Popular Science Monthly/Volume 47/July 1895/Literary Notices
A Manual for the Study of Insects. By John Henry and Anna Botsford Comstock. Ithaca, N. Y.: Comstock Publishing Co. Pp. 701. Price, postpaid, $4.09.
A substantial service has been done to teachers and students of entomology in the preparation of this handsome, systematically arranged work by Prof, and Mrs. Comstock. Besides describing the important insects of each order, the authors have undertaken to provide an analytical key of insect species similar to those which the student of plants finds so helpful and interesting. But while much pains has been taken to render easy the classification of specimens, the mere determination of their names has been treated as a matter of slight importance. The authors warn the reader against expecting in this volume such an approach to completeness as exists in the manuals of flowering plants. A work containing adequate descriptions of all the species in our insect fauna, they say, "would rival in size one of the larger encyclopædias." The general mode of treatment consists of a discussion of the characteristics of each order and the families composing it, with descriptions of the commoner species as illustrations of the several families. Simplicity has been studied in the descriptions, though not at the expense of accuracy, morphological terms have been reduced to a minimum, and so far as possible a uniform nomenclature has been used for all orders of insects. Writers confining themselves to single orders have developed differing nomenclatures, which is confusing to the student in passing from one order to another. Prof. Comstock has made as near an approach as practicable to uniformity in this respect, as a consequence of which, homologies heretofore above the grasp of any but advanced students, as in the wing-veins, arc now brought forcibly to the attention of the beginner. The technical terms from Greek and Latin, which are a great bugbear to many beginners in the study of science, have been robbed of half their terrors by marking the syllabic division and the accent of each the first time it occurs. Most of the eight hundred woodcuts in the volume have been engraved from Nature by Mrs. Comstock, who has also furnished a part of the text. An attractive frontispiece in colors represents several butterflies and other insects about a thistle-head and a spray of golden-rod. The book is issued at a low price considering its size, its large number of illustrations, and the excellence of its manufacture.
The Education of the Greek People and its Influence on Civilization. By Thomas Davidson. International Education Series, Vol. XXVIII. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 229. Price, $1.50.
The purpose of the author in this volume is "to show how the Greek people were gradually educated up to that stage of culture which made them the teachers of the whole world, and what the effect of that teaching has been." After an introductory chapter on the aim and general form proper to education, he outlines the life of the Greeks and its ideals. He traces the Greek citizenship from its patriarchal and tribal origins, and finds worth—"the worth of the individual as a member of society"—to be the Greek ideal in life. To this conception was added, when leisure came, the ability to employ that leisure in elevating avocations (diagoge). The nature of education, both before and after the rise of philosophy, is then sketched. In the earlier times much attention was given to physical culture, and for young boys music had almost equal prominence. Competitive exercises evidently were not feared. The mother-tongue and its literature were thoroughly studied, but we find no mention of any time whatever being devoted to the grammars of other languages, dead or living. Youths learned political science by observation of the conduct of public affairs by their elders. After the philosophical era began individual happiness came to rival civic worth as an end of activity, and all sorts of knowledge were cultivated under the tuition of the Sophists. Then came Socrates, who largely counteracted the charlatanry into which the Sophistic teaching had degenerated. Our author next discusses the attempt in Plato's Republic to plan a state with a basis in philosophic principles, and that of Aristotle, whose basis was inductive reasoning. Both of these he sets down as failures. He then shows how Greek culture was influenced by contact with the two great religions of the Eastern world, Zoroastrianism and Judaism, and with the statesmanship of Rome. In conclusion the author affirms that the Greeks, through their scheme of culture, "not only lifted the world out of barbarism, but it requires their influence even to this day to prevent it from falling back into the same." What he regards as the error that was fatal to the Greek civilization was placing philosophy on the throne that should have been given to religion. This book is designed as a guide in teaching, but if it were itself put into the hands of students it would give more insight into Greek thought than digging out many pages telling what number of parassangs the army marched day by day or what was done by "wily Odysseus," aided by "ox-eyed Athenæ."
The Writings of Thomas Paine. Collected and edited by Moncure Daniel Conway. Volumes II and III. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Price, $2.50 a volume.
Political and sociological essays make up these two volumes; Volume II covering the period from 1779 to 1792, and Volume III extending from 1791 to 1803. The most extended of these writings is the Rights of Man, which occupies half of Volume II. The two parts of which it is composed were written in a controversy with Edmund Burke à propos of the French Revolution and embody a full and careful statement of republican principles. The same volume contains Paine's pamphlet published in 1782 under the title, Letter to the Abbé Raynal, on the affairs of North America: in which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America are Corrected and Cleared up. Paine was in England or France for fifteen years of the period covered by these volumes, having gone abroad in 1787 to introduce a form of bridge that he had invented. He was active in establishing the French Republic, though opposed to its extreme measures, hence many of the essays in both volumes relate to French affairs Among the American questions treated are: The United States Bank, paper money, the Newfoundland fisheries, and the purchase of Louisiana. Paine's religious writings, his poems, and some letters and scientific fragments are reserved for the fourth volume.
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Part XXVI. Dr. Richard Hodgson, 5 Boylston Place, Boston, Mass., American Secretary. Pp. 466.
This number of the society's Proceedings is mainly occupied by the Report of the Census of Hallucinations taken by a committee of which Prof. Henry Sidgwick was chairman. Seventeen thousand answers were obtained to the question, "Have you ever, when believing yourself to be completely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a living being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice; which impression, so far as you could discover, was not due to any external physical cause?" About ten persons in a hundred were found to have had such experiences. Accounts of a large number of these occurrences, for the most part written by the percipients, are included in the report. The differences between hallucinations and other phenomena with which they are liable to be confounded are pointed out by the committee and illustrated by cases. Passing from merely subjective hallucinations, the committee discusses those of a veridical character—i. e., such as "can only be accounted for on the hypothesis that impressions or impulses have reached the percipient's mind otherwise than through the recognized channels of sense." A large number of these, and by far the most impressive class, occur at, or within a few hours of, the death of the person whose figure seems to be seen or voice seems to be heard. Another impressive class of cases is those in which the hallucination is experienced at the same moment by two or more persons. The evidence gathered through the census has been carefully sifted, and after rigid requirements have been satisfied there remain enough facts to satisfy the committee that "between deaths and apparitions of the dying person a connection exists which is not due to chance alone." Some other remarkable cases seem to indicate action on the part of the dead, but the committee does not deem them anything like sufficient to establish post mortem agency.
Manual of Geology. By James D. Dana. Fourth edition. New York: American Book Company. Pp. 1088.
Prof. Dana's Manual has been an authority for a generation, its first edition having appeared in 1863. It has always been of especial value to American students from the fact that it has treated geology with especial reference to American geological history. In the new edition, for which the work has been wholly rewritten, this feature has been preserved. Historical geology, in fact, occupies about two thirds of the volume, three hundred pages being devoted to the dynamical side of 'the science, while the physiographic and structural divisions together occupy one hundred. So many new facts and hypotheses have been brought forward in the last fifteen years that the author felt obliged to increase the quantity of matter, both text and illustrations, in the book by fifty per cent. A peculiar interest attaches to this edition from the death of Prof. Dana two months after completing the supervision of its publication. It is fortunate for students of geology that he was able to finish his task.
The Astrophysical Journal. An International Review of Spectroscopy and Astronomical Physics. Vol. I, Nos. 1 and 2, January and February, 1895. George E. Hale and James E. Keeler, Editors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp. 100. Annual subscription, $4.
The plan of this journal was conceived by Mr. Hale several years ago, but was modified on consultation with Prof. Payne, of the Sidereal Messenger, and a union of forces resulted in the publication, in January, 1892, of the periodical Astronomy and Astrophysics. This periodical was, during three years, a leading organ of astronomical research, and its career was highly creditable to American science. A separation of interests has now taken place, Popular Astronomy being continued as a journal of the character indicated by its title, and Mr. Hale returning to his original plan of conducting a journal of Astronomical Physics. In preparation for this undertaking the co-operation of eminent astronomers the world over has been secured, and besides those of its editors in chief the Astrophysical Journal bears the names as assistant editors of J. S. Ames, of Johns Hopkins; W. W. Campbell, of the Lick Observatory; Henry Crew, of the Northwestern University; E. B. Frost, of Dartmouth College; and F. L. 0. Wadsworth, of the University of Chicago; and as associate editors, of ten eminent working astronomers in Europe and America. The scope of the journal includes all investigations of radiant energy, whether conducted in the observatory or in the laboratory—especially photographic and visual observations of the heavenly bodies, spectroscopic, photometric, bolometric, and radiometric work of all kinds; descriptions of instruments and apparatus used in such investigations; and theoretical papers bearing on any of these subjects.
A Text-book of Invertebrate Morphology. By J. Playfair McMurrich, M. A., Ph. D. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 661. Price, $4.
A student of the invertebrates will welcome this new work by Prof. McMurrich. The various subdivisions are fully discussed, and an excellent bibliography follows each group. The illustrations are abundant enough and in the main clear, though one would wish for better drawings, some of which, especially in the Mollusca, are positively bad. In a work of so comprehensive a nature the author would have avoided many minor mistakes if he had submitted each section to a specialist. Under the Brachiopods we are told that the shells are similar to those of the Lamellibranchs, whereas neither in origin, structure, nor position is there the slightest similarity. In stating the composition of the Brachiopod shell as carbonate of lime he overlooks Lingula, in which the composition is phosphate of lime. He says there are no organs of hearing in Brachiopods, while Lingula has very distinct auditory vesicles. He states that the circulation is induced by the contraction of the body wall, whereas circulation is due to the ciliary lining of the lacunæ. A flushing of the lacunæ, so to speak, takes place now and then when the shells open and close.
The author has frankly stated in his preface that the book must necessarily be tinged with his own opinions, and therefore the reviewer can only express disagreement with the position he has assigned to certain groups, notably the Lamellibranchs, Echinoderms, and Amphioxus, and to the use of the word type. Despite the minor errors, which can be corrected in a subsequent edition, we heartily commend the book, and congratulate the author for his fairness in accrediting drawings to their proper source.
Elements of Mineralogy, Crystallography, and Blowpipe Analysis from a Practical Standpoint. By Alfred J. Moses, E. M., Ph. D., and Charles L. Parsons, B. S. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company. Pp. 342.
A thorough and systematic study of mineralogy is the ideal of this book. The part on crystallography is illustrated with one hundred and seventy-one figures; it describes the use of the hand and the reflection goniometers, and contains a chapter on clinographic projection of crystal figures. The symbols of Weiss, Naumann, Dana, and Miller are given with the several forms. The chapters on blowpipe analysis include systematic schemes of operation. More than half of the volume is devoted to descriptive mineralogy, in which, after some account of the physical and chemical characters of minerals, the species are taken up by groups, as the iron minerals, the manganese minerals, zinc and cadmium minerals, etc. As the book is made from a practical standpoint, the chief uses and localities of each mineral are included in its description. This part is also fully illustrated with forms of crystals, bringing the whole number of figures up to three hundred and thirty-six. A series of i allies for determinative work and two indexes complete the volume.
A large fund of information about public affairs is crowded into The Daily News Almanac and Political Register for 1895 (Chicago, 25 cents). It includes rates of the old and new tariffs, statistics of imports and exports, of manufactures, agriculture, mortgages, the liquor trade, pensions, etc., etc.; accounts of the labor disturbances, the Hawaii affair, and other matters; a register of the national Government, the army, navy, and diplomatic service, important legislation by Congress, election returns, events of the year, including sporting events, and many other things that it is often convenient to refer to.
The Aëronautical Annual for 1895, edited by James Means (W. B. Clarke & Co., Boston, $1), is made up largely of historic matter. Some account of Leonardo da Vinci is given, with reproductions of his mechanical drawings and extracts from his Treatise upon the Flight of Birds. This is followed by essays on aërial navigation, by Sir George Cayley, Bart., published in 1809 and 1810, by Thomas Walker in 1810, by F. H. Wenham in 1866; Benjamin Franklin's aëronautical correspondence, 1783 to 1786; and some minor fragments. There are also a bibliography of aëronautics, an essay on The Problem of Manflight, by the editor, 1894, and an editorial article on the prospects of aëronautics. The volume is illustrated with reproductions of many quaint engravings.
The Smithsonian Geographical Tables, prepared by R. S. Woodward, is an outgrowth and further development of the idea embodied in the meteorological tables prepared by Dr. Arnold Guyot, at the request of Prof. Henry, and published in 1852 in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. This work passed through four editions, the last having been published in 1884. This edition was exhausted in a few years, and a recasting, rather than a revision, of the work was called for; and it was decided by Prof. Langley to publish the new work in three parts—Meteorological Tables, Geographical Tables, and Physical Tables—each representative of the latest knowledge in its field, and independent of the others. The Meteorological Tables were published in 1893. The present is the second work in the contemplated series. It includes an introductory part and tables. The introductory part is divided into seven sections under the heads Useful Formulas, Mensuration, Units, Geology, Astronomy, Theory of Errors, and Explanation of Source and Use of Tables. The forty-two tables, involving various factors of geodetical and astronomical measurement, occupy one hundred and seventy pages.
The Catholic University Bulletin is a new quarterly publication, conducted by professors of the Catholic University of America, Washington, similar in scope to the reviews and other periodicals which it is now becoming customary for American institutions of learning to issue. Its object is to convey to those who are interested in the university a knowledge of what is being done by its professors and its students; and it will make known the work of the administration so far as it is of public interest; its material progress, benefactions, gifts, etc.; facts relative to the system of teaching and results obtained; descriptions of the special schools and their operation, and the progress made by professors and students in the sciences for which the schools were opened; methods of teaching, educational discussions, and comparative notices of the work of other institutions; articles on higher pedagogics; public official documents concerning the university; literary and biographical notices, necrologies of men of learning deceased, accounts of learned congresses, etc.
A History of Higher Education in Rhode Island, prepared by William Howe Tolman, Ph. D., is number eighteen of Herbert B. Adams's series of contributions in the Bureau of Education to American Educational History. The educational history of this State is of particular interest because it raises the question whether religious freedom reacted favorably on the establishment of a system of education in the early days of the New England colonies—and helps answer it. The first part of the essay gives an account of colonial and later education. The second part tells the story of the academies and preparatory schools, of which seven are described. The third part is devoted to the institutions for the education of women. The story of Brown University—the only university in the State—occupies the main part of the history, and is told for the most part in connection with the work of the institution's eight presidents. Lastly, the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts is represented; and two pages are given to a bibliography.
In the handsome Geological Map of Alabama, by the State Geologist, Eugene A. Smith, the formations are clearly shown in distinct coloring, which is also harmonious and agreeable to the eye. In the accompanying description and explanatory chart, which corresponds with the map in size and form, the formations, names, synonyms, classification, and common fossils; thickness, lithological and topographical characters, area and distribution; useful products, soils, characteristic timber growth and agricultural features; and the reports in which these features are described, are conveniently shown for ready reference in parallel columns. Mr. Smith's reports, of which we have had many, all bear the marks of good work.
The thirteenth volume of the Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, 1893, contains the proceedings of the World's Fisheries Congress, which was held in Chicago in October, 1893, and the papers that were read there. These papers, represented by forty-nine in the volume, touched various fishery topics, and in many cases called out considerable debate. The same subject gave rise to the expression of divergent opinions, especially on some phases of the commercial fisheries, which demonstrated that a fair conclusion on any of the subjects discussed can be reached only after a careful consideration of all the views presented. The papers given in the volume, being the views of representative men upon the subjects treated, are necessarily of great practical worth, and are published by the Fish Commission with the idea of furnishing the general public with valuable information concerning the fishery industry, and not with any view of approving or disapproving the opinions expressed. Some of the papers are handsomely illustrated, particularly that of Mr. G. F. Kunz, on pearls.
With 1895 the Journal of the American Public Health Association takes the place of the annual volume of the association's Transactions. It is issued quarterly from Concord, N. H., at $5 a year. The number for January contains the addresses delivered and part of the papers read at the meeting of 1894, in Montreal. Most of the papers in this number deal with water supplies; two others treat of diphtheria epidemics; and there is one, in French, on the general subject of preventive inoculation.
A plan for teaching science in public schools drawn up by Dr. William T. Harris for his report as Superintendent of the St. Louis Schools, in 1871, was afterward published in book form under the title How to teach Natural Science, and now appears in a second edition (Bardeen, 50 cents). It would undoubtedly give very practical help to a teacher confronted with the problem of adding science to the subjects usually taught in common schools, but if Dr. Harris were to rewrite it at the present day, in the light of the advances in science teaching made during the past quarter century, he would probably modify it somewhat. He would not omit to mention the peculiar mental discipline that the study of science affords as a reason for including it in a course of study; he would hardly say that science should "afford relief from the other studies, and not be placed in the same rank with them"; and while in this plan he insists that the teacher rather than a text-book should be the pupil's source of information, he would now probably go further and say that the pupils should get their knowledge of natural objects mainly from the objects themselves.
In the mathematical series of text-books by John H. Walsh, noticed several months ago, the Elementary Arithmetic includes notation, numeration, and the "four rules," the latter being applied in denominate as well as abstract numbers although no tables are given. The arithmetical processes dealt with are exemplified in a great variety of ways, including the use of many practical problems suited to the understanding of young pupils. (Heath, 40 cents.)
The first edition of Joint-metallism, by Anson Phelps Stokes, noticed in our January number, has been followed by a second and this by a third edition, each being an extension of its predecessor (Putnams, $1). Of the new matter, Part II consists of further arguments for joint-metallism and against bimetallism and monometallism. Part III is historical, giving views of writers on the science of money, beginning with Oresme, who wrote about 1366. In Part IV too great reliance on credit is deprecated and objections to the author's plan are answered.
The eleventh edition of the Advertiser's Handy Guide (1895) has been received (L. I). Morse Advertising Agency, New York, $2). It contains the names of the important journals of all the States and Territories of the United States, also those of the Dominion of Canada, in alphabetical order under each State or province. The circulation, politics, and frequency of issue of each paper are given, also the population of the city or town and county in which it is published. In addition to the general list there are separate lists of agricultural, medical, religious, etc., journals and other information valuable to advertisers. The volume contains seven hundred and eighty-six pages and is of handy size—about four by seven inches.
An Introduction to English Literature (Henry Holt & Co., New York), by Henry S. Pancoast, is based upon the author's previously published Representative English Literature, enlarged in some directions and curtailed in others, in order to adapt it to somewhat different requirements. It is intended to meet the needs of teachers who may wish to use the historical and critical portions of a book like that one, without being restricted to the prescribed selections which it gives as representing the successive literary epochs. To this end about two hundred pages of new matter have been added, and the notes and selections in the former work omitted. It is still the author's object to send the student directly to the literature itself, which is done here by suggesting in reading lists the selected works, giving them in some instances with general hints for study.
Volume IX of the Contributions to North American Ethnology published by the United States Geological Survey is the Dakota Grammar Texts and Ethnography, prepared by Stephen Return Riggs, and edited after the author's death with the copy not revised, by J. Owen Dorsey. Mr. Dorsey contributes a preface embodying interesting information concerning the structure, etc., of the language. The texts include eight Dakota myths, Dakota and English interlined, with translations following, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, The Lord's Prayer, and the Fourth Commandment, in the Ethnography are chapters on the Tribes, the Migrations, the Dakota Gens and Phratry, Unwritten Dakota Laws, The Superhuman, Armor and Eagle's Feathers, and Dakota Dances.
The First Latin Readings, selected and compiled by Robert Arrowsmith and George M. Whicher (American Book Company, $1.25), is an attempt to respond to the call for variety in the Latin authors read in American preparatory schools. It aims, in introducing the student to the literature of the Romans, by presenting attractive and varied material, to arouse the desire for further acquaintance with that literature; to cultivate in him an appreciation of the beauties of language and instruction; and to help him gain, besides a mastery of the mechanism of the language, an insight into the thought and life of the people. The selections have been carefully made with reference to their difficulty, their interest as literature, and, in great part, their relation to Roman life and customs. Eutropius, Cornelius Nepos, Cæsar, Aulus Gellius, Cicero, and Livy are represented.
Roderick Hume; the Story of a New York Teacher, has been written by Mr. C. W. Bardeen to depict certain phases of the modern union school. The author says that he has no hobby to ride and no grievance to redress, but has merely described what he has seen, trusting his fancy just far enough to weave into one web characters and incidents that were real but disconnected. (Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W. Bardeen, 50 cents.)
A little book on Varied Occupations in Weaving has been prepared by Louisa Walker, head mistress of Fleet Road Board School, Hampstead (Infants' Department), for kindergartens. The work described in it has been systematically taught in the author's own school for the past twenty years. The ways and means employed in constructing the articles illustrated have been adapted to meet the exigencies of each case, and simplify matters for little workers. The illustrations are from actual work produced in the school. The entire weaving was done by infants of from five to seven years of age, and the material was afterward manipulated into useful articles by the teachers. (Published by Macmillan & Co., $1.)
The National Geographic Society has arranged for a series of geographical monographs on the physical features of the earth's surface, to be published monthly during the school year, at 20 cents each, or $1.50 for the ten. The first two of these monographs are by Major J. W. Powell. The first describes Physiographic Processes, treating the atmosphere, waters, and rock formations as envelopes of the earth continually in motion and pointing out the processes by which, through the action of the forces generated, the principal features of the earth's surface are produced. The second is on the Physiographic Features of the earth, and is an attempt to characterize these mainly as they are dependent on the three great physiographic processes, and to show how fire, earthquake, and flood have been involved in fashioning the land and the sea.
The Annales de la Oficine Meteorologica Argentina (Argentine Weather Office), of which Walter G. Davis is director, at Rosario, South America, embodies the results of observations made three times a day at thirty regular stations, and voluntary rain observations made by station agents at sixty-nine stations on the four principal railroads of the republic. The observations, recorded in tabular form, fill a large volume.
The Geological Atlas of the United States, now being published in parts called folios, consists of topographical and geological maps. The complete atlas will consist of several thousand folios, each of which contains a topographical and a geological map of a small section of country, and will be named after some well-known town or natural feature within the limits of the district named. The topographical maps will show the reliefs, drainage, and cultures of the districts, indicated by the usual or definite conventional marks. The geological maps will show on distinct sheets the areal geology, or the areas occupied by the various rocks of the district; the economical geology, or the distribution of useful minerals; the occurrence of artesian water, and other facts of economical interest, showing their relations to the features of topography and to geological formations; the sheet of structure sections will exhibit the relations existing beneath the surface among the formations the distribution of which on the surface is represented in the map of areal geology; and the sheet of columnar sections will contain a concise description of the rock formations which constitute the local record of geological history. To each of these maps is attached a legend fully explaining all the conventional signs, marks, and colors used in it; and each folio contains a descriptive letterpress. Of these folios, each containing the six sheets, we have received No. 1, Livingston, Mon.; No. 2, Ringgold, Georgia and Tennessee; No. 3, Placerville, Cal.; No. 6, Chattanooga, Tenn.; and No. 7, Pike's Peak, Col., to be supplemented by a special detailed map of the Cripple Creek district. Each folio is provided with stiff paper covers and cloth backs.
In a little book by Florence Bass, in the Nature Stories for Young Readers, entitled Animal Life, the subjects are mainly such insects or other animals as the children may observe for themselves. The lessons aim to give illustrations of some of the varied means of self-protection employed by animals; their methods of home building and of caring for their young; the transformations they undergo; the adaptability to their surroundings and coverings; and the "tools" with which the various animals are provided. It is intended to interest children in the animals, and to make them averse to giving them pain and to killing them. (Published by D. C. Heath & Co., 35 cents.)
Regents' Bulletin (of the University of the State of New York), No. 25, contains the secretary's report, with special papers on University Institutions, certain special topics, department reports, and notices of higher educational meetings; No. 28 contains the proceedings of the Thirty-second University Convocation, held July 5 to 7, 1894. Nos. 24, 27, and 29 are specially numbered as Extension Bulletins Nos. 6, 7, and 8. The first comprises the report of the Extension Department for 1893, with the circulars issued and other items of information; No. 27 is a record of the progress of extension teaching; and No. 29 embodies accounts of summer schools in 1892'93; in New York; other American schools; and foreign schools. The whole number of schools represented is a hundred and five.
Three plates of Enlargements of Lunar Photographs (Agrandissements de Photographies lunaires) published by W. Prinz, of the Belgian Royal Observatory at Uccle, are phototypic reductions, without retouching, of some of the enlargements which were presented by the author to the Belgian Academy of Sciences in April, 1892. They represent photographs taken with the great refractor of Lick Observatory, enlarged from ten to a hundred times, and among other things they illustrate the richness in details of the views taken with that instrument. They are of special value as permitting a closer study of the details of lunar relief—a study which, it is hoped, may cast some light respecting the origin of terrestrial reliefs. A question of priority is connected with this publication, which is made partly to enforce M. Prinz's claims and partly as a specimen of a proposed atlas. The photographs represent the circle Copernicus, the crater Bullialdus, Mare Humorum, and Mare Imbrium. Sent gratis to astronomers and observatories.
Nos. 14, 15, 16, and 17 of the Contributions to American Educational History, published by the Bureau of Education, under the editorial direction of Herbert B. Adams, present the History of Education in Connecticut, by Bernard C. Steiner; Delaware, by Lyman P. Powell; Higher Education in Tennessee, by L. S. Merriam; and Maryland, by B. C. Steiner. The histories are constructed in general on a common plan, beginning with the first establishment of schools in the State, tracing their development in the colonial or territorial period and under the State government; describing the more important academies and the colleges, and then the principal special and technical schools. The story of education in Connecticut is of peculiar interest; for that State was a pioneer in the establishment of public schools, which are almost coeval with its existence, and is still behind none.
In the Delaware history a logical rather than a chronological order is followed. The beginning of educational enterprise is traced to the middle of the seventeenth century, under the Swedish, Dutch, and English settlers; education in the towns is considered; next the colleges; then public education from its origin in 1796; and the education of the negro.
The history of higher education in Tennessee is in the main the history of private initiative and activity which has been characterized by broad liberality and farsightedness. By these means the State has become the seat of an exceedingly interesting and creditable group of academies and colleges of all kinds, and Nashville an important educational center. Of these institutions, not the least in importance and fame are the schools for negroes.
Maryland has not obtained wide renown until recent years for its higher institutions of learning, yet the number and importance of them have been too great to justify such neglect as they have received. Though the early conditions of life in the colony were not such as to favor schools or colleges, a plan for a college was brought forward as early as 1791—the fourth attempt for a college in the United States—but no college proved successful till Maryland became a State.
It is claimed by Director Powell, in presenting the Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, covering the year 1890-'91, as a noteworthy feature of the plan under which the work of research is conducted, that the ethnologists who, as authors, prepare the publications of the bureau, personally gather the material for them in the field, supplementing this material by a study of all the connected literature and by a subsequent comparison of all ascertained facts. The continuance of the work for a number of years by the same zealous observers and students, who freely interchange their information and opinions, has resulted in their training with the acuteness of specialists, corrected and generalized by the knowledge obtained from other authorities on the same or related specialties. The present report is an excellent example of the application of this method of work. The substance of it, after the routine matter is disposed of—otherwise the "accompanying paper"—is a Report on Mound Explorations, by Dr. Cyrus Thomas, a veteran laborer in this field, who brings to the task of reviewing the whole subject all the advantages that long experience in field and study work can bestow. The explorations reviewed cover eighteen States in the Mississippi Valley, Atlantic coast, lake, and eastern central regions, supplemented by papers on archæological areas and distribution of types, the mound-builders and comparison of their works with those of the Indians, and evidences of contact with modern European civilization found in the mounds, with 344 illustrations.
In Le Centre de l'Afrique, autour du Tchad (The Center of Africa, around Lake Chad), the story of the journeyings of the Maistre French expedition to the region in question is told by M. P. Brunache. The object of the expedition, departing from the Congo, was to reach the Chari River and form relations with the Mussulmans of the Chad Valley. The expedition did more than this, for, having reached Palem beyond the Chad, through a country which no European had ever penetrated, it continued on through a region equally virgin to European exploration to Guéroua, and thence diverting from the Binerée to strike it again at Ibi, down that river and the Niger. It made several geographical discoveries of interest; corrected some errors; made treaties with numerous fetich chiefs; and collected anthropological data and material. Published by Félix Alcan, Paris, in the Bibliothèque Scientifique Internationale.
Les Auroras Polaires (Polar Auroras), of M. Alfred Angot, has been developed by revision and expansion from a series of articles published in the periodical La Lumière Electrique in 1882. All is brought up to date. The history of auroral observations is told, and the theory of the lights is discussed with the clearness of style and facility in explanation that have given the author an eminent position in scientific literature. Numerous carefully executed engravings illustrate some of the most remarkable observations of auroras. A list is appended of auroras observed from 1700 till 1890, in Europe, south of latitude 55°. The work is published by Félix Alcan, in the French edition of the International Scientific Series.
We have already spoken twice of the Dictionary of Birds, prepared by Alfred Newton and Hans Gadow, with the assistance of eminent English naturalists, and Dr. R. W. Shufeldt as American contributor, published by the Blacks in London, and Macmillan & Co., New York. The work is continued in Part III, from Moa to Sheathbill. The matter is arranged alphabetically; is presented in brief, clear statements and descriptions; and the whole is appropriately and well illustrated. Price, $2.60.