Jelly-Fish, Star-Fish, and Sea-Urchins: Being a Research on Primitive Nervous Systems. By G. J. Romanes. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 323. Price, $1.75.
The main object of this work by Professor Romanes is the description of the investigation of the physiology of the animals lowest in organization, with especial reference to determining the presence of a nervous system in them and its extent and functions. The author at first intended to supplement the accounts of his own work with an exposition of the results which had been obtained by other inquirers, concerning the morphology and development of those animals. He found, however, that he would not be able, within the limits of the contemplated book, to do justice to the labors of others, and has confined himself to giving an account of his own researches. The nervous systems of these animals, as studied by Professor Romanes, are mainly subservient to the office of locomotion, the plan or mechanism of which is completely different in the two classes, and unique in each. The investigations of which this treatise is the result were carried on through six summers spent at the sea-side out of the vacations of twelve years, and were profitable and edifying in more ways than one. On this point, the author makes some remarks which form a fitting introduction to the story of his detailed and technical experiments. "Speaking for myself," he says, "I can testify that my admiration of the extreme beauty of these animals has been greatly enhanced—or, rather, I should say that this extreme beauty has been, so to speak, revealed—by the continuous and close observation which many of my experiments required; both with the unassisted eye and with the microscope numberless points of detail, unnoticed before, became familiar to the mind; the forms as a whole were impressed upon the memory; and, by constantly watching their movements and changes of appearance, I have grown, like an artist studying a face or a landscape, to appreciate a fullness of beauty the esse of which is only rendered possible by the percipi of such attention as is demanded by scientific research. Moreover, association, if not the sole creator, is at least a most important factor of the beautiful; and, therefore, the sight of one of these animals is now much more to me, in the respects in which we arc considering, than it can be to any one in whose memory it is not connected with many days of that purest form of enjoyment which can only be experienced in the pursuit of science. And here I may observe that the worker in marine zoölogy has one great advantage over his other scientific brethren. Apart LITERARY NOTICES.
��from the intrinsic beauty of most of the creatures with which he has to deal, all the accompaniments of his work are aesthetic, and removed from those more or less of- fensive features which are so often neces- sarily incidental to the study of anatomy and physiology in the higher animals." This book is Volume XLIX of the " Inter- national Scientific Series."
Geology and the Deluge. By the Duke of Argyll. Glasgow : Wilson & Mc- Cormick. Pp. 47.
This is the substance of a lecture deliv- ered in Glasgow, in which is considered the question whether any scientific evidence exists that there has occurred a deluge, or a great submergence of the land under the sea over a considerable area of the globe ; of a temporary character; accompanied with the destruction of animal life ; since the birth or development of man ; in oth- er words, corresponding with the flood de- scribed in the Bible. The author finds evi- dence of such a flood, not only in universal tradition, but also in many superficial geo- logical facts ; among them, the existence of beds of recent marine gravel on mountain- tops in Wales and other countries ; the loess, with its abundant land-shells ; the extinct mammalian fauna of Europe, of the sudden destruction of which he adduces many evidences ; and the masses of mam- moths in New Siberia. The evidences of the contemporaneousness of man with the phenomena are discussed, and the question of his antiquity incidentally. The time of the flood in question is believed by the author to have been about the close of the glacial period.
��all stories ought to be told on which the world is to be called upon to pass an im- partial judgment. The relation is begun with a general description of the region in which the search was prosecuted, as " the gateway of the Polar Sea," and an account of the circumpolar stations which were established under the auspices of the In- ternational Polar Conference, with which Greely's expedition eventually became con- nected. Then are given accounts of Gree- ly's Lady Franklin Bay expedition and the unsuccessful relief expeditions of 18S2 and 1884, and the detailed account of the ex- pedition under Commander Schley which succeeded in bringing back the survivors of Greely's command. Of the spirit in which the last expedition was prosecuted, the author of the book says that all of the officers and men " knew that the object of the voyage was something above and be- yond the ordinary calls of service, and . . . felt an earnestness of purpose which a mere exploring expedition would hardly have called forth. At any rate, whatever may have been their feelings, they certainly evinced a determination to spare no pains, to incur any exposure, to assume any re- quired risk, and to be unflagging in watch- ing for opportunities to gain a mile, a yard, or a foot, on the journey toward Greely and his party."
In the Lena Delta. A Narrative of the Search for Lieutenant -Commander De Long and his Companions, followed by an Account of the Greely Relief Expedi- tion. By George W. Melville. Edited by Melville Philips. Boston : Hough- ton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 497, with Maps and Illustrations. Price, $2.50.
Op the world's heroes, the men of the Jeannette Expedition were certainly among the noblest, the sturdiest, and the most en- during. Whether we regard the single in- cident of the attitude in which Lieutenant De Long's body was found, with the arm frozen stiff in the position in which it was raised and bent to cast his journal to a safer place ; or wl ether we consider the trials and sufferings and pluck of Melville's party, of eleven men, during their trying and lonely journey we can almost, and when we take note, as well as of these incidents, of the history of the expedition as a whole, we can
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��quite say with Mr. Philips, that " in all the world's history the story has no parallel." This story has already been told by differ- ent persons from different points of view ; but by none who had a better right to tell it and from whom the world had a better right to ask for it than Engineer Melville, who after De Long's death was the titular commander of the expedition. The earlier part of the expedition, up to the crushing of the Jeannette by the ice, being already famil- iar, is but lightly dwelt upon. The real inter- est begins when the men took to the ice, and increases till the end of the search for De Long's party. The book abounds with inci- dents that help to realize what Arctic life really is. The constant imminence of its dangers was shown when the floe on which the party were encamped split through the center of De Long's tent ; " and had it not been for the weight of the sleepers on either end of the rubber blanket those in the mid- dle must inevitably have dropped into the sea." A strong picture of the straits to which men may be reduced for food ap- pears in the observation that walrus -hide may have the solitary advantage over hemp for ropes, in that " upon a pinch it can be eaten. Indeed, fresh walrus -hide, roasted with the hair on, is toothsome at any time, and many members of our company feasted on it after consuming their rations of pem- mican.'" We have views of what traveling on the ice is when we are told that the men did not mind having their toes protruding through their moccasins so long as the soles of their feet were clear of the ice, but they could not keep them clear ; and in the inci- dent of their finding having, in order to keep all their things together, to go thirteen times over each mile that, after marching from twenty-five to thirty miles a day for two weeks, they had been drifted back twenty-four miles. Finally, at the begin- ning of winter, on the 6th of August, they were able and glad to take to the sea, in three boats. They kept together till some time after the 10th of September, when they were separated in a furious storm, and one of the boats was never afterward heard from. It was agreed they should all en- deavor to land at Cape Barkin, and meet there. How they landed, and what befell either of the two parties that survived the
The account of the Greely Relief Expe- dition is brief, but testifies to the value of Greely's work that there is no one living competent to criticise his conduct of the expe- dition on which he was sent, " beyond affirm- ing that he performed the greatest amount of scientific work possible at least expense, and made good his retreat from depot to depot, until he arrived at the point of safety, where our Government had promised to de- posit supplies and have a vessel awaiting to carry him and his band away from the ' Land of Desolation.' " Not daunted by what he has seen and experienced of Arctic traveling, Mr. Melville has started again for the north pole, expecting to reach it, and to confirm a theory he has formed of the proper way of getting there. Believing that no vessel can penetrate the ice-barrier much beyond where explorers have gone, he fig- ures to himself a firm or nearly firm ice-cap interspersed with frequent islands, cover- ing the sea from the eighty-fifth parallel to the pole, and that a properly equipped ex- pedition can cross this and return upon it, the whole distance both ways being only a hundred miles greater than his party trav- ersed from the Jeannette to the Lena Delta ; and he believes that the results to accrue from reaching the pole will more than pay for all that has been spent in other efforts.
MiND-READING AND BEYOND. By WlLLIAM
A. Hovey. Boston : Lee k Shepard. Pp. 201. Price, $1.25.
An association of gentlemen engaged in scientific investigation was formed in the spring of 18S2, under the designation of the Society for Psychical Research, the object of which was stated in its prospectus to be to examine the nature and extent of any in- fluence which may be exerted by one mind upon another, apart from any recognized mode of perception ; the study of hypnot- ism, mesmeric trance, clairvoyance, and al- lied phenomena ; a careful investigation of data regarding apparitions ; and an inquiry into the phenomena commonly called spir- itual. Among the members of this society were Lord Rayleigh, the Bishop of Carlisle,
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��Professor Sidgwick, Professor Balfour Stew- art, William Crookes, and Alfred K. Wallace. They made a considerable number of ex- periments, in which phenomena were de- veloped that are not yet fully accounted for. From the reports on these experiments made by the several committees to whom the su- pervision of them was intrusted, Mr. Hovey has prepared the present interesting and sug- gestive volume.
The Patriarchal Theory, based on the Papers of the late John Ferguson Mc- Lennan. Edited and completed by Don- ald McLennan. London: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 355. Price, $4. Mr. McLennan, in his book on " Primi- tive Marriage," and in an essay which he published about fifteen years ago, on " The Worship of Animals and Plants," propound- ed some original and striking views, and opened up new lines of inquiry into the ori- gins and conditions of primitive society. He was making the investigations of which these publications were the first fruits, his life-work, when his career was cut short, be- fore he was able to perfect anything further, by sickness and death ; but not till he had seen his views received respectfully, con- firmed in his own mind by new facts and circumstances, and made a part of the light under which the continued study of an- thropology would be conducted. It was his purpose, if health and strength had been given him, to undertake a general work on the structure of the earliest human socie- ties. " In particular," says his brother, " he felt that he was able to give a much more consistent and intelligible view of the con- dition of rude or undeveloped communities than anything that had previously been of- fered to the public." His research being of a very extensive and far-reaching kind, and involving the use of " a very large apparatus of evidence," he proposed " to prepare the way for his larger work by first issuing a critical essay, by which he hoped to clear out of the way a body of opinion, the prev- alence of which seemed to oppose an ob- stacle to the proper appreciation of his con- structive argument." This " body of opin- ion" was represented by the theory that the family living under the headship of the father was the ultimate social unit, which while it is very old, had recently taken its
��most important and influential shape in the works of Sir Henry Maine. This " critical essay" he had on hand, assisted by his brother, who now completes it, and had carried out to seven of the nineteen chap- ters of the present volume, with notes em- bodying his views as to other parts of the work, when he died. The work is neces- sarily, by the circumstances of the case, somewhat polemical in form, but not wholly so, for the latter part of it is largely de- voted to the buildng up of a theory of the origin of agnation, in the course of which it became necessary to go into the whole question of the Levirate and of the family custom of the Hindoos. " It has appeared at all points," says the editor, " not only that the phenomena dealt with are not intelligi- ble on the patriarchal theory, but that they carry us back to a stage of society prior to the form of the family which has a father at its head, to the stage of polyandry, and to the form of the family founded upon kin- ship through women only. The argument has been throughout constructive as well as critical, and no slight part of the work is purely constructive."
Cnited States Commission of Fish and Fish- eries. Report of the Commissioner for 1882. Washington : Government Print- ing-Office. Pp. 1,101, with Plates. The commission having completed the tenth year of its work, the report takes general notice of what it has accomplished. It was formed primarily to investigate the alleged decrease of food-fishes in the United States, but had added to its duties in its second year that of promoting the propaga- tion of fish. It has accomplished much for science by prosecuting, or aiding others to prosecute, researches into the general natu- ral history of marine animals and plants. It has made very large collections of aquatic animals in aid of monographic research, and has given a full series to the National Museum, and sets to several hundred insti- tutions of learning, etc. During 1882 it secured a permanent sea-coast station at Wood's Holl; fitted up the Armory Build- ing as its central Washington station ; ac- quired stations in Maryland and Virginia ; furthered the artificial production of oysters, and the production and distribution of the carp ; and made inquiries into the extensive
��THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
��destruction of the tile-fish in the North At- lantic. For the future it hopes to extend its general inquiries ; to promote improve- ment in methods and apparatus of fishing, and in fishing-vessels ; to determine the ex- tent and general character of the old fishing localities and discover new ones ; to improve methods of curing and packing fish for the market ; and to continue the work of in- creasing the supply of valuable fishes in the waters of the United States.
Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Service for the Year ending June 30, 1883. Washington: Government Printing- Office. Pp. 519.
One hundred and ninety-four stations were maintained at the close of the year covered by the report one hundred and forty-nine on the Atlantic, thirty-seven on the lakes, seven on the Pacific, and one at the Falls of the Ohio. The number of disasters to documented vessels and small boats was 416, in which $7,242,729 of prop- erty and 4,040 persons were involved, while $5,671,700 of the property and 4,021 per- sons were saved, and 651 shipwrecked per- sons were succored at the stations. Twenty- two other persons were rescued who had fallen from wharves, piers, etc. Ten dis- asters, involving the loss of lives, took place within the scope of the service. All of the nineteen persons lost were entirely beyond human aid.
Researches on Solar Heat and its Absorp- tion dy the Earth's Atmosphere. By S. P. Langley. Washington: Govern- ment Printing - Office. Pp. 242, with Plates.
Professor Langley's observations are already quite well known to the scientific world, and their value is universally acknowl- edged. They were made on the slopes of Mount Whitney, at a height of twelve thou- sand feet above the sea, and about three thou- sand feet below the summit of the mountain, with special instruments of the observer's own devising. Notices of some of the re- sults have been given in the " Monthly." The author expresses the opinion that Mount Whitney is an excellent station for such ob- servations, fully equal to any that is pos- sessed by any other nation ; and, upon his recommendation, it has been declared a Gov-
��ernment reservation, available for purposes of scientific research. Professor Langley records some very interesting facts respect- ing a dust-cloud which appears to hang in the Sierras at a certain height above the sea, the effects of which he was able to ob- serve from his camp, and which appears to be permanent. Professor Clarence King as- cribes its origin to the loess of China. The author also speaks of large logs, which were found to be quite numerous on the mount- ain- side at a considerable height above the timber-line, as indicating that the region formerly enjoyed a warmer climate than it now has. The relation of the observations which formed the object of the expedition is very important and interesting to men of science, but too technical for the edification of general readers.
The Stars and Constellations. By Royal Hill. New York : Funk & Wagnalls. Pp. 32.
This work is intended to enable students and others, who are interested in the ap- pearance of the heavens, to identify the principal objects of interest without refer- ence to star-maps, which as a general thing are very perplexing to unprofessional read- ers. The plan adopted by the author is new, and constitutes the main feature of the work. It consists in the employment of two accurately drawn time-charts, giving the exact time of rising and southing for every day in the year, of twenty-five of the brightest stars, which are more distinctly identified in the text. From the positions of these " landmarks of the sky," any oth- er object at all likely to attract the atten- tion of naked-eye observers is so described that it is very difficult for any person of or- dinary intelligence to miss the information desired. As each object is identified, the student can learn whatever is of interest concerning it by consulting the separate account that is given of every conspicuous star and constellation visible in this country. The subject is suitably introduced by some interesting information concerning the con- stellations, the names and numbers of the stars, and the methods adopted by astrono- mers to designate them. It is illustrated by several very clear maps of the zodiacal constellations, upon which the place of the
��sun for every day in the year is accurately marked. These maps, which show every star in these constellations to the fifth mag- nitude, we understand are the first ever published based on the admirable photo- metric observations of Professor Pickering, the Director of Harvard Observatory. We regard the idea on which the plan is based as a sound one, and the execution of the work as conformed to it. The arrangement is simple, and the directions, in the table, in the charts, and in the text, are clear and accurate.
The " Quincy Methods " illustrated. Pen- Photographs from the Quincy Schools. By Lelia E. Partridge, New York : E. L. Kellogg & Co. Pp. 660. Price, $1.50.
The educational world was startled a few years ago by the report of the great things that were going on in the schools of Quincy, Massachusetts. A new superintendent had been placed over them Colonel Francis W. Parker who had dared to break through the shell of formalism and routine within which they were being fossilized, and to infuse into them life, spontaneity, and real progress. The fame of the schools and of the new sys- tem which was not new, however, to many, but too few, teachers of rare genius for their work spread widely, and Quincy became a place of frequent resort for persons having at heart the interests of real instruction. Among those who went there was Miss Partridge, who recorded what she saw, and now publishes her record. She takes the reader into the school-room and its different classes, day after day, and exhibits, in her printed account, a transcript, exact as it may be, of what occurred there illustrating how the teacher started, now this subject, now that, and patiently, and with tact, drew out whatever suggested itself to each of the pupils upon it. As the lessons are advanced, they shape themselves into a kind of sys- tem, the operation of which is to awaken the minds of the pupils to self-action and independent thinking. The manner in which these accounts are rendered justifies the secondary title of " Pen-Photographs" which the book bears. The author is careful to remind her fellow-teachers that the example- lessons she gives are not to be copied from but are to serve as types, after which teach-
��ers must form their own methods according to the bent of their minds and the kind of children they have in charge. The essential features of the Quincy method are flexibili- ty and spontaneity. What is called by that name might, in the hands of a humdrum teacher, become as dead and worthless as any of the stereotyped forms it is intended to supplant. It is its spirit that must be caught, not any of its particular models fol- lowed ; and the success of its execution will depend most largely upon the power of the teacher to strike out a way of his own.
Mortality Experience of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, of Uartford, Connecticut, from 1846 to 1878. Hartford, Conn. Pp. 91.
A series of thirty-seven tables, showing the mortality results of as many kinds of policies or classes of insured, accompanied by a text explaining the taole, and calling attention to the more important of the re- sults.
The Vertebrata of the Tertiary Forma- tions of the West. By Edward D. Cope. Washington : Government Print- ing-Office. Pp. 1,009, with 135 Plates.
This bulky quarto is " Book I " of the fourth volume of the final reports of the Haydcn Geological Survey. Its import in paleontological science is of much signifi- cance, for it contains a great number of species and genera of vertebrate animals from the fertile tertiary beds of the West, which had not been previously discovered. Some of these fill gaps in the chain of spe- cies, and make the connection and the course of development more plain than they were before. The whole collection represents a part only of the results of the researches which the author prosecuted either person- ally or with the aid of his trained assistants during the exploring seasons of 1872, 1873, 1S77, 1878, 1879, 1880 and 1881, and to a lesser extent in some of the intervening years not recorded in this list. The regions in which the explorations were conducted cover portions of the States and Territories included between British America on the north, the western boundaries of Minnesota and Missouri on the east, the northern bor- ders of the Indian Territory and Arizona and the middle of New Mexico on the south,
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��and the Sierra Nevada on the west. The present volume does not include all the re- sults of Professor Cope's researches, for another is to follow. Professor Hayden well says of the whole, in his letter trans- mitting the report, that " the amount of new matter toward the origin and history of the mammalian groups brought together by the author in these two volumes is most extraordinary, and will probably never be surpassed." In this single volume are given the vertebrata of the Eocene and of the Low- er Miocene, less the Ungulata, with descrip- tions of 349 species, which are referred to 1 25 genera. The author sums up fifteen im- portant results that have accrued through the researches here set forth in the discovery of new genera and families, among which are the discovery of the phylogenetic series of the Canida;, or dogs, and the same of the ancestors of the Fclidce, or cats. As the book was stereotyped in 1883, all conclu- sions of later date than that are necessarily excluded from it ; but the author's final conclusions from the material described are mostly to be found in a series of illus- trated articles he has been publishing in the " American Naturalist " in the years 1883-'85.
The Ten Laws of Health ; or, IIow Dis- eases ARE PRODUCED AND PREVENTED. By
J. R. Black, M. D. Published by the Author. Baltimore. Price (by subscrip- tion), $2.50.
A part of this book was published sev- eral years ago. The edition having been exhausted for many years, the matter has been revised to bring it up even with the progress of the age, and an entirely new part has been added, comprising nearly a fourth of the present volume, on thorough disinfection within the sick-room and the sick-bed as the most effective means for pre- venting the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. The author is a strong be- liever in the doctrine that disease is unneces- sary and preventable ; in his view man is the most sickly of beings, because those which means most men " who neither know nor strive to be governed by law in the uses they make of themselves, become victims to hundreds of evils in the various forms of disease." The ten laws of health are taken up in their order and explained ; the viola-
��tions of them are shown, with their attend- ant results ; and the mode of observing them is taught. The first law is, that a pure air must be breathed. To obtain this within the house, supposing that the surroundings arc pure, " the great and imperative require- ment is air-movement, a decided though gen- tle current through an occupied room day and night." Second ; the food and drink must be adequate and wholesome. The evil to be guarded against in the United States is excess, for inadequateness or a deficiency of food on this continent, although the com- mon sentiment is quite the reverse, is not often a direct cause of disease. As to the quality of our food, as we prepare it, " of the many books published on the subject of cooking, there are few, if any, that have not receipts by the score which can not be ex- celled for producing indigestion." The ef- fects of tea and coffee and alcoholic stimu- lants are carefully considered. The third law enforces the necessity and judicious practice of out door exercise ; and the fourth law prescribes adequate and unconstraining covering for the body. The fifth law con- cerns the exercise of the sexual function. Under the head of the sixth law are consid- ered the effects of changes of climate, and the measures to be taken for safe acclimati- zation when that step is taken. Regarding changes of climate for the sake of health, the author concludes, from a survey of the available facts on the subject, " that an im- prudent change of climate more frequently destroys the health of the healthy than it cures the sickness of the sickly." The sev- enth law relates to the choice of occupation. Its admonition is to select such pursuits as do not cramp and overstrain any part of the body, or subject it to irritating and poi- sonous substances ; and, of course, to avoid those of an opposite character. Next, we are to keep personally clean, bathing sys- tematically and changing regularly all cloth- in" next to the skin. " Those who for month after month, and even for year after year, do not cleanse and invigorate the skin by frequent baths, followed by brisk friction of the skin, lose the good offices of a very active organ of regeneration, and cause their blood to be in a state very favorable for the production of disease from slight causes." Ninthly, we must preserve the mind in a trail-
�� � LITERARY NOTICES.
��quil state, and secure adequate rest and sleep. "For health, as well as happiness, moderation and diversity of pursuits arc essential requi- sites." Tenth and last law : " No inter- marriage of blood relations." The principle is kept in view and enforced by frequent repetition that violations of any of these laws work injury from the beginning, the evil increasing as the violations become ha- bitual, and that for years, perhaps, before the sinner perceives that anything of the kind is taking place ; even while he may be boastful of his strength and his superiority to the bad effects of his wrong-doing ; and that, when the injury is at last revealed, it is generally past remedy.
The injunctions in the second part of the book, for preventing the spread of infectious diseases by stamping them out within the sick-room, are based on the germ theory of disease. The principles on which they are justified, concisely stated, are, that " persons sick of infectious diseases are the breed- ing hot-beds from which the germs issue; that these germs make of air, drinks, and foods, mediums by which they are carried into the bodies of others; and, that when they once pervade the air, mix with foods and drinks, they can neither be detected nor destroyed ; and, as a corollary, that the only time effectually to destroy them is at the bedside as they pass from the bodies of the sick." To wait, as is too often done, till they have escaped, expecting then by stern- er measures to stop the spread of disease, " is like waiting until a fire becomes an alarming conflagration before making systematic ef- forts to subdue it " and " even far worse." The directions for enforcing this summary disinfection are plain and practical.
��embrace a part of the record of his work at Cordoba as it has been pursued, in consid- erable but not complete detail. At the beginning, the author entertained the hope of being able to publish all the observa- tions in essentially the same form as they had been made, affixing the instrumental corrections separately. The observations of the years lS72-'73 were prepared for the press in this form, but the im possibility of carrying out the plan became manifest as the number of results increased ; and at last anxiety arose lest it might not be possible to secure a prompt publication of the results in any shape whatsoever. The observations for the catalogue have there- fore been given in the compact form adapt- ed to the requirements of the case ; and those of the zones with only so much de- tail as seemed needful when a large propor- tion of the stars had been observed but once. The original observations and all the calculations have been preserved for reference. The zones which have been sur- veyed in these observations cover a breadth of 52' 20' in declination, extending from 23 to 80 south. Previous determinations of position by zone-observations have been essentially differential in their character, in one co-ordinate, at least, when not in both ; in the present undertaking, Dr. Gould has endeavored to obtain so-called absolute de- terminations for all the stars observed. During the eight and a half years of work up to the close of 1880, more than 250,000 stellar observations were made with the meridian-circle ; and the number of differ- ent stars observed is estimated at 35,000 all belonging to the southern hemisphere. Among the special observations was a care- ful determination, of positions and proper motion, of fifty-four circumpolar stars for determination of the azimuthal errors of the instrument. Vol. II of the present scries contains the observations made in 1872; Vols. Ill and IV, those made in 1873; and Vols. VII and VIII, the zone-observations made in 1875. In making these observa- tions, between declinations 23 and 47, the normal width of the zone was two degrees, with 10' additional at each margin and extremity for overlap ; from 47 to 75, their width increased with the declination ; until, finally, the last five degrees, 75 to
��80, were comprised in a single belt. The zones were also subdivided, where that seemed best.
The Distribution of Products, or the Mechanism and Metaphysics oe Ex- change. By Edward Atkinson. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 303. Price, $1.25.
Mr. Atkinson, a man of business, has spoken so often, so intelligently, and so much to the purpose on financial questions as to give him a right to be heard and weight to his views. The present volume includes three essays on " What makes the Rate of Wages ? " " What is a Bank ? " and " The Railway, the Farmer, and the Public." The subject of the first essay is attended with a complication of conditions and relations, and differences of opinion upon it are in- evitable. Mr. Atkinson takes an optimistic view of the prospects of a satisfactory set- tlement of the relations of capital and la- bor on the conditions set forth in his funda- mental proposition. He shows that a high rate of wages does not necessarily signify high cost of production, and vice versa, and enforces a distinction, too often overlooked, between rate of wages and sum of wages in the manufacture of a given product. The second essay presents an exposition of the principles on which safe banking is con- ducted. In the third essay the author shows that the railways have performed a great service in our national economy, and that a large reduction in the costs of transporta- tion has been brought about by the consoli- dation of the principal lines ; and maintains that nearly all the features of our present railway system are working, as a whole, for good.
��ent with this hypothesis, has lifted it up out of the category of speculations to a genuine theory, claiming deliberate investi- gation. Dr. Warren, who is President of Boston University, has arrived at conclu- sions nearly coincident with those of Count de Saporta and those who agree with him, through his own independent studies, though not, of course, without having them re- enforced by theirs. In the present work, he offers the considerations by which the theory of polar origin is to be supported, carefully worked out, and in their order. Beginning with a survey of the present state of the question of the location of Eden and of the existing theories upon it, he presents in Part Second his own hypothesis, with a definition of the conditions on which it may be admissible ; in Part Third, the scientific bearing on it of gcogony, geography, geol- ogy, prehistoric climatology, paleontologi- cal botany, zoology, and archaeology and general ethnology; in Part Fourth, confir- mations of the hypothesis by ethnic tradi- tion from ancient cosmology and mythical geography, and from Japanese, Chinese, East Aryan, Iranian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian, ancient Egyptian and An- cient Greek thought ; in Part Fifth, fur- ther verifications of the hypothesis, based upon a study of the peculiarities of a polar paradise ; and in Part Sixth, the significance of the results he has drawn from these con- siderations.
Preliminary Analysis of the P>aik of Fouqueria Splendens. By Helen C. DeS. Abbott. Pp. 8.
The Lineal Measures of the Semi-Civilized Na- tions of Mexico and Central America. By Daniel G. Brinton, M. D. Pp 14.
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