, one of his most remarkable books; the Experiences of my Life, in which he blamed himself for all his misfortunes; a fifth part of his Leonard and Gertrude, and a supplement to his Book for Mothers. The story of his life, the telling of which is invested with a great deal of interest, is followed by a chapter of Personal Recollections by the author, who was one of Pestalozzi's pupils at Iverdun; and by accounts of his Religion, his Philosophy, and his Elementary Method, and of Niederer's Collaboration.
Report of the Royal Commission on the Mineral Resources of Ontario and Measures for their Development. Toronto: Warnick & Sons. Pp. 566.
The plan of the commission in outlining its work included inquiry into the geology of the province, with special reference to its economic minerals; description and maps of the working mines and important undeveloped mineral resources; trade in mineral products; information and suggestions on the subject of mining laws and regulations; and inquiry into the best means of promoting metallurgical industry. Its methods included examination of witnesses and personal visitation of important districts and places. A section of the report on the geology of the province includes a systematic account of each of its rock formations, with such a sketch of the general geological features of North America beyond Ontario as was necessary to make the description more complete and intelligible. In it the entire results of the geological surveys, otherwise scattered through many volumes of reports, are summarized and made accessible. The evidence that Ontario possesses great mineral wealth is abundant and is constantly accumulating. There are iron ores, gold, galena, arsenic, mica, fibrous serpentine, apatite, granite, and plumbago in the central and eastern counties; copper and nickel mines in the Sudbury district; gold-bearing quartz, copper, and nickel in the township of Denison; gold and silver bearing veins, iron, copper, galena, and "immense quarries of marble" along the north shore of Lake Huron; gold, silver, copper, iron, galena, plumbago, zinc, granite, marble, serpentine, and sandstone north of Lake Superior; a rich silver district west of Port Arthur, and beyond this district gold-bearing quartz, magnetic iron ore, and what is believed to be a continuation of the Vermilion iron range of Minnesota; and gold-bearing veins in the islands of the Lake of the Woods. A practical business basis has been reached in the development of a number of the minerals, as, for example, in the production of salt, petroleum, phosphate, mica, cement, gypsum, and building stones, and in the manufacture of brick, terra-cotta, tile, and sewer-pipe. Silver, copper, and nickel mines are worked with much skill and energy; iron-mining has been intermittent, but has good prospects; and it is confidently hoped that gold-mining will become one of the established industries of the country.
Glimpses of Fifty Years: The Autobiography of an American Woman. By Frances E. Willard. Introduction by Hannah Whitall Smith. Chicago: Woman's Temperance Publication Association. Pp. 700.
The journals in this voluminous record are psychologically a contrast to the diary of Marie Bashkirtseff. "I have the desire of living upon this earth by any means in my power," wrote the young Russian artist, consumed by feverish thirst for fame. Twenty years earlier, a girl upon the Wisconsin prairie, struggling with aspiration, cried out, "What is it—what is it that I am to be, O God?" In this effort to be—not merely to be celebrated at any cost—there are no morbid yearnings for sensation, but a healthful striving for extended usefulness.
Miss Willard views her life in six phases: The welcome child, the happy student, the roving teacher, the tireless traveler, the temperance organizer, and the woman in politics. Three chapters descriptive of her girlhood, passed on a farm in Rock County, Wisconsin, give attractive sketches of pioneer life happily conditioned. There were no schools in this district, nevertheless the family was well educated. The mother had been a school-teacher, and was well read; the father was a student of Nature, and trained the children to observe the ways of birds and butterflies, the habits of gophers, squirrels, and ants; to know the various herbs, and what their uses were; to notice different grasses, and learn their names; to tell the names of curious wild flowers. Very naturally the daughter became in later years "Preceptress in Natural Sciences." Her girlish habits show an early distaste for ordinary feminine occupations. Her life, as a student at Milwaukee College and the Northwestern Female College, is described with enthusiasm, and her subsequent experiences as teacher in eleven schools, ending as Dean of the Woman's College at Evanston, are vividly given with interesting details. Miss Willard was by nature, however, neither a student nor a teacher. Routine was distasteful to her, and patient interrogation of Nature or life was foreign to her restless disposition. The opportunity for extensive travel with a friend accorded with her desires, and two years were spent abroad journeying over Europe, Syria, and Egypt. Shortly after her return she was invited to lecture upon her foreign gleanings, and soon drifted into public speaking. The latter and larger half of the book is devoted to the organization of the W. C. T. U., temperance talks, political speeches, reports of conventions, eulogies of men and women, and dissertations on problems social, industrial, and sanitary. It is to be regretted that these questions are too exacting and tumultuous to be satisfactorily laid to rest. It may be that the failure to give approximate solutions is connected with the mathematical inability which troubled Miss Willard as a teacher, and which is very conspicuous in the arrangement of her book. Her logical horizon is indicated by the following estimate of "one of the kings of the nineteenth century": "Meeting the skepticism of science with its own 'scientific method,' he proves that, if a man die, he shall live again!" But it must be remembered that we are told, in the introduction to this encyclopedic volume, that it is "a home book, written for her great family circle, to be read around the evening lamp by critics who love the writer, and who want to learn from her experience how to live better and stronger lives." This indulgent jury of half a million readers will doubtless render a verdict of unanimous praise, but an even larger audience may be unexpectedly entertained by this life-story, and find it worthily called "an object-lesson in American living."
The Student's Atlas. By Richard A. Proctor. London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Price, $1.50.
In this little work, which was issued just before Prof. Proctor's death last year, the originality of its author is strongly evident. In most atlases, the different divisions of the earth are represented on different scales and often on different projections, so that the ideas they convey as to the shape and relative positions of the various land areas are far from correct. The oceans generally are not mapped at all, so no idea is given of the tracks of vessels across them, nor of the directions from each other of different parts of their shores. Prof. Proctor has avoided these defects in his atlas by depicting the whole surface of the globe on twelve maps, each representing the part of the surface of a sphere corresponding to one side of an inclosed dodecahedron. The maps are all on one scale and a uniform projection, and each occupies a double octavo page. There are also two index maps, which show the connection between the maps of the series. A brief description of each map is given in the introduction, and on the pages between the maps, usually left blank, Prof. Proctor gives the number and chief contents of the map on the other side of the leaf.
The Economic Basis of Protection. By Simon N. Patten, Ph. D. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. Pp. 144. Price, $1.
We have wondered why some adherent of protection did not get out a book of this sort; for, in view of the pronounced tendency of free-traders to base their creed on fundamental principles, the neglect of protectionists to do the same looks like a confession that protection has no principles on which to stand. But now Prof. Patten has undertaken to give briefly the reasons for the faith that is in him. He asserts that free-traders take as their ideal a society in a "static" condition, while for a society in a "dynamic" or progressive state, which is the actual condition of America, protection is the only admissible policy. He maintains that a locality should not be encouraged to devote itself to the exclusive production of the commodity which it can yield best, because the surplus must pay the cost of long transportation to a market. A variety of things should be produced, and only such quantities of each as can be consumed in the vicinity. Although not so large a gross result could be obtained in this way as by devoting the productive power of the community to a specialty, the author evidently believes that the net return would be greater. Many of our raw materials come from countries where industry is irregular and ineffective, and Prof. Patten argues that we should make ourselves independent of such sources of supply. He says that skill and capital employed in an orderly community will generally outweigh climatic and other natural advantages in an uncivilized country. As an instance he mentions the production of sugar in Germany from beets in competition with the cane-sugar of Cuba. Wool, he says, will be high in price while it remains the exclusive product of regions distant from the markets, and can only become cheaper when farmers in highly civilized communities take to raising sheep in connection with their agriculture. Prof. Patten maintains that trade between merchants of different countries which is profitable to the individuals is not necessarily profitable to the countries. Supposing a pound of coffee in Brazil would buy three pounds of sugar, while if taken to Cuba it would buy four pounds. In this case a trade profitable to dealers would spring up, and Prof. Patten asks whether such a commerce is so beneficial that the loss of it would work permanent injury to both nations. This, he says, is a matter of dispute. There are many other things in the book that friends of free trade will regard as matters of dispute, which are not so designated by the author. The volume is adapted to provoke discussion, and perhaps the more so because its small size prevents the insertion of facts and figures in support of the author's positions.
Eighth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, 1886-'87. By J. W. Powell, Director. Washington. Parts I and II. Pp. 1095.
In this report the director gives a full description of the business organization of the Survey, comprising the division of disbursements and accounts, the division of illustrations, the division of library and documents, and the editorial and miscellaneous division. During the year covered by the report, an aggregate area of 55,684 square miles had been surveyed during the field season and mapped during the office season. Topographic work was pushed forward vigorously in Massachusetts, at the joint expense of the State and Federal Governments, and the surveys of that State and of New Jersey are now practically completed. The survey of the District of Columbia and contiguous parts of Virginia and Maryland was finished, work was prosecuted in the southern Appalachian region with a large force, and extensive tracts were surveyed in the Western States and Territories. During the year geologic investigations were carried on by Prof. Pumpelly on the Archæan rocks of New England, by Prof. Irving among the iron-bearing and copper-bearing rocks of Lake Superior, by Prof. Shaler on the tide-marshes of the Atlantic coast, and by Mr. Gilbert on the structure of the Appalachian Mountains. Mr. Woodward made a careful resurvev of Niagara Falls, and investigations in glacial geology were carried on under Prof. Chamberlin. The combined investigations of the general geologic structure, and of the coal, oil, gas, etc., of Montana were somewhat crippled by the long illness and finally by the consequent resignation of the veteran geologist, Dr. Ferdinand V. Hayden, but during the latter part of the year the work was carried on by Dr. Peale. Other fields in which work was prosecuted are the Yellowstone National Park by Mr. Hague, the structural and mining geology of Colorado by Mr. Emmons, the volcanic deposits of California and Oregon by Captain Dutton, the iron-ore and marl beds of northern Mississippi and Louisiana by Mr. Johnson, and the Quaternary deposits of the coastal plain between North Carolina and New York under Mr. McGee. The area affected by the Charleston earthquake was also examined, and Mr. Becker completed his report on the quicksilver mines of the United States. Work in paleontology was carried on by Prof. Marsh, Mr. Walcott, Dr. Dall, Prof. Ward, and Mr. Scudder. One of the most important events of the year in systematic geology was the discovery by Dr. White and Mr. Hill of a great series of Cretaceous strata in Texas underlying the rocks hitherto regarded as the base of the American Cretaceous, and corresponding in many respects with the Lower Cretaceous deposits of Europe. Chemical work was carried on by Prof. Clarke, Mr. Chatard, and Messrs. Gooch and Whitfield. Mr. Day continued the collection of mining statistics. Several miscellaneous researches were also in progress. The report of the director is supplemented by administrative reports from the heads of divisions, which give further details concerning the work of the year. The following papers also accompany the director's report: Quaternary History of Mono Valley, California, by Israel C. Russell; Geology of the Lassen Peak District, by J. S. Diller; The Fossil Butterflies of Florissant, by Samuel H. Scudder; The Trenton Limestone as a Source of Petroleum and Inflammable Gas in Ohio and Indiana, by Edward Orton; The Geographical Distribution of Fossil Plants, by Lester F. Ward; Summary of the Geology of the Quicksilver Deposits of the Pacific Slope, by George F. Becker; and The Geology of the Island of Mount Desert, Maine, by Nathaniel S. Shaler.
Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science. Eighth Series. Edited by Herbert B. Adams. Baltimore. Published monthly.
The first subject treated this year in these studies was The Beginnings of American Nationality, by Albion W. Small, of which Chapters I, II, and most of III are given, forming a double number. (Price, one dollar.) The scope of this inquiry comprises the constitutional relations between the Continental Congress and the colonies and States from 1774 to 1789. Chapter II tells the composition and organization, and the acts of the Congress of 1774, and the corresponding acts of the colonies; while Chapter III gives a similar history of the Congress of 1775. A ten-page paper on The Needs of Self-supporting Women, by Miss Clare de Graffenreid, is included in the same pamphlet.
Part III of the current series contains an essay on Local Government in Wisconsin, by David E. Spencer, together with a sketch of The Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, by Lewis H. Steiner. (Price, twentyfive cents.)
Spanish Colonization in the Southwest is treated in Part IV, by Frank W. Blackmar. (Price, fifty cents.) This is an account of the efforts of Spain, by military, religious, and civil means, to colonize and secure control of California and the territory north of Mexico. It embraces a sketch of the celebrated mission system employed to Christianize the Indians of Upper California.
A double number is devoted to The Study of History in Germany and France, by Paul Fréeéricq, being translations by Miss Henrietta Leonard of two papers by Prof. Frédéricq, of Ghent. (Price, one dollar.) In these papers the methods of the professors, the cources that they prescribe, and even their personal appearance and the habits of the students, are given in detail, and in a familiar and often amusing style. At one of the lectures in the University of Berlin, Prof. Frédéricq saw a listener using an eartrumpet, and he tells us all about the queer contrivance in a foot-note. Among the masters of historical teaching whom he heard lecture in Germany were Treitschke, Droysen, Curtius, Pauli, Waitz, and Von Sybel. He also called upon Von Ranke, who no longer lectured. In Paris he heard MM. Alfred Maury, Paul Meyer, Victor Duruy, Monod, and Lavisse. In the same pamphlet with these papers is included a sketch of Early Presbyterianism in Maryland, by Rev. J. William McIlvain.
National Health. Abridged from The Health of Nations. A Review of the Works of Sir Edwin Chadwick, K.C. R By Benjamin Ward Richardson, M. D., F. R. S. London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 1890. Pp. 320. Price, $1.50.
The demand for an inexpensive form of Sir Edwin Chadwick's writings led to the preparation of this volume. Selections have been made from the subject-matter of Health of Nations, omitting explanatory paragraphs, chapters relating to police regulation, poorlaw administration, and historical accounts of sanitary effort. The essays have been rearranged and well classified in four parts: health in the dwelling-house; health in the school; health in the community; and health in the future. Under the first head the construction and economy of sanitary dwellings is considered, and the best mode of drainage, ventilation, warming, and securing freedom from dampness. The value of soft water is urged, and roof-gardens are recommended for crowded districts. The benefit of healthful homes is shown in the establishment of improved dwellings for working people in London, where the death-rate has been reduced in some localities from forty-two to eighteen per thousand.
The half-time system in education, which Mr. Chadwick originated, is explained in Part II. This combination of mental and manual training we are beginning to recognize as a better educational method than mere cultivation of intellectual faculty. Mr. Chadwick states as a result of trial, "where there have been good approximations to the proper physiological as well as psychological conditions, as in the half-time industrial district schools, epidemic diseases have been banished and the rate of mortality reduced to one third of that which prevails among the general community." Among the more important subjects discussed in Part III are: practical remedies for intemperance, health versus war, and the "connection of bankruptcy with ill health. In the closing chapters the financial outcome of better sanitation is figured; the lowering of the death-rate results in curtailment of funeral expenses, saving of labor and reduction of outlay in police and penal administration.
The dominant idea of the book is that prevention of disease, poverty, and crime is more economical than cure. It is singularly free from dogmatic assertion, and every practical suggestion is founded upon close observation or supported by careful study of statistics. Dr. Richardson has performed no slight labor in rendering this work accessible; it occupies less than half the space of Health of Nations, presents the biographical sketch in a shorter form, and contains an autotype portrait of the eminent sanitarian.
Advanced Physiography. By John Thornton, M. A. London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 342. Price, $1.40.
The scope of this volume has been made to conform to the syllabus for the advanced stage of physiography of the Science and Art Department of the Museum at South Kensington, London. The matter that it includes falls largely in the field to which the name New Astronomy has been given. In the words of the preface:" It is concerned more with the physical and chemical constitution of the heavenly bodies than with their exact positions and movements, as discussed in the older department of astronomy. This older branch, however, has not been entirely neglected. "Nearly all the contents of the book could be included under the heading astronomy, though there are chapters dealing with atmospheric and oceanic movements, terrestrial magnetism, measurement of the surface, size, and shape of the earth, secular cooling of the earth, and secular changes of climate. An appendix contains several tables, a number of paragraphs relating to the formation and the analysis of rocks, and a list of examination questions. Physiography in the title of this book is not equivalent to physical geography as it is often intended to be elsewhere. All the chapters are fully illustrated, especially those relating to spectrum analysis and to the constitution of the sun. A colored plate of spectra is also inserted.
Monographs of the United States Geological Survey. Volume XVI. The Palæozoic Fishes of North America. By John Strong Newberry. Washington. Pp. 340. Plates, 53.
The matter of this monograph is arranged with the design of representing the progress of fish-life in North America during the golden age of the fish tribe, as illustrated by the large amount of material that has come into the author's hands. He has undertaken to give references to all notices of our older fossil fishes hitherto published, and has added to them descriptions and figures of all the new forms that he has met with. The new material described has an important bearing upon some general questions as to the origin and development of fish-life on the earth which are referred to as they come up in the chronological arrangement of the descriptions. The fishes are described in the order of their geological systems, beginning with the oldest. The review stops at the top of the Coal Measures, as no Permian fishes from this country have ever come under the author's observation.
The subject taken by the president, Lester F. Ward, for his address at the tenth anniversary meeting of the Biological Society, of Washington, was The Course of Biologic Evolution. In opening, Mr. Ward spoke of the common error in regard to evolution, which puts every form of creature that lives or ever has lived among the direct ancestors of the human species. The course of biologic evolution has been rather like the branching growth of a tree, and Mr. Ward sets forth some of the laws in accordance with which this development takes place. The first is the extinction of trunk lines of descent, by virtue of which a trunk sends up a branch which is capable of higher progress than the trunk itself, and in time comes to be regarded as the trunk. This in turn sends up a branch by which it is overtopped and superseded as the trunk of the ever-branching system. Another law is that of persistence of unspecialized types, instances of which are the persistence of low forms of articulates, mollusks, and reptiles with the dominant types of animals, while the higher forms of these orders have been extinguished by competition with these dominant types. Turning to the vegetable kingdom, Mr. Ward points out by what steps development has proceeded in this field from its earliest beginnings in cryptogamic life to its highest and latest expression in the gamopetalous dicotyledon. He then considers the influence in' the modification of structure exerted by extra-normal causes—i. e., such as produce characters that are of only indirect use to the organism. The doctrine of natural selection has been severely criticised of late years, and the best way of defending it, Mr. Ward believes, is to take the ground that fortuitous variation goes on at all times, in many directions, and to great lengths, without any perceptible change in the degree of adaptation which the varying forms have to their environment. No beneficial effect need be felt until well-formed varieties have been developed. Among extra-normal influences in the vegetable kingdom are showy and fragrant flowers, and bright-colored and pleasant-flavored fruits. Another important influence of this class comprises the causes which in many cases make one sex differ so widely from the other.
An address was given by Dr. Byron D. Halsted, State Botanist of New Jersey, before the New Jersey Board of Agriculture last winter on the subject of Rusts, Smuts, Ergots, and Rots, in which he described some of the diseases that seriously affect field-crops, vegetables, and fruit, and named remedies that have proved successful in combating them. The paper comes to us in pamphlet form. It is free from botanical technicalities, and hence can be understood and used by any intelligent farmer. A list of the fungi most injurious to New Jersey farm-crops is appended, together with four plates in which many of them are figured.
Part VII of Volume I of the Records of the American Society of Naturalists contains a list of members, with their professional positions and addresses, and a record of the eighth meeting of the society, held in New York, December 27 and 28, 1889. The president, Prof. Goodale, of Harvard, took Science in the Schools as the subject of his address, and suggested as a means of securing genuine science study in the lower schools the preparation of a book on physical geography, the part relating to each tributary science to be made by a master of the science, and the whole to be co-ordinated by a master in pedagogics. An outline of laboratory work in each of the sciences should be included, some one of which should be selected by the teacher for his pupils to become practically acquainted with. Since the last meeting of the society, the addition of science to the requirements for admission to college, and to the general course of study in common schools, has been urged in the name of the society by Prof. William N. Rice and other members before various educational associations. The officers elected for the present year include Prof. H. Newell Martin, president, and Prof. Henry H. Donaldson, of Clark University, secretary.
A detailed examination of The Marine Climate of the Southern California Coast and its Relations to Phthisis has been published in a pamphlet by P. C. Remondino, M. D., of San Diego. In passing from the islands off the coast to the mountains and down into the desert beyond, the author distinguishes six varieties of climate that are met with. Three of these have more or less of a marine character, while the others are land climates, but none of them can be called moist. Dr. Remondino tells what are the prevailing temperatures, quantities of air-moisture, character of the seasons, weather, etc., in different parts of the region he describes, and bears confident testimony as to the benefits that consumptive patients may expect from the dry and equable air of the coast, or the foot-hills, or the mountains of southern California.
Bulletin No. 22 of the Department of Agriculture consists of Reports of Observations and Experiments in the Practical Work of the Division, by a number of agents. It comprises reports on methods for destroying the red scale of California, by D. W. Coquillett; on insects of the season in Iowa, by Herbert Osborn; on insects affecting grains, by F. M. Webster; on California insects in general, by Albert Koebele; on Nebraska insects, by Lawrence Bruner; and entomological notes from Missouri for the season of 1889, by Mary E. Murtfeldt.
The address of William L. Dudley, before the American Association at Toronto last year was on The Nature of Amalgams. It is now published as a pamphlet, and is mainly occupied with a history of discoveries relating to the chemistry of amalgams. It contains a bibliography of the subject, occupying eleven pages.
In a paper on The Cradle of the Semites, read before the Philadelphia Oriental Club, Dr. D. G. Brinton brings together the evidence tending to show that the progenitors of the Israelites were of a blonde type, and came to Asia from northwestern Africa. Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., replied to this in a paper directed to showing the insecurity of some of the grounds that Dr. Brinton had taken. The two essays are published in a pamphlet together.
A table of Poisons and their Antidotes has been issued by The National Druggist (Druggist Publishing Company, St. Louis). It is printed on one side of a sheet of strong manila paper, and its directions are brief and clear. It would be somewhat more useful to unscientific persons if it stated that sodium and magnesium sulphates are also known respectively as Glauber's and Epsom salts, and if it avoided such words as emetocathartic.
The Report of the Commissioners of the State Reservation at Niagara, for October, 1888, to September, 1889, records the doings of the commission during the year designated, and their recommendations for future work. G. K. Gilbert's History of the Niagara River, noticed in the July number of this magazine, is published in the same pamphlet. The commissioners have issued also a folded sheet containing suggestions to visitors, and a map of the vicinity of the falls.
Students of political science now have an opportunity to compare a translation of The Federal Constitution of Germany (University of Pennsylvania, 50 cents) with the Constitution of the United States. The translator is Prof. Edmund J. James, who has based his version on the one printed in the Government report on Foreign Relations for 1877. A detailed table of contents is prefixed to the document, and a historical introduction, which is essentially a translation of the corresponding section in Von Rönne's Verfassung des deutschen Reichs.
Among its Circulars of Information for 1890, the Bureau of Education has issued English-Eskimo and Eskimo-English Vocabularies, compiled by Ensign Roger Wells, Jr. U. S. N., and Interpreter John W. Kelly. These vocabularies contain 11,318 words, and are preceded by twenty pages of Memoranda concerning the Arctic Eskimos in Alaska and Siberia, by John W. Kelly. These memoranda embrace traditions, bits of history and description, customs and superstitions of the Eskimos. Two maps are contained in the pamphlet.
The School Algebra of Prof. G. A. Wentworth, of Phillips Exeter Academy, is intended to present a thorough and practical treatment of the principles of elementary algebra. It covers sufficient ground for admission to any American college; and it and the author's college algebra are enough to occupy the time given to the subject in our best schools and colleges. The problems are carefully graded, mostly new, and either original or selected from recent examination papers. The early chapters are quite full; and the introductory chapter presents a free discussion of the principles with which the student beginning algebra ought to be acquainted.
Dreamthorpe, a Book of Essays written in the Country (George P. Humphrey, Rochester), is a reprint of some of the prose writngs of Alexander Smith, who wrote but little, but that little, whether the prose or poetry of it, of such a character as to cause regret that he did not write more, and to give him a place among English classic authors. The title of the work suggests that the essays were written from the domain of fancy; they certainly embody the author's own thoughts, and not what he borrowed from another. In style they are of the very best English. Some of them are purely literary; others are on such subjects as The Fear of Death and Dying, A Lark's Flight, The Importance of a Man to Himself, Books and Gardens, and Vagabonds.
A series of philosophical papers has been added to the publications of the University of Pennsylvania, under the editorship of Profs. Fullerton and Cattell. The first number of the series is a thick pamphlet by Prof. George Stuart Fullerton, entitled On Sameness and Identity. In the first part of the essay the author enumerates and defines at length seven kinds of sameness, and then proceeds to discuss the samenesses of the real self. He states that "men use the word identity to mark certain kinds of sameness in which there is little or no consciousness of duality." A second division of the paper is a critical presentation of the ways in which various philosophers have dealt with sameness.
An essay on Maimonides, giving an account of his philosophy, has been published by Rabbi Louis Grossmann, D. D. (Putnam, 25 cents). In a rough classification Dr. Grossmann would put Maimonides with philosophers of religion, since he devoted special attention to the relation between metaphysics and Jewish theology. While crediting Maimonides with great philosophical insight, Dr. Grossmann is not blind to his limitations, and points out several errors which hampered him in common with his contemporaries.
An autobiography of rare interest is presented in The Life of George H. Stuart, written by himself, and edited, at his request, by Prof. Robert Ellis Thompson, of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Stuart's life was associated with some of the most exciting events of our recent history. As the editor characterizes his career, it "extends through a memorable half-century of our country's history, and touches more or less closely upon all the great religious and philanthropic movements of that time. While he has not taken any part in political life or sought any eminence in that field, he has been brought into contact with many of our public men, from the anti-slavery group of half a century ago, to Lincoln, Grant, and the national leaders of our own time. ... On the other hand, he has occupied almost a unique position in our ecclesiastical life, as representing that spirit of unity which has been awakened in the American churches duping and since the war." Mr. Stuart was born in County Down, Ireland, and came to the United States in 1831, when about fifteen or sixteen years old. In 1836 he heard one of Mr. Gough's temperance addresses, and from that moment became an upholder of every measure for temperance. He was among the first to join the anti-slavery movement. When the question of the union of Presbyterian churches came up, he did his best to advance it. He was instrumental in introducing the Young Men's Christian Association into the United States and in extending its organization. Early in the civil war he saw a place in the matter of care for the condition of the soldiers which the Sanitary Commission, admirable as its organization was, could not wholly fill, and called the Young Men's Christian Association to the institution of the Christian Commission, and became its president. In this position he was brought into relations with the officers of the Government and the army and with the soldiers. When General Grant was chosen President, Mr. Stuart was given the first invitation to be Secretary of the Treasury. The condition of his health prevented his accepting the office, but he was one of President Grant's most trusted counselors, and assisted him in his efforts to have the Indians dealt honestly with. He died in March, 1890. His autobiography, besides delineating himself, is a picture of the times in which he lived, and derives further interest from incidental notices of men eminent in the State, the Church, and philanthropy with whom he had relations.
A number of articles and addresses have been published by Prof. Charles S. Mack, M. D., in a small volume under the title Philosophy in Homœopathy (Chicago: Gross & Delbridge). The purpose of the book is to furnish students of homœopathy and the general public with arguments on which to rest a belief in homœopathic treatment. One of the chapters is an address to some students in an allopathic medical college, in which a list of questions submitted by the students are answered. An appendix contains an essay on the treatment of criminals, and a discussion of an article by one De Charms, suggesting an affinity between homœopathy and Swedenborgianism.
A paper by G. W. Hambleton, M. D., on The Suppression of Consumption, to which we called attention some months ago, when it was published in Science, has been re-printed in a neat pamphlet, with flexible cloth covers (N. D. C. Hodges, 40 cents). It forms the first number of a series to be called Fact and Theory Papers. Dr. Hambleton maintains that consumption is produced by causes that check free respiration and by dusty air, and the first aim of his treatment is to secure the breathing of a full supply of pure air.
Count Tolstoi's Kreutzer Sonata, translated by Benjamin R. Tucker and published by him in Boston, is a story of a man's vehement passion for his own wife, and his consequent jealousy. These feelings become ungovernable upon hearing the performance of the music which gives the story its title, and events following this incident prompt the sufferer to murder. The author's intention, though his method may be mistaken, is to teach a salutary moral lesson.
The First Annual Report of the Agricultural Experiment Station at Cornell University covers the eight months from April 30, 1888, to the end of the year. The reports of the director and other officers relate mostly to the business of organization. In transmitting the report to the Governor of New York, Prof. C. K. Adams, President of Cornell University, states that, in organizing the station, the trustees of the university availed themselves in every practicable way of the large resources already forming a part of the College of Agriculture. The completeness of this outfit decided the trustees to use the expenditure for buildings provided for by the Hatch Act in erecting a building for the careful study of noxious insects. Appended to the report are the four Bulletins which were also issued separately during the year. The chief topics treated in these Bulletins are an Experimental Dairy House, Experiments in feeding Lambs, The Insectary of Cornell University, and Growing Corn for Fodder and Ensilage. All of these papers are illustrated.
Under the title of How to remember History, the J. B. Lippincott Company publish a Method of memorizing Dates, with a summary of the most important events of the last four centuries, by Virginia Conser Shaffer. Each century is represented by a chart, and the chart is divided into a hundred squares, one for each year. Each square is divided into five subdivisions, answering respectively to events in war and peace; in politics, social and religious life; in literature, science, and art; miscellaneous events; and deaths. Different countries are represented by devices of color. When the date of any event is to be fixed, it is noted by filling, in the square standing for the year, the subdivision corresponding with the character of the event, with the color or colors corresponding with the country or countries to which the event relates. To the charts, which are given as specimens of what may be done, texts are appended, embodying a chronological table of the events represented, and reading accounts of the same events of considerable fullness. The plan is capable of indefinite modification and enlargement.