Popular Science Monthly/Volume 46/January 1895/Literary Notices
Schools and Masters of Sculpture. By A. G. Radcliffe. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 598. Price, $3.
Considering the scope of this volume, we may well believe the opening statement of its preface that the difficulties of condensation involved in its preparation have been extreme. Yet there is none of the aridity of condensation noticeable in its pages. It has been the aim of the author "to tell the story of the progress of plastic art clearly, vividly, and accurately, with entire correctness so far as possible, but without needless technicalities"—to give "not only the strict history of sculpture, but some glimpses of the fresh vistas of description lately opened up, of the strange illuminations cast by modern discovery, and of the new promise discernible in modern achievement. Successive schools of sculpture are therefore shown by the flashlight of single chapters, and the personality of the great masters is brought briefly before us." The Egyptian, Assyrian, and Asiatic types of sculpture are treated before the wonderful works of the Greeks are taken up. In no case does the author rest content with a bare enumeration and description of the works named, but adds facts concerning discoveries of ancient sculptures, and bits of mythology or notes on customs connected with them. Five chapters are devoted to Greek sculpture. Its nature and subjects are first discussed, after which the chief known examples of successive periods are described. A single chapter suffices for Roman sculpture, and the same for the early Christian and the Mediæval Cathedral groups. The works of modern times are taken up by countries. Those of Italy are described under the two divisions, the age of the Renaissance and the age of Michael Angelo and his successors. Then follow accounts of the sculptors and sculpture of France, Germany, and England, and of the nineteenth century in general, the last period being brought down to include the exhibits at the Columbian Exposition. Two closing chapters on the study of sculpture in the museums of Europe and in those of America, together with the one that precedes them, are of especial value in pointing out where the masterpieces of art are now to be found, and how we may grow familiar with them. The author's style is concise yet picturesque, and the vivid panorama that is afforded by the text is splendidly re-enforced by the illustrations. There are forty-two full-page engravings, representing all the schools described, and including works by the Americans D. C. French, W. W. Story, and Thomas Crawford.
The Principles of Modern Dairy Practice from A Bacteriological Point of View. By Gösta Grotenfelt, President of Mustiola Agricultural College, Finland. Authorized American Edition by F. W. Woll. With Illustrations. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Price, $2.
As the translator and editor states, few industries have changed more during the past twenty years than has that of the production of milk and its manufacture into butter and cheese. The shallow-setting system of cream-raising has been superseded by the deep-setting system, and the latter by hand or power separators. Better knowledge of butter manufacture and milk preservation have been acquired, together with a fuller understanding of the nature and properties of dairy products and the changes to which they are subject. This volume is intended to substitute knowledge for speculation, and to give the dairyman data whereby he can best utilize his products.
There is a preliminary introduction on bacteria and their relation to dairying, so plainly written that all may comprehend it. With this information as a basis, the author proceeds to consider milk as it is drawn from the udder—properly sterile—and describes the sources of infection in the stable and their prevention. He calls attention to the danger of pouring abnormal milk on the stable floor or of feeding it to swine. Both in Germany and Denmark swine fed on centrifuge milk slime have been found tuberculous.
The author states that milk from tuberculous cows should not be used without being freed from its infectious qualities. This is unfortunate, for there is no certain and safe method of disinfecting such milk, and Prudden's experiments have shown that the sterilized products of tubercle bacilli will produce organic lesions that are severe and permanent. Such milk should never be used for any purpose, and the cow should be killed.
We are glad to note the author's emphasis on better lighting of cow-stables; he might have cited the fact that bright light is inimical to the best growth of microorganisms. Hesse's experiments, here cited, that in the air of a cow-stable there were one hundred and twenty bacteria and molds while in that of an occupied schoolroom there were only eighty micro-organisms to the litre, only evidences the bad ventilation of each of those places.
In the section on cooling milk he refers to the value of ice to the dairyman, though it is in a subsequent chapter that he calls attention to the fact that the ice should not come in contact with the milk, because ice may contain pathogenic micro-organisms.
It would seem that the objection to the use of soda in cleansing milk-vessels is not well founded. In surgical and other disinfection alkaline water is of value in securing an aseptic condition, and its employment in the cleaning of these vessels seems to us particularly appropriate, though, of course, the vessel should be subsequently scalded with boiling water. A thorough steaming of these vessels is one of the best procedures that can be employed.
The annual cleaning of the stable is a hygienic necessity, and the means of disinfection herein indicated are easily applied.
The difference in the number of bacteria in one cubic centimetre of milk that has been obtained in a pasture and in a barn is striking:
| LOCATION. | Immediately after milking. |
Half an hour. |
Two hours. |
| Pasture milking | 10 | 88 | 1,530 |
| Barn milking | 106 | 980 | 3,655 |
Knopf has found from 60,000 to 100,000 bacteria in one cubic centimetre of recently drawn milk, and the author found in milk from a filthy stable from 670,000 to 780,000 bacteria per cubic centimetre. The investigations made by Sedgwick and Batchelder in Boston showed that milk sold in that city contained from 1,438,000 to 4,577,000 bacteria per cubic centimetre. The author gives a useful review of the various microorganisms found in milk, and calls attention to the fact that the kinds are more important than the number of organisms.
Due importance is attached to the cleanliness of employees in butter and cheese factories, to their clothing and the cleanness of their hands.
The chapter on milk for city consumption is well written, but State dairy inspectors will have to be much further removed from political influences than they are at present before milk supplied to cities will cease to be a fertile source of causation of tuberculosis.
There is no doubt that properly condensed unsweetened milk is one of the best articles that can be used as a milk foodstuff, because it may be diluted with water as necessary, and it does not contain the pus and blood corpuscles, hair, and manure particles that are in any milk sterilized by heating. Filtration sterilization has not proved practical. A chapter is devoted to milk pasteurization, which the researches of Freeman and others have shown to be so much more satisfactory than sterilization by heating.
The advantages of the centrifugal method for cream separation and pasteurization of cream receive due consideration.
The manufacture and handling of butter and cream are treated in the same careful manner as the preceding topics, and one can not but wish that the volume would be in the hands of every dairyman in this country.
An Elementary Manual of Chemistry. By F. H. Storer, Professor of Agricultural Chemistry in Harvard University, and W. B. Lindsay, Professor of General and Analytical Chemistry in Dickinson College. New York: American Book Company. Price, $1.20.
The authors state in the preface that this work is the lineal descendant of the Manual of Inorganic Chemistry of Eliot and Storer, and a thorough revision of Eliot, Storer, and Nichols's Elementary Manual of Chemistry. These works have been so well and favorably known that it is scarcely necessary to commend the present volume for the comprehensive and intelligent manner in which the subject is presented.
The experimental and inductive methods are employed to acquaint the student with the main facts and principles of the science, and by such discipline the observing faculties are developed. As a rule, the experiments mentioned are of a simple character, and the directions are so explicit that a novice in chemistry may repeat them before a class. The work is an excellent one for the purposes intended.
Eskimo Life. By Fridtjof Nansen. London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 350. Price, $4.
It is for the most part with genial humor, but now and then in sadness and indignation, that Dr. Nansen describes the life of these hardy children of the North. His knowledge of them was gained mostly in one winter, during which, he says, "I dwelt in their huts, took part in their hunting, and tried, as well as I could, to live their life and learn their language." Their daily life is presented with much fullness of detail; their appearance and dress, their houses for winter and tents for summer, their cookery and what they regard as delicacies, their woman-boats, excursions, etc., receiving due attention. A chapter is given to a careful description, with measurements, of that wonderful boat, the kaiak, and the weapons and implements that constitute its outfit, which is followed by a vivid story of a day's hunting in these boats. Some less familiar sides of Eskimo life are presented in the chapter on art, music, and poetry, and in that on the drum dances, which served both as judicial proceedings and as entertainments. Nearly a hundred pages are devoted to religious ideas, in which some curious bits of mythology and folklore are presented. Dr. Nansen represents the character of the Eskimo as gentle and patient. It is seldom that an Eskimo does anything that his own race deems wrong, crimes of violence being especially rare. Some things, however, that he does, deeming them proper, come into our category of immoralities. In his closing chapters on The Introduction of Christianity, Europeans and Natives, What have we achieved? and his Conclusion, Dr. Nansen laments the enervating influence of the civilization that Europeans have inflicted upon the Eskimos. The introduction of firearms has led them to exterminate or scare away their game. The imposition of religious commands and civil laws in a mass too great to be assimilated has driven out the old restraints and obligations and caused the victims of the process to fall between two stools. The ability to read and write has been gained at the expense of diminished skill in the kaiak, so that deaths from drowning have largely increased. A long catalogue of this sort could be gleaned from Nansen's pages, and he does not hesitate to urge that his countrymen should entirely withdraw from Greenland. The text is well illustrated with plates and small cuts.
The Penokee Iron-bearing Series of Michigan and Wisconsin. By Roland Duer Irving and Charles Richard Van Hise. (Monographs of the United States Geological Survey.) Washington: Government Printing Office. Pp. 634, with Plates.
This report was designed by Prof. Irving to be the first of a series which should treat each of the important iron-producing districts adjacent to Lake Superior. For a time, in 1885 and 1886, Prof. Irving accompanied the surveying party in person, Mr. Van Hise gave the seasons of 1884, 1885, and the larger part of the following year to the work. When the survey began, the district was one which explorers had but fairly entered, and which was reached by railroad at only one point. The district has since developed into one of the most important iron-producing areas of the country. Before the beginning of the investigation, Prof. Irving had done a large amount of field work upon a portion of the range for the Wisconsin Geological Survey and had prepared a systematic report upon this part of it. He was thus able to direct the more detailed examination of the whole area, so that no loss of time should occur. This is the first of the iron-producing districts of Lake Superior in which the geology has been worked out in detail, and the fundamental conclusions reached are in opposition to those expressed by some geologists. Hence, in order to make the facts fully accessible to those who desire to have them, the descriptions of the formations and their sections are given with especial particularity. The first chapter of the present report was prepared by Prof. Irving; the third, fourth, and fifth chapters were jointly prepared; and the rest is the work of Mr. Van Hise.
Thirteenth Annual Report or the United States Geological Survey, 1891-'92. By J. W. Powell, Director. In Three Parts. Part I, Report of the Director. Washington: Government Printing Office. Pp. 240.
The work of the Geological Survey is the examination of the topography and the preparation of topographical maps showing the distribution and characteristics of the rock formations of the country with their various mineral contents. Usefulness in various other ways than for the geologist is justly claimed for the maps that result from the surveys—such as the location of roads, railways, and canals, for planning towns and extensive manufactories, for drainage and irrigation systems, and for all other works depending on the configuration of the ground. These uses are multiplying, as the resources and industries of the country are developed and increase, with every decade. The geological survey of each district requiring, by reason of the diversity of rocks and resources in the different parts of the country, special knowledge of that district, the work is organized in divisions, each assigned to a particular district or series of formations, in each of which are subdivisions in which work is carried on by independent parties; and there are other divisions of special kinds of work. The topographical surveys of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island are completed. The surreys of this branch during the year covered by the report serve to complete eighty-eight atlas sheets, of which thirty-six are on a scale of 1:62,500 (or about one mile to the inch), forty-five are twice as large, and seven are drawn to special scales. The general maps, it is claimed, are among the first to represent with approximate accuracy the relief of any considerable part of the country. A summary of the more important features of the surveys and the administrative reports of the chiefs of divisions, showing in general terms the amount of work done in each, are given in connection with the director's report.
In Part II, Geology (pp. 872, with numerous illustrations and maps, largely swelling the thickness of the volume), are given the full and detailed reports of the second expedition to Mount St. Elias, by I. C. Russell; The Mechanics of Appalachian Structure, by Bailey Willis; The Average Elevation of the United States, by Henry Gannett; The Rensselaer Grit Plateau of New York, by T. N. Dale; The American Tertiary Aphidæ, by S. H. Scudder.
Part III (486 pages, with illustrations and maps) relates to irrigation, and contains papers on Water Supply for Irrigation, by F. H. Newell; American Irrigation Engineering, by H. M. Wilson; Engineering Results of Irrigation Survey, by Mr. Wilson; a report upon the construction of topographic maps and the selection and survey of reservoir sites in the hydrographic basin of the Arkansas River, Colorado, by A. H. Thompson; and a report upon the location and survey of reservoir sites during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1892, by John Thompson.
Clinical Manual for the Study of Diseases OF the Throat. By James Walker Downie, M. B. New York: Macmillan & Co. 1894. Pp. xiv-f 268. Price, $2.50.
When one recalls the six or eight hundred octavo pages of most of the popular text-books on diseases of the throat, it seems that the author of this manual has undertaken a difficult task to dispose of his topic in such small compass.
The first of the two sections into which the book is divided discusses the systematic examination of the fauces, pharynx, and larynx, and describes the various manifestations of disease of these regions. The second section considers individual diseases and their necessary medical and surgical treatment.
It seems to us that the author would have enhanced the value of his work by referring, if even briefly, to the necessity of examining the nose, especially the posterior nares, which is the starting point for so many of the diseases described in the volume.
The section on diphtheria is too meager. Insufficient directions are given for staining the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus; nothing is said of the importance of determining the latter's presence as an early indication of the character of the disease, nor is the distinction between the true and pseudo bacillus defined. Nothing is said of the antitoxine treatment of diphtheria.
What the author does describe is clearly explained, but it seems that in his effort to write a concise work he has somewhat abridged the complete consideration of his subject.
The Diseases of the Will, By Th. Ribot. Authorized translation by Merwin-Marie Snell. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company. 1894. Pp. vi-l-134. Price, 75 cents.
The well-known psychological works of this author are sufficient guarantees of the treatment a subject will receive at his hands. In this volume he studies the will from the standpoint of dissolution—that is, he reviews the anomalies of the will, and from these deduces conclusions regarding its normal state.
He classes volitional impairments as defects of impulse, excess of impulse, impairments of voluntary attention, volitional instability, and extinction of will. From his survey of these pathological conditions he concludes that there are two distinct elements in every voluntary act: that state of consciousness, the "I will," that indicates a situation but that has in itself no efficacy, and a very complex psycho-physiological mechanism in which resides the power to act or to restrain. Therefore volition is defined as a final state of consciousness that results from the more or less complex co-ordination of a group of conscious, subconscious, or unconscious states that, united together, express themselves by an action or an inhibition.
He formulates this theory in the words, "The 'I will' testifies to a condition, but does not produce it." He aptly compares it to a jury's verdict that may be the result of a very long criminal examination and of fervid argument, and that will be followed by grave consequences extending over a long future, but that is an effect without being a cause.
The author sedulously avoids any discussion of the problem of free will, but a careful reading of the volume will greatly enlighten the student's mind regarding the scope of that metaphysical entity.
The volume is a readable one, and a most useful contribution to popular scientific literature.
Educational and Industrial System of Drawing. By Langdon S. Thompson. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. Seven series, thirty-two books, including drawing books and manuals.
The author deduces from a general analysis of the subject that drawing is related to every other department of intellectual education, but has no departmental existence of its own, and should not be treated as an independent subject. In every school or system of schools, therefore, the actual practice in drawing or other art work that is required should depend on the regular course of study. The seven series of which the present system consists are the manual-training, primary and advanced free-hand, model and object, aesthetic, mechanical, and institute series. The order in which these several series should be used is not laid down, but is left to be determined by circumstances. The two books of the manual-training series are not drawing books proper, but are intended to develop the analytical phase of form study. They also treat of form expression in three dimensions. The more advanced manual. No. 2, treats of elementary mechanical drawing, clay modeling in relief, lessons on color, wood-carving, cutting and pasting in design, and working drawings, and is adapted to go with the advanced free-hand series. The four books of the latter series are intended to interest and instruct the mind of the learner, and improve his taste by giving information on the principles of pottery design and the conventionalization of plant forms for purposes of decorative design. The diagrams to be drawn are mostly historical examples of approved form. The model and object series is likewise a freehand series, but has no drawings to be copied; the cuts and explanation being designed to illustrate the underlying principles of model drawing and the method of procedure, and to send both teacher and pupil directly to the object itself. The manual presents a clear and concise statement of the principles of model and object drawing, and can be used independently of the drawing books. The æsthetic series gives the principal elements of the best known styles of ornament, and explains them in such a way as to enable the learner to recognize those various styles at sight. The drawings are intended not to be copied, but to be studied and to point out the method to be pursued in inventing designs. The mechanical series is wholly instrumental. The institute series, with its primary grade book and grammar grade book, is made especially for teachers' institutes, normal classes, summer schools, and intelligent classes having only a limited time for study. A great elasticity is allowed in the use of these books, in numbers used, length of course, and purpose.
Annual Report of the Board of Regents OF the Smithsonian Institution. Showing the Operations, Expenditures, and Condition of the Institution to July, 1893. Washington: Government Printing Office. Pp. 763.
The secretary calls attention to the desirability of securing an appropriation to meet actual outlays incurred in administering Government trusts. These outlays, for matters not equitably chargeable to the fund of James Smithson, are increasing; they are incurred in serving purely governmental interests, and are not met by any of the present appropriations. In the line of research the secretary. Prof. S. P. Langley, has investigated in aërodynamics and astrophysics; aid has been given in Prof. E. W. Mosley's determinations of the density of oxygen and hydrogen; Prof. A. A. Michelson has been assisted in his study of the application of interference methods to spectroscopic measurements; Prof. Holden is engaged in lunar photography; and other investigations are reported upon. Mention is made of Mr. W. W. Rockhill's adventures in Tibet and other explorations described in the Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Volume XXVIII of the Contributions to Knowledge consists of the memoir of Captain Charles E. Bendire on the Life Histories of North American Birds. Prof. Michelson's memoir on interference methods was also published. The thirty-fourth and thirty-sixth volumes of the miscellaneous collections contain respectively two articles previously published separately, and Dr. H. C. Bolton's new Bibliography of Chemistry. A gift of two hundred thousand dollars has been made to the institution by T. G. Hodgkins, of Setauket, Long Island, for the encouragement of the study of the nature and properties of atmospheric air in connection with the welfare of man. Mr. Hodgkins also made the institution his residuary legatee. The appendix to the report contains a large number of articles on current science, mostly selected.
Human Physiology. By John Thornton, M. A. With 268 Illustrations, some colored. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 1894. Pp. 436. Price, $1.50.
The scope of this work indicates that it has been prepared for the use of high schools and colleges.
Commencing with histology, excellent ideas of a cell, of karyokinesis, of the properties of protoplasm, and of the various forms of tissue are given. Physiology proper is then taken up and considered in its various phases. The chapters on the blood and circulation are excellent, and that on the brain is especially good in its treatment of our modern knowledge of that nervous center.
The book has been prepared with great care and judgment, and is deserving of wide popularity in the field for which it is intended.
The Amateur Telescopist's Handbook (Longmans, Green & Co., New York) has been prepared by Frank M. Gibson for that large number of students of astronomy whose instrumental equipment is not adequate to the satisfactory observation of a considerable proportion of the objects described in Smyth's and Webb's catalogues of celestial objects suited to observations with common telescopes. Those who have equatorially mounted telescopes of more than three or four inches aperture may find these works all they need; but those who have only altazimuths of smaller apertures will be liable to embarrassment from the difficulty of locating the objects described in these works, and by the presence in their lists of many that can not be seen at all with those instruments. For the purposes of this work objects are selected which are within the powers of such instruments, and the attempt has been made to describe their location so that they may be easily found without the aid of a map or lantern light. Price, $1.25.
Hermon C. Bumpus has had in mind, in the preparation of his Laboratory Course in Invertebrate Zoölogy (Henry Holt & Co., New York, $1), the requirements of a class of students who are pursuing a course of laboratory work on the subject. An effort has been made to direct the work without actually telling the student all that is to be learned from the specimen. An instructor is supposed to be present to assist with the hard points, and to demonstrate what can not well be elucidated by written descriptions. Not always the most typical animals are selected, but forms easily procured and preserved have been looked for. The orders of Protozoa, Cœlenterata, Echinodermata, Vermes, Mollusca, Crustacea, Limulus, Arachnoidea, and Antennata are represented by from two to seven genera each.
The work of Dr. Hermann Adler on Alternating Generations, based on A Biological Study of Oak Galls and Gall Flies, is published by Macmillan & Co., translated with the permission of the author, and edited by Charles R. Stratton. The translator became acquainted with the work while studying galls as a branch of comparative pathology, and was struck with its originality and the light it threw upon certain great biological problems. Dr. Adler began his observations of gall flies in 1875, and in the course of his investigation was able to unfold their life history, and to prove that, while many species are linked together in alternate agamous and sexual generations, others are wholly agamous. Since the existence of alternating generations was discovered by Chamisso, fresh instances of like phenomena have accumulated in which the life-cycle of the species may be represented by two or more generations, differing in form and organization, existing under different conditions, and reproducing themselves in different ways. While the galls and their generations are described by Dr. Adler, the translator suggests in the introduction a number of inquiries respecting the philosophy of the phenomenon, and especially concerning the nature and operation of the excitation by which the peculiar fruitlike forms are produced upon the trees as the result of the gall fly's work. Colored illustrations are given of forty-two species of oak galls. Price, $3.25.
Canadian Independence, Annexation, and British Imperial Federation (Putnams, 75 cents) is the amplification of an essay first written for Canadian readers by a Canadian, James Douglas, long resident in the United States. The imminence of political change in Canada, independence as an essential factor of imperial federation, annexation as an alternative to independence, Canada's slow progress, the probable effect of annexation on Canadian industries and wages, annexation from the point of view of comparative politics, and annexation from American and Canadian points of view are considered. The author believes that all the advantages expected from annexation can be obtained by reasonable trade arrangements.
An elementary text-book, with the title Geometry for Grammar Schools, has been prepared by E. Hunt, LL. D. (Heath). Large use of drawing is made in it, and paper cutting and folding are somewhat employed. The problems are an extension of those on mensuration usually found in text-books of arithmetic. Two copies of a protractor are printed in such a manner that the pupils may cut them out and use them in drawing.
Prof. Dolbear's book, Matter, Ether, and Motion, the first edition of which was noticed in this magazine in 1892, has reached a second edition (Lee & Shepard, $2). Three chapters have been added, dealing respectively with Properties of Matter as Modes of Motion, Implications of Physical Phenomena, and Relations of Physical and Psychical Phenomena. In the first of these he shows how each property of matter could be regarded as a manifestation of energy; in the second he points out the bearing of certain principles of physics upon the probability of various claims of the spiritists and theosophists, while in the third he argues that whatever wonderful things really take place at séances are done in conformity with the laws of matter, not in opposition to them.
In the mathematical series for graded schools, by John H. Walsh, Part II, or Intermediate Arithmetic, comprises Chapters VI to X. The subjects taken up are fractions, decimals, denominate numbers, bills, measurements, and, in the last chapter, algebraic equations. Part III, or Higher Arithmetic, completing the series, comprises Chapters XI to XVI, dealing with the various subjects involving percentage computations, with proportion, square root, mensuration, and the metric system. There is also a chapter on algebraic equations and one on elementary constructive geometry. As special features of the series, the author calls attention to its division into half-yearly chapters, instead of by topics, the small number of rules and definitions, the great number and variety of examples, and the use of the equation. (Heath, Part II, 40 cents; Part III, 75 cents.)
The Complete Graded Arithmetic, prepared by George E. Atwood, begins with a Part I, in which the usual elementary work with integers and the manipulation of fractions are taught. It provides work for two years of three terms each. The author has aimed to incorporate enough review work in each lesson so that the teacher shall not need to do any planning of reviews. The rules and definitions are put at the end of the book and referred to by number. Part II provides exercises for three years, passing from elementary decimals through denominate numbers, the various commercial calculations involving percentage, and ending with mensuration. The making of bills, receipts, notes, drafts, etc., is a feature of the examples. (Heath, Part I, 45 cents; Part II, 85 cents.)
Any one who wishes to know what Modern Theosophy is will find an attempt to tell him in a book with the above title, by Claude Falls Wright (New England Theosophical Corporation, 24 Mount Vernon Street, Boston, $1). To the strict adherent of modern scientific thought the book will be meaningless, for it is full of assertions unsupported by anything that he is accustomed to regard as evidence—conflicting, in fact, with many things that are so supported. Perhaps not entirely meaningless, for it may serve as an instructive example of the vagaries that the human mind is capable of when not forced to occupy itself with something useful or reasonable.
An Introduction to the Mathematical Theory of the Stress and Strain of Elastic Solids has been prepared by Benjamin Williamson, a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin (Longmans, $1.50). The book is small, but its author hopes that "it is sufficient to enable the student to understand the mathematical theory of the internal strains and stresses that arise whenever external forces are applied to solid bodies." The rapid increase in the size of the structures that modern engineers are undertaking makes a thorough understanding of the distribution of stress extremely important.
In The Science of Vital Force, by W. R. Dunham, M. D. (Damrell), the idea that the author talks about and around seems to be that medicine has no active property, but that disease is cured by vital activity.
Captain Willard Glazier has published another book in support of his claim to have discovered the real source of the Mississippi River (Rand, McNally & Co.). It is entitled Headwaters of the Mississippi, and describes the adventures of explorers of that river from De Vaca, in 1528, down to the present time. Captain Glazier's expedition which resulted in his discovery of Lake Glazier was made in 1881, and, as the importance of this lake became a matter of controversy, he made a second expedition in 1891, to obtain more convincing proof of his assertions. The story of his second expedition forms the latter part of this volume, and is followed by an appendix of letters and other documents in support of Captain Glazier's position. The volume contains a great deal of descriptive matter concerning persons and places in Minnesota, and is fully illustrated.
The little book on Gas-lighting and Gas-fitting, by William Paul Gerhard (Van Nostrand, 50 cents), contains specifications and rules for gas piping, hints on the choice of fixtures, burners, globes and globe-holders, on the management of gas, and on the reduction of high gas bills. It also tells how to read a gas meter, how to search for a leak, and how not to search for it, and gives the advantages of cooking and heating by gas, certain historical facts, etc. Its treatment of these and other topics included in its scope is full, clear, and free from technicalities, and, while it is doubtless valuable to all who have to do with gas and gas appliances, it is especially needed by the user of gas, who has little chance to pick up the knowledge it contains in any other way.
A progressive course of Mechanical Drawing, arranged by Walter K. Palmer, has been issued (Charles B. Palmer, Columbus, 0., 80 cents). It comprises projection drawing, isometric and oblique drawing, and the making of working drawings. The successive principles are stated briefly, and the student is expected to verify them with the aid of explanations and illustrations by the teacher. No drawings are shown and as few figures as possible are used, as it is expected that the teacher will supply what is needed to clear up individual difficulties. What shall be drawn under the head of working drawings is left altogether with the teacher. A liberal number of review questions is provided.
A series of newspaper letters under the title Joint-metallism, by Anson Phelps Stokes, has been published in the Questions of the Day series (Putnam, 75 cents). Mr. Stokes describes "joint-metallism" as "a plan by which gold and silver together, at ratios always based on their relative market values, may be made the metallic basis of a sound, honest, self-regulating, and permanent currency, without frequent recoinage and without danger of one metal driving out the other." In brief, his plan consists in the use of a new silver coin equal in weight to a fivedollar gold piece, which may he named "a standard." The Secretary of the Treasury shall determine at the beginning of each month what whole number of "standards" comes nearest to the value of a five-dollar gold piece, and any payment of ten dollars or over may be made half in gold and half in "standards," at the current ratio fixed by him. This mode of payment shall not apply to debts contracted earlier than six months after the passage of the act authorizing the use of the new coin.
What may be described briefly as a popular account of modern biblical criticism is presented by Joseph Henry Crooker under the title The New Bible and its New Uses (Ellis). Mr. Crooker shows very clearly how the present Bible has been constructed—by combining two or more versions of the same events, by writing down oral traditions, by mingling history with legend, by writing in prophecies after the event, and by adding various tributes of reverent fancy. He points out numerous errors and contradictions in the Bible, and shows how the Old Testament is misquoted in the New. Having thus demonstrated that the Bible is not the message of an omniscient Deity, he proceeds to show that it does not itself claim to be such. The statements of Jesus concerning the Old Testament writings were those of a man with the limited knowledge of his time. Mr. Crooker does not here raise any doubt that Jesus really said the things that he is reported to have said. Regarding the Scriptures in this light gives us in effect a "new Bible," and the author devotes a closing chapter to a discussion of the proper use of the renovated book. He says that it will be a great gain for humanity to have the surviving misuses of the Bible stopped, as many others have been already. This book must no longer be held superior to reason. But it will not therefore die. To quote from his closing paragraph: "When the bondage of a literal, a textual, and a dogmatic use of Scripture ceases, then we shall rejoice in a use of the Bible that allows reason and sentiment free scope. It is a joy to read the Bible as we would any other book, feeling that no dogmatist is near to club us if we doubt, and no roaring hell yawning for us if we reject a text here and there." The author makes numerous references to modern authorities for support and amplification of his statements.
The Manual of Topographic Methods, published by Henry Gannett, Chief Topographer, as Volume XXII of the Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey, is intended to present a description of the topographical work, instruments, and methods used by the Geological Survey, primarily for the information of the men engaged in the work. It is not designed to be an elementary treatise upon surveying, as it presupposes a knowledge of the application of mathematics to surveying equivalent to that to be obtained in our professional schools; and it is not intended to be a treatise on topographical work, although it may to a certain extent supply the existing need of such work.