Popular Science Monthly/Volume 46/March 1895/Literary Notices
Towards Utopia. Being Speculations in Social Evolution. By A Free Lance. New York: D. Appleton & Company. Pp. 252. Price, $1.
This is a book which we can cheerfully recommend to all who are interested in social questions. The author does not wear the badge of any school, and he writes in a style which is by no means academic. He believes in the duty of being as original as it is in one's power to be, and he therefore undertakes to apply some reforms, or what he considers such, to the accepted spelling of the English language and to some of its terms of expression. His theoretical convictions in regard to social principles are in general of the individualist order, but he is very far from being doctrinaire even on this ground. He is—to describe him briefly—a man of strong human sympathies and liberal tastes who has applied himself independently to consider the changes that will take place in society before it arrives at anything like its perfect development. The condition of perfect development he calls Utopia, and that he does not undertake to discuss or describe; he contents himself with the humbler task of describing in a discursive and very off-hand manner what he calls "semi-Utopia"—a condition of things intermediate between what we see now and the best and highest condition possible for humanity.
In the second chapter of the work occur the following excellent remarks: "Utopia can never be rightly seen otherwise than by the aid of science and a true philosophy that teach us to discriminate the possible and practicable from the impossible: the route can never be tracked by others than by pilots soundly trained in physical, psychological, and social science; and the march can never be performed by an army not disciplined and educated by the teachings of science, æsthetics, and ethics." The author is not one of those speculators who disparage the work of Herbert Spencer. In the opening of his third chapter we find the following; "It has been pointed out by Herbert Spencer—who seems to have pointed out pretty nearly everything—that ideal men are possible only in an ideal state; and conversely that a perfect social state is possible only when every unit has achieved perfection." He then proceeds to consider the great gain that would result if only all men were "decently honest." He shows how much labor is at present expended in guarding against dishonesty, and how seriously the general happiness is interfered with by these protective measures. The necessity of issuing railway tickets, he observes, arises from the fact that, as things now are, hundreds and thousands of persons would steal railway rides unless they were required to present tickets. Then the tickets have to be dated, punched, and carefully collected to prevent their being used again. "Taking any church," says our author, "probably nine tenths of the 'respectable worshipers' who perform their eminently respectable devotions there every Sunday and thank God that they are children of grace and neither Turks, Jews, Socinians, nor infidels, would have no scruple in cheating a railway company on their way home." There may be, and we trust there is, some exaggeration in this statement, but that there is a large element of truth in it no one who has any extensive knowledge of mankind would be disposed to question. This matter of railway tickets is, however, only one out of many illustrations which the author brings forward of the loss entailed upon society and the diminution of happiness through the defective morality of individuals. Before we can hope to reach or even to sight semi-Utopia there must be a radical change in this respect.
The author next proceeds to discuss the "Servant Question," quoting John Stuart Mill as saying that "there is hardly any part of the present constitution of society more essentially vicious and more morally injurious to both parties than the relations between masters and servants." The word "masters" is to be taken here as including mistresses. The condition of things to which the author particularly refers is that existing in England. Some of its features have been modified in this country, but whether upon the whole we have made any sensible advance toward semi-Utopia as regards the status of the servant class may be doubted. There is more independence on one side, but what is wanted is more humanity on both sides. It would be impossible in semi-Utopia to have one class of human beings whom another class regarded as the necessary instruments of their ease and pleasure, but as cut off from them in every social sense by an impassable barrier. In that happy state, when two human beings come together in any form of association, the thought of each will be how he or she can make the relation fruitful of good in the widest possible sense to the other. People will then no longer hoard their culture and their social advantages, as if to communicate them to others would be to diminish if not destroy their value; but whatever any one has that is good he or she will try to make common. The author's whole discussion of the servant question is full of useful suggestiveness. To those who can not rise in imagination above what is sanctioned by social usage, and to those who are dominated by a selfish passion to hold on to such class privileges as they possess, many of his ideas will appear absurd; but few liberal-minded or sympathetic persons will read these chapters without acknowledging the general force and truth of the author's positions.
Following the chapters on the Servant Question we have a trenchant discussion of Luxury and Waste. Here the author's indignation waxes hot, as well it may. He points out how utterly at war with the canons of true taste all useless and ostentatious luxury is, and to what extent the higher intellectual and moral interests of society are sacrificed to a mere love of display. Here there is much we should be glad to quote, but our limits forbid. The author again defines his position by remarking (page 195): "We can thus clearly perceive the feasibility of an approximation toward semi-Utopia—if only men would be moderately unselfish, unwasteful, and reasonable. It is mainly human nature that has to be changed." We have only in part indicated the contents of this interesting volume, but we have perhaps said enough to show the main lines of the author's thought. The chief value of the work, in our opinion, lies in this—that it makes clear to every one of us what can be done now^ without waiting for any of those magnificent feats of legislation which socialistic speculators promise us, to make a better society. With each one of us it rests to do something in this direction, by bringing his own life more into harmony with right reason and the dictates of pure humanity. We trust that this little book by "A Free Lance" will set very many thinking, and not only thinking but acting.
We may perhaps be allowed to point out that the author is under a singular misapprehension as to the sense of the word "hypothecate." In half a dozen places in the book he uses it as though it were the verb corresponding to the noun hypothesis. It is unfortunate that there is no word of kindred etymology to hypothesis signifying to frame an hypothesis or assume as an hypothesis; but it does not do to lay violent hands on another word of wholly different signification.
The College Woman. By C. F. Thwing, LL. D., President of Adelbert College, Western Reserve University. New York: The Baker & Taylor Co. Pp.169. Price, $1.
If there be a vantage ground from which to view the college woman and to map out her aptitudes and shortcomings, Dr. Thwing occupies such a one as president of a university for men and of a college for women. But, after a careful reading of his book, we are forced to conclude that, however fortunate his position, he is still restricted by a lens of limited power, if not by astigmatic vision.
As seen by him, the college woman may be said to sparkle with interrogation points. Four of the questions concerning her which have been answered in the past twenty-five years are: Whether women want a college education; whether they have the necessary intellect, the physical strength; and whether the process unsexes them. Among the problems yet surrounding her are: Should woman receive the same education as man? What should be the method of her training? Do her health and manners get sufficient attention? What may the community demand of her when college-bred? What will be the result of a large influx of her species?
The principle of her education is at first stated broadly as the development of a human being; but after a review of the differentiation of sexual power according to Ruskin and an analysis of womanly nature by Dr. Thwing, the conclusion is reached that "enriching studies"—literature, philosophy, and history should be "peculiarly precious to woman." Inquiries addressed to the collegiate alumnae bring out the fact that a majority sensibly judge physiology and hygiene to be of special value for woman; the next largest number designate social and political science. The author recommends the adoption of the group system in order to prevent the superficiality resulting from a careless election of studies.
In regard to environment. Dr. Thwing writes: "The question of room, board, clothes, exercise, sleep, is a pretty fundamental one." Elsewhere we learn "the question of clothes is a pretty large as well as serious one," and that many women enter the collegiate year "exhausted with dressmaking"! We think the author libels the average American family when he states it is considered "crankiness in a girl" to demand an evening for study. He believes the young woman has not been generally as well housed at college as the young man, and advocates the building of small and homelike dormitories.
An entire chapter is devoted to the question of woman's health at college. The collegiate alumnæ, being interrogated, furnish many replies, and the author finally lays stress upon hasty preparation, worry, and want of exercise.
In the discussion of the method of woman's education we are introduced to an unusual form, "the co-ordinate," as one which "promotes a very sane health and healthfulness"! In this system a college for men and a college for women are conducted under one administration as parts of a university. The classes are separate, the teachers often instruct in both colleges, and the library is shared in common. The inference from the context is that by this method there is less risk of love-making than in the coeducational system; but it is difficult to see how the classroom can prove as good a ground for this diversion as the library. The provincial note of the book is reached in the sixth chapter, Demands made by the Community upon Her. It seems obvious to us that if woman had done only what the community required of her, she would never have gone to college, and that, having gone, it is unlikely she will thereafter order her ways according to Mrs. Grundy. Such a standard is surely not an ethical goal for either man or woman, who needs to do right for right's sake, even in the face of the community.
Electricity One Hundred Years Ago and To-day. By Edwin J. Houston. New York: The W. J. Johnston Co., etc. Pp. 199. Price, $1.
The author aims in this volume to give credit to every one who has contributed even in the slightest degree to the development of thought in the field of electrical science and art. The great ideas and inventions by which progress is marked are arranged in three type groups: Immature or incomplete; untimely and therefore unfruitful; and fruitful, because mature and timely; of which the first class, though having but little visible influence, may at times be of value, because of their tendency to direct thought along certain channels, thereby they become forerunners of more important ideas. The second class have to wait for recognition and effect, but eventually contribute their force to the advancing impulse; while the third class are fruitful at once. The first enunciation of ideas concerning electricity is traced back to the Greek philosopher Thales, who experimented with the attraction of a piece of amber that had been rubbed. He was much before his time, for no advance was made on his experiment till near the close of the sixteenth century, when Dr. Gilbert showed that powers of attraction and repulsion are developed in several other bodies by rubbing them. Stephen Grey, in 1729, first pointed out the distinction between conductors and non-conductors of electricity. The power of wires to conduct the electrical force to a distance attracted attention and excited inquiry, in the course of which Watson, in 1747, erected conducting lines several miles in length, and used the earth as a return conductor. He was succeeded by Franklin, whose experiments arc familiar, and were followed by the rapid development of electrical discovery which has not yet slackened. The invention of the electric telegraph, with the discoveries that made it possible and led up to it, and of the telephone, are reviewed in a very clear and comprehensive manner. The application of electricity as a motive power and light producer was first made commercially practicable after the invention of the Gramme dynamo. Since then it has been rapidly extended, and is likely to become general all over the earth, and as to all kinds of machinery. Still more wonderful expansions of electricity seem to be foreshadowed by the discoveries of Hertz, Tesla, and other workers of the day. As possible features of this future expansion, Mr. Houston dreams of a cheaper means for the production of electricity than is possible by the present method; perhaps producing it directly from the burning of coal; the entire replacement of the steam engine by the electric motor; the successful solution of the problem of aërial navigation, effected, possibly, by means of the electric motor, and being rendered possible as a result of improvements in the economical production of electricity; the replacing of the present electric light, with its preponderance of useless and injurious low heat rays, by some species of electrically produced light which shall possess a smaller proportion of the useless heat rays and a larger proportion of the desired light rays; a more intelligent means than are now adopted in the therapeutical applications of electricity to the curing of diseases; electrical transmission of pictures; electrical preparation of roadbeds by vitrifying the clay or soil in situ; and "an apparatus for the automatic registration of unwritten, unspoken thought, and its accurate repetition at any indefinite time afterward."
Science. A Weekly Journal devoted to the Advancement of Science. 41 East Forty-ninth Street, New York. Pp. 28. 15 cents a number; $6 a year.
We are glad to see the publication of Science resumed. There certainly is room, as Prof. Newcomb well observes in an editorial address to its readers, for a journal devoted to the promotion of intercourse among those interested in the study of Nature; and the wide separation of investigators in different centers of educational and civic life makes such a journal almost a necessity. Science, under its new auspices, will be conducted by an editorial committee of chosen students, each representing a field in which he is a specialist, and under the general editorial direction of Prof. J. McKeen Cattell. In the first number of the new Science, Prof. Newcomb explains the scope of the journal, and President Gilman invites communications from those who have matter suited to it. The leading place among the regular articles is given to a part of Dr. Brinton's American Association address on the Character and Aims of Scientific Investigation—a most appropriate subject with which to open the first number of the new journal; which is followed by the equally appropriate review of America's Relation to the Advance of Science, by G. Brown Goode. Prof. T. C. Mendenhall gives an account of the Legal Units of Electrical Measurement, now sanctioned by act of Congress. Major Powell discusses what in education are technically called the Humanities; Prof. C. Hart Merriam furnishes notes on Zoölogical Nomenclature; S. H. Scudder discusses the study of North American Orthoptera; several reviews of books appear; and notes are published on a variety of subjects.
Sea and Land. By N. S. Shaler, Professor of Geology in Harvard University. Illustrated. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 252. Price, $2.50.
Every thoughtful person who visits the seaside must have queried why there is in one place a gently sloping beach of sand, in another a stretch of loose stones, and elsewhere a ragged cliff rising abruptly from the water's edge, with a fringe of fragments at its foot. He who has voyaged upon the open sea has wondered how the fantastic icebergs that float by him were formed and what the dark depths of water beneath him may conceal. To answer these and similar questions Prof. Shaler's book has been prepared. He explains first what forces are at work carving the edge of the land and how different effects are produced under different conditions. Passing to the depths of the sea, he tells how our knowledge of the ocean floor has been obtained, and describes the processes going on upon it. The career of an iceberg is then sketched, after which the subject of harbors is discussed at some length. The different kinds of harbors are distinguished, and the ways in which they are formed or destroyed are described, the effects of tide and the work of animal and vegetable organisms finding place under the latter head. The book is handsomely printed and is embellished with many full-page illustrations as well as smaller pictures in the text.
An Elementary Chemistry. By George Rantoul White, A. M. Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp. 272. Price, $1.10.
The teacher who likes to roll along in a rut would be a good deal disturbed by this book; it is so different from other books. It is an experimental text-book, but it is different from others of this class. The various chemical properties and relations of matter are taken up in the order in which the author believes they can be learned most readily and profitably—not according to any logical or systematic arrangement. The first thing the student is told to do is to test the properties of iron, and cause it to combine with oxygen. The method of the book is to require the student to start from observations upon things and to arrive at general laws and principles by induction. Taking statements on authority is discouraged. In the words of the preface: "At first the student is told little or nothing. He is compelled to find out all things for himself. To assist him in finding the essential, and to make sure that he has succeeded in this, frequent questions are inserted in the text of the experimental part." Gradually proceeding to more complicated cases, the author finally puts before the student, under the head of A Chemical Investigation, such a problem as the chemist has who is working on the borderland of the science. After going through this experimental drill the student is led to trace the history of chemistry, "to note what observations lead to the establishment of certain theories, and the recognition of what facts lead to the overthrow of these same theories; to recognize the gradual unfolding of chemical law; and, finally, to inspect the foundations on which our present atomic theory rests, and have an opinion of his own as to its stability." Another feature of the book is that chemical symbols are not used until the need of them has been made apparent. Full and practical directions for manipulating apparatus, taking notes, etc., are given. The author is instructor in chemistry at Phillips Exeter Academy, and the book is adapted to the needs of academy students.
A Manual of Microchemical Analysis. By Prof. H. Behrens, of the Polytechnic School in Delft, Holland. With 84 illustrations. London and New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 246. Price, $1.50.
Seventeen years ago the Bohemian chemist Boricky published a memoir which gave rise to a new branch of chemistry. This is microchemical analysis. Other investigators have contributed to its advance, and now one of them gives us a view of its present condition. Devised for the examination of minute quantities of minerals, it has been applied also to alloys, and Prof. Behrens expects it to, rival blowpipe analysis in convenience and value. The method consists in dissolving a particle of the substance to be examined, adding a minute drop of reagent to a drop of the solution, and observing the result through the microscope. Often the drop of solution is evaporated and the form and color of the crystals it deposits are observed microscopically. Something may be learned of the composition of alloys by heating polished surfaces or etching them with acid. The practical applications of all these and many other devices are described in the manual before us, and the forms of the crystals of many substances are shown in engravings.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead. The Most Ancient and the Most Important of the Extant Religious Texts of Ancient Egypt. Edited, etc., by Charles H. Davis. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 186, followed by Ninety-nine Hieratic and Hieroglyphic Plates. Price, $5.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead is one of the most remarkable books in existence. Parts of it are among the oldest texts extant, some of its chapters having been inscribed in the tomb of the Queen of Mentuhotep, of the eleventh dynasty, and one of them being ascribed to the pen of the god Thoth. Very few of the Egyptian manuscripts are of earlier date. It is, further, most obscure as to its meaning. In a literal translation it is pure nonsense, and its real meaning has to be incorporated into it from the knowledge of the ancient mysteries possessed by the reader. Some of the old priests probably comprehended it; and the more advanced of the Egyptological students of the present are gradually getting glimpses of its significance. It is essentially mythological, Mr. Davis says, "and assumes the reader's thorough knowledge of the myths and legends. No one is capable of translating a single chapter of the Book of the Dead who has wrong ideas about the religion and mythology of Egypt, and is unable to understand the numerous technical and mystical expressions which everywhere occur. It is not always easy to discover what was the primitive concept attached to a particular word. The difficulty is not in literally translating the text, but in understanding the meaning which lies concealed beneath familiar words. However, the mystical nature of the text is gradually being unraveled, and, no doubt, will be ultimately understood. But we will have to make further researches into unwritten history, or perhaps have a fuller knowledge of Egyptian symbols or allegories." The text is further obscured by errors of copyists, and muddled by comments and attempts to explain the meaning which have been interpolated into it and made by subsequent copyists to run on as if they were part of the original. The purpose of the book—which is often called the Funereal Ritual—was to instruct the soul in that which would befall it after death, and to furnish prayers to protect it against dangers and assure it desired blessings. "It was given to the departed to carry with him to the grave as a passport and aid to the memory." Accordingly, more or less of it, according to the means of the deceased, was wrapped up with the mummy or inscribed on its coffin or on the walls of its tomb. About a thousand copies of it exist among the papyri of European museums, and some hundreds in Egyptian home collections. The longest copy known is the Turin hieroglyphic papyrus, containing one hundred and sixty-five chapters, which is reproduced in this volume. Yet it is not complete, for many chapters found in other copies are not contained in it. Of the translations, Dr. Samuel Birch's, made thirty years ago from the Turin papyrus, is literally correct, but nonsense. A more intelligible translation of it has been made by M. Pierret, and an exact and scholarly translation is in preparation by Dr. Le Page Renouf; while careful studies of it have been made by Lepsius, M. Edouard Naville, and M. Renouf. The translation of Mr. Davis is made, with that author's permission, from M. Pierret's version in Fi-ench, and is purposely rather exact than graceful; and it has been revised in the light of the additional knowledge that has been gained since Pierret's work was published, in 1882. Excellent and valuable preliminary chapters are given on The Mythology and Religion of Primitive Peoples; The Egyptian Pantheon, with illustrations of some of the more important deities; The Mythology of the Ancient Eygptians; and a historical and critical introduction to the book.
A Text-Book of Inorganic Chemistry. By G. S. Newth, F. I. C, F. C. S. London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 667.
The periodic classification has been taken as the basis for the arrangement of the matter in this fully detailed treatise. Definitions and principles are placed in the fore part of the book, but the student without a teacher (suggestions to teachers being delicately withheld) is advised to study only four of the fifteen chapters of such material before taking up the descriptions of the four typical elements—hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon—and their compounds, which constitute the second division of the work. The other elements are taken up by subdivisions of the periodic system, beginning with "Group VII, family B," and ending with the "transitional elements of the second and fourth long period." The four elements first named are taken up out of their order so as to bring well forward such subjects as water, the atmosphere, and combustion, to which the student should be introduced ^t an early stage. Only general descriptions of the rare elements and their compounds are given, and technological details of metallurgical processes are dispensed with. While the performance of experiments by the student is strongly urged, another book by the same author is referred to for the necessary directions.
Radiant Suns. A Sequel to Sun, Moon, and Stars. By Agnes Giberne, with a Preface by Mrs. Huggins. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 328. Price, $1.75.
In this work the author has tried to avoid treading in the same grooves, and to make a book entirely supplementary to Sun Moon, and Stars, in which subjects which could there be merely glanced at should be entered more closely into, and difficulties explained which could not there be dealt with, and which should give a large amount of fresh information. The book falls into three divisions—a history of astronomy, in which short outlines are given of the lives of the greater astronomers of the past; a discussion of spectrum analysis, what it means and what it teaches; and a view of the stellar universe as it is now known, with references to some great theories which may in future gradually take their places as proved truths. Mrs. Huggins finds value in this book and its predecessor, not only in their describing well the facts of astronomy, but also in their appealing constantly and wisely to the imagination in a way that can not fail to give mental training to their readers. "Indeed," she says, "there are few pages in the present work in which, beyond the scientific information directly given, there is not also enforced indirectly some lesson of high practical value."
The Life of Richard Owen. By his Grandson, the Rev. Richard Owen, M. A. Also an Essay on Owen's Position in the History of Anatomical Science, by the Right Hon. T. H. Huxley, F. R. S. With Portraits and Illustrations. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Two Volumes. Price, $7.50.
A life extending over all but the first four and last eight years of the present century, and devoted to biology in connection with several of the leading scientific institutions of Great Britain, could not fail to have strong features of interest. When sixteen years of age Richard Owen was apprenticed to a "surgeon and apothecary." Later he attended lectures at Edinburgh, whence he went to London and studied under Abernethy. Soon after he had begun to practice his profession Abernethy, who had noticed the peculiar ability of his pupil as a dissector, obtained for him an appointment to arrange and catalogue the collections formed by John Hunter. Two years later he was appointed a lecturer at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and after six years became Professor of Comparative Anatomy at the same institution. This was in 1834. In 1836 he was appointed Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons, and the next year the professorship of anatomy and physiology was also assigned to him. As Hunterian Professor Owen delivered twenty-four lectures annually until 1855, making them illustrate Hunter's collections, and without ever repeating a subject. His time was now fully occupied with lecturing and scientific research. In the year 1831 he had published eight papers on the anatomy of various creatures that had died in the Zoölogical Gardens. His memoir on the Pearly Nautilus, published in 1832, "placed its author, at a bound, in the front rank of anatomical monographers." In his memoirs on the anthropoid apes, the monotremes, and the marsupials Owen gave the most complete accounts of the structure of these animals then extant. Memoirs of similar character on the apteryx, great auk, and dodo were produced by him. He discovered that terrible parasite the Trichina. His researches on fossil forms were also important. Says Huxley, "Unless it be in the Ossemenes Fossiles, I do not know where one is to look for contributions to paleontology more varied, more numerous, and on the whole more accurate than those which Owen poured forth in rapid succession between 1837 and 1888." His studies in philosophical anatomy were directed chiefly toward the "archetype" of the vertebrate skeleton and the problem of parthenogenesis.
The story of such a life, with its accompaniment of struggles, labor, recreation, domestic affairs, and honors, is told in the two volumes before us. The material for this biography was plentiful and highly satisfactory, consisting of twelve hundred letters from Owen to his wife and sisters, besides many to other persons, and fifteen thousand received by him in the course of his long life, also the diaries kept by him. and his wife. The journal of his wife is a full record not only of the important facts but also of the trivial details of their joint lives, and large use has been made of it. By its aid we see Owen attending meetings of scientific societies and committees, with an occasional dinner, public or private, writing late into the night on his lectures or monographs, receiving leading naturalists at his house for consultation or study with the microscope, and now and then going with his wife to the zoölogical garden, or for an evening's recreation at the theater. Music and novels were other recreations that he greatly enjoyed. His visits to various parts of Great Britain and the Continent are described in very readable letters to some member of his family who did not accompany him. Many comical incidents and characteristic anecdotes of celebrated persons give a genial warmth to the recital.
Prof. Huxley's essay traces the progress of comparative anatomy before 1830, sets forth Owen's contributions to the science, and discusses his views on the "archetype" and "parthenogenesis." His conclusion in regard to Owen is that "his claims to a high place among those who have made great and permanently valuable contributions to knowledge remain unassailable." A bibliography of Owen's publications and a list of his honors close the record,
A History of Amherst College. By William S. Tyler, D. D., LL. D. With an Introductory Note by Richard Salter Storrs, D. D., LL. D. Published by subscription. Frederick H. Hitchcock, 55 West Forty-fifth Street, New York. Pp. 312. Price, $1.50.
A history of Amherst College, forming a substantial octavo volume, was written by Dr. Tyler soon after the fiftieth anniversary of the institution, in 1871. He has now told the story of the college in smaller compass and brought it down to the close of President Seelye's administration, in 1890. The labors of the founders of the college, the financial struggles of its early years, its period of depression and triumphant recovery, and its later years of increased usefulness through enlarged resources are set forth in a way to compel the respect of all friends of education. Although Amherst was founded for the education of preachers and missionaries, and "the gift of tongues" was deemed a prime need of its students, science was represented by chemistry and anatomy in its earliest course of study, and rapidly increasing facilities have since been accorded to it. Amos Eaton lectured on chemistry and botany in the early years of the college. Prof. Snell, with a wonderful Yankee handiness in constructing apparatus, had charge of the teaching of physics for many years. The instruction of these men, together with that of Shepard in mineralogy, of Adams in zoölogy, of President Hitchcock in geology, and the younger Hitchcock in physiology, has enabled the students of Amherst to go forth into the world with some understanding of Nature, of which man is no longer ashamed to confess himself a part. The volume is generously illustrated with portraits of the several presidents, and views of the buildings and grounds of the college. An appendix contains a list of donations to the college, the number of faculty and students year by year, etc., and there is a full index. The book will appeal strongly not only to the alumni of Amherst but also to every New-Englander who is proud of the educational institutions of his native section and to friends of learning everywhere. A limited édition de luxe at five dollars is announced.
Three reprints, from the Transactions of the Fifth Session of the International Congress of Geologists held in Washington in 1891, are geological, geographical, and topographical descriptions of the Great Plains of the North and of the Yellowstone Park, by Arnold Hague; and a paper in French by Lester F. Ward, on the Principles and Methods of Study of Geological Correlation by Means of Fossil Plants.
Science Progress is a new monthly review of Scientific Investigation, published by the Scientific Press, Cambridge, England, and edited by J. Bretland Farmer, with the co-operation of a number of investigators, masters in their several fields. Profs. Armstrong, Burdon-Sanderson, Dunstan, Fitzgerald, Goebel, Halliburton, Ray Lankester, Roy, etc., are named as among the contributors to the earlier numbers. The articles are of high character, about midway between the popular and the technical—that is, within the understanding of the general reader, but requiring thoughtful attention.
Dolls of the Tusayan Indians is the subject of an interesting paper published originally in the Interriationales Archiv für Ethnographie, by J. Walter Fewkes. The dolls are illustrated in a series of striking pictures, colored like the originals, and described as examples of wood-carving and symbolism among the Hopis. This art, according to the priests, is very ancient; and many of the objects placed on the altars in subterranean chambers where secret rites were performed are said to have been brought up from the under-world when the ancients emerged from the si-pa-pu, or traditional opening in the earth out of which the races of man originally appeared. The images, often called idols, but in reality only dolls, are made in great numbers by the Tusayan Indians and present very instructive objects for the study of symbolic decoration. They are interesting as affording valuable information in regard to the Hopi conception of their mythological personages.
Recreation is a new monthly magazine "devoted to everything that the name implies," of which G. O. Shields is editor and manager, and which is published at 216 William Street, New York, for $1 a year. The first number contains a varied table of contents, of which the most striking articles are President D. S. Jordan's How the Trout came to California, and Captain H. H. Bellas's A Winter with the Cheyennes; and the illustrations are very attractive.
The second part of Clarence B. Moore's memoir on Certain Sand Mounds of St. John's River, Florida, represents the results of seven additional months' continuous work subsequent to the preparation of the first part, with a large body of assistants. The river has been covered practically from its source to its outlet, and the author believes that every mound of any importance bordering on the stream, except two on Murphy Island, has been examined. The descriptions are liberally illustrated with representations of the objects recovered from the mounds. A separate reprint is also published by Mr. Moore from the memoir, on the copper found in the mounds—As to the Copper from the Mounds of the St. John's River, Florida. In this paper are considered copper objects of European and of aboriginal design, the archaeological aspects of the finds, and the results of chemical examinations. The conclusions as summarized are favorable to the aboriginal origin of the copper, and point to the Lake Superior region as the main source of supply.
The Progress and Trend of Scientific Investigation in Canada is the subject of the presidential address of 1894 of George M. Dawson as President of the Royal Society of Canada. The address presents the work of the Geological Survey, the Meteorological Service and Magnetic Observatory, the Dominion Lands Survey, experimental farms, the hydrographic surveys, the study of the fisheries, the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, the Natural History Society of Montreal, the Canadian Institute at Toronto, the Entomological Society of Ontario, the Literary and Scientific Society of Ottawa, the Botanical Club of Canada, and the Royal Society of Canada.
A paper by Edward A. Burt, on a new species of fungus—A North American Anthurus, its Structure and Development—constitutes No. 14 of the third volume of the memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History. This Anthurus was found growing in a sandy cornfield on a hillside near East Galway, N. Y., where it was represented by thirteen discovered mature individuals and several "eggs" in various stages of growth, and is the only species at present known in the northern continents. Two other species are known in South America and one in Australia, the differences from which of this species are pointed out. It is named Anthurus borealis. The paper is accompanied by two plates of illustrations of structure.
Around the World, an illustrated magazine of tours, travels, and natural history, devoted to a knowledge of the earth and of its inhabitants, of which Prof. Angelo Heilprin is editor, began its second year with the number for December, 1894. It has been received with a favor, the publishers represent, both by the general public and by specialists in scientific work, which emphasizes the need of a magazme covering its special field. Its general appearance and make-up go far to justify the claims its friends set up, that in its own field it stands alone in thi.s country, and "in its pictorial features it surpasses all similar publications of the Old World." The December number contains articles on Wintering on the Riviera, The Pygmies of the Congo, Among the Thibetans, American Cave Dwellers, The Sargasso Sea, Notes on Mountains and Mountaineering, Hints to the Traveler and Notes on Appliances of Travel, and full-page illustrations of Popocatepetl, Bellagio, on Lake Como, Cliff Castle, and the Zebra. (Monthly: The Contemporary Publishing Company, New York and Philadelphia; 15 cents, $1.50 a year.)
The Mechanism of Weaving is designed by the author, T. W. Fox, to supply what seems to be a deficiency of books in which the mechanical side of the art is made prominent. Several admirable books have been written on weaving during recent years, but in them attention has been predominantly directed to designing, fabric and structure, and calculations relating thereto. The present work aims to put within the reach of the student, in as comprehensive a manner as possible, exact and practical information bearing upon the principles of weaving as exemplified in the various processes of the trade. Numerous topics of practice are treated, beginning with the description of the power loom, and continuing with chapters on healds, shedding or dividing the warp, over-and-under motions, the figuring harness, card cutting, picking, and other movements or elements of the art, described in detail. (Published by Macmillan & Co. Price, $2.50.)
A collection of Lectures on Biology, reprinted from the American Field, contains four lectures on that subject delivered by Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, on invitation, at the Catholic University of America, in January, 1892. The first lecture relates the history of biology and defines its present domain, and calls attention to the light it casts upon the unity of organization among plants and among animals, and upon the interdependence of the various natural' divisions of science. The second lecture considers its relations to geology. The third treats of its value as a study to the medical man and to every student of Nature, as well as to the professional biologist. The fourth lecture forecasts its future growth and influence, showing how it has affected the trend of human thought, and now demands a prominent place in any scheme of education worthy of the name. and predicts that its beneficial influence is destined to be felt in every field of activity in which men engage.