Part 16

In his work on _Elementary Botany_,[G] Professor _Atkinson_ introduces the method which he has found successful in teaching beginners. Many of the newer botanical text-books, in reacting against the plan of presenting first the higher types of plant life, overwhelm the student not only with a multitude of unfamiliar forms, but demand from him powers of comparison and analysis that are generally the result of much scientific discipline. In this book the pupil receives some preliminary guidance in habits of correct induction. By studying the processes of transpiration, nutrition, growth, and irritability in plants belonging to higher as well as lower groups, he learns the universality of these life principles, and is led to see the foundations for sound generalization. This the author considers vastly more important than the knowledge of individual plants. The student, however, in this investigation becomes acquainted with special forms among the lower plants, and is thus prepared to take up morphology systematically. This topic begins with the study of Spirogyra, and ends with an outline of twenty lessons in the angiosperms. The final third of the book is devoted to ecology, the study of plants in their natural surroundings and of their modifying factors--climate, soil, topography, etc. The illustrations, which are above the average throughout the work, are in this division exceedingly good. The descriptive text of the same section is entertaining enough to be used as a class reader, and would interest those unfamiliar with botany. There are several slight errors to be corrected in a future edition. In the table of measures a kilometre is made to equal one hundred instead of one thousand metres, and the references to plates are occasionally wrong. On page 345 the reference should be 449, and on page 349 should be 458 in place of 457. In describing pollination of the skunk cabbage, the words "rub off" are ambiguous. The uninitiated might suppose that the insect obtained pollen from the stigmas instead of depositing it there. The book is not intended for recitation, but for reference and as a guide in study. It is supplied with an appendix upon the collection and preservation of material, and an index.

A notice of a book[H] of this nature is justified in this column, since it contains much that will be of interest to the student of ethnology, folklore, and cognate subjects. It is interesting to get a glimpse of matters pertaining to social customs, ways of thinking, and the occurrences which animated these ways among the Japanese a thousand and more years ago. The author says, "It is a remarkable and, I believe, an unexampled fact that a very large and important part of the best literature which Japan has produced was written by women."

The preparation of his _Elementary Text-Book of Botany_[I] was undertaken by Mr. _Vines_ to meet a demand which appeared to exist for a less bulky and expensive volume than his Students' Text-Book. A more important feature than the diminution of the bulk is claimed in the simplification which the contents have undergone from the omission of certain difficult and still debatable topics. The usual divisions into morphology, anatomy, physiology, and systematic botany are followed; but the caution is appended that it must not be forgotten that these are all parts of one subject, different methods of studying one object--the plant. Hence they must be pursued together. "For instance, the morphology of the leaf can not be profitably studied without a knowledge of its structure and functions; and it is also important to know what is the systematic position of each of the various plants whose leaves afford the material for study. In a word, the student should not attempt to read the book straight through from the beginning as if it were a novel. On the contrary, he may begin with any one of the four parts as his main subject; but that part must be studied in close relation with the other three parts"; and this method of proceeding is facilitated by the insertion of a large number of cross-references in the text.

A satisfactory account is given by _C. Francis Jenkins_ in _Animated Pictures_[J] of the development and present state of chronophotography, or the art of "conveying by persistence of vision a counterfeit impression of objects in motion through the display in rapid succession of a series of related pictures." The story shows very clearly that this, like most other inventions of consequence, is no sudden discovery, but is the culmination of a very long series of experiments. The principle of it is embodied in the toy, the zoetrope, the origin of which is not known, though a citation from Lucretius indicates that something of the kind existed in his time. With the discovery of instantaneous photography, a new application of the principle of the zoetrope was found. Muybridge and Marey were pioneers in this development with their photographs of the motions of animals valuable in sciences. Since their work was begun the photographic processes and apparatus have been greatly improved. Mr. Jenkins forecasts a brilliant and useful future for the art, which he hopes will be prosecuted along the line of other than its present most popular uses. The book is practical as well as historical and prophetic, and contains an account of Mr. Jenkins's phantoscope as the first successful "moving picture projecting apparatus," for which he received the Elliott Cresson medal from the Franklin Institute.

_The Metric System of Weights and Measures_, prepared by Mr. _A. D. Risteen_, and published by the Hartford Steam-Boiler Inspection Company, Hartford, Connecticut (price, $1.25), gives what has long been wanted--a neat volume, convenient for the pocket and durably bound, furnishing tables for instantly converting all the metrical units up to one hundred of each into those of the English weights and measures, and _vice versa_. Calculation, being needed only for the numbers above one hundred, for which there are already short devices, is reduced to the lowest possible limit.

_Terrestrial Magnetism_, an international quarterly journal, edited by _L. A. Bauer_ and _Thomas French, Jr._, and published at the University of Cincinnati, is the recognized organ of the International Conference on Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity. The September number, 1898, contains the proceedings of the conference, which met in connection with the last Bristol meeting of the British Association. It contains in full the welcoming address of Prof. W. E. Ayrton, the opening address of A. W. Rücker, president of the conference, and ten of the papers read at the meeting.

The name of Prof. _John Trowbridge_ as author of such a book as _Philip's Experiments; or, Physical Science at Home_ (D. Appleton and Company, $1) is a sure guarantee of its scientific value. The author has given a chapter substantially out of his own experience, for he says his taste for science and for drawing were stimulated by his father in the manner here described. His object in publishing it is "to show that a few moments devoted each day at home to simple investigations can result in habits of self-reliance in the acquirement of a modern language and in the study of the art of drawing." He endeavors also to show how to cultivate a taste for mathematics by studying practical problems in surveying and in sailing a boat; and how much a parent can accomplish in the formation of a son's tastes without special knowledge, and without the expenditure of much time and money. The account is in the form of letters from the father to a friend, describing his experiments with his son Philip in this method of teaching. He has always cultivated fellowship with the boy; and, finding him inclined to improve and add to the designs on the wall-paper, puts objects to be drawn and copied in his way, and induces him to go out and draw from Nature. So the boy learns to study forms and observe. To teach language he gives him regularly the daily German newspaper, to pick out what he can from it, and joins him in the sport. In a similar way he introduces Philip to surveying and physics, and other branches of science. The plan is a success; Philip attracts attention by the ingenuity which his training has enabled him to develop, and going to college is graduated with credit and in possession of a live as well as a book knowledge of what he has studied.

In _The Story of the English_ (American Book Company) the more prominent facts of English history from the beginning to the present time are related by _H. A. Guerber_ in simple, brief narratives. A commendable feature of the book is the insistence in the preface of the essential oneness of the English and American people--an idea that can hardly be too sedulously cultivated. The author's principal object has been to render pupils so familiar with the prominent characters of English history that they shall henceforth seem like old acquaintances, and, in addition, to make the story attractive; but it is a fact to be regretted that he has regarded the growth of English law and liberty and the changes in religion as too unintelligible and uninteresting to be more than touched upon "very briefly and in the most simple way." The growth of law and liberty are the very things that it is most important to fix the attention of children upon, and it is only because they have suffered comparative neglect in the education of teachers in favor of stories of war and intrigue that they are not the most intelligible and interesting branch of the subject.

Prof. _Francis E. Nipher_, of Washington University, having been called upon to present a paper to an educational convention on the Greater Efficiency of Science Instruction, undertook to show how such changes as were adapted to promote that end might be accomplished without radical departures from present methods; and the _Introduction to Graphical Algebra_ (Henry Holt & Co., New York, 60 cents) is the result of that effort. The author believes that the study of algebra and geometry as distinct subjects having no relation to each other gives the pupil a false idea of the intellectual situation of to-day; that by injecting here and there into the ordinary instruction in algebra such material as is found in his book, new meaning will be given to the operations involved in the solution of equations, and new interest in the subject may be aroused; and that as scientific investigators are making much use of other methods than Euclid's, while the study of his geometry should not be banished from our schools, some of the time given to it might be usefully spent in elementary analytical geometry or graphical algebra. The treatise is brief and convenient in size and composed in clear language.

_The New Man, a Chronicle of the Modern Time_ (Philadelphia: The Levytype Company), is a story written by _Ellis Paxson Oberholzer_ with reference to that expansion of women's education and sphere of action which is suggested by the phrase "the new woman." In it "the new woman is developed to her logical conclusion, and the new man as he must needs become under the reaction of her influence," and it deals with "men and women imbued with the modern university spirit, whose emotional natures are developed under the scientific impulse of our time, and whose thoughts and actions reflect that impulse in the midst of all the varied realities of our modern life."

_Armageddon_ (Rand, McNally & Co.), to the plot of which the author's name of _Stanley Waterloo_ seems curiously appropriate, is possibly a specimen of a class of literature to which we are likely to be treated in abundance for a few years to come. The spoliation of the Spanish Egyptians by the Americans having come to a halt with the gain of Puerto Rico and the Philippines, the great Anglo-American alliance enters upon the view and is made a fact, though informally. The two nations together build the Nicaragua Canal, and are about to celebrate its completion, when they are anticipated by the precipitation of the war of the nations through the simultaneous occurrence of a number of slight international quarrels in different parts of the world. Germany, Russia, the Scandinavians, and the Latins are pitted on one side, and the British and Americans, assisted by the British colonies and the Japanese, on the other; and the battle of the combined fleets occurs near the Canaries. The hero of the story has invented an air ship which carries terrible explosives to be dropped from a great height into the midst of the enemy. This engine does its work at the decisive moment, and then follows the grab game of negotiations, in which might rules, and Germany joins the Anglo-Saxon alliance against the rest of the world. Finally, the air-ship engine of destruction has rendered war henceforth forever impossible.

Mr. _James Reid Cole_, president of a classical and military school at Dallas, Texas, has published under the title of _Miscellany_ what is substantially a picture or transcript of his own life. It contains a variety of articles--literary essays, school addresses, and even schoolboy compositions--the chief interest of which is to the author and his close friends. Other papers, such as A Bird's-eye View of Johnston's Surrender, the sketches of the Life of Lieutenant C. C. Cole, the Looking Backward over the course of the author's own life, and political and legislative speeches may have a more general value as partial reflections of the times to which they relate, more intimate than are usually to be derived from ordinary sketches and histories.

The publications of the _New York Academy of Sciences_ now consist of two series--the _Annals_ (8vo) and the _Memoirs_ (4to). The Transactions, in which the shorter papers and business reports have hitherto appeared, are abolished, and the matter appears in the Annals. This publication, which was begun in 1824, contains the scientific contributions and reports of researches, together with the reports of meetings. The complete volumes will hereafter coincide with the calendar year. Vol. X, Nos. 1 to 12, contains three papers by H. S. Davis and one by Frank Schesinger based on the Rutherfurd photographs of the stars; The Nature and Origin of Stipules, by A. A. Tyler, and an examination of the Ascidian Half-Embryo, by H. E. Crampton, Jr. Vol. XI, Part II, contains the annual address of retiring President J. J. Stevenson, February 28, 1898, on the Debt of the World to Pure Science, and six articles on special subjects in biology.

The Commissioner of Labor was authorized by Congress in 1895 to make an investigation, so far as it could be done within the limits of the regular appropriations to his department, relative to the economic aspects of the liquor traffic. He interpreted such an investigation to include the consideration of monetary conditions; of the agricultural and other products used in the production of liquors; of the manufacture of liquors as a distinct industry; of transportation, consumption, and the traffic in them; of the revenue derived from them and the laws regulating its collection; and of the experience and practice of employers in relation to the use of intoxicants. In some of these phases of the subject the facts were not separable from those relating to other matters; in others, they were to be found in the reports of other departments; and original inquiry was necessary only with reference to the last three items of the category. The results of this inquiry are given in the _Twelfth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1897_, under the heading of _Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem_.

_A New Story of the Stars_ is an essay in which _A. W. Bickerton_, professor of chemistry and physics in Christ Church College, New Zealand, sets forth a theory of the origin of universes or of parts of universes by impact. Nebulæ already existing--but how existing we are not informed--careering through space, are supposed to collide, whereby heat and light are developed. They may meet in face, and would then probably coalesce, but more likely the impact would be a grazing one, when three bodies would be produced; a portion, or slice, as the author calls it, of each of the colliding bodies would be sheared off, forming an intensely hot and bright new star, while the original masses would go on their course, having the parts that had been in contact heated and made brilliant, so as to present in their revolutions the aspect of variable stars. The author's attention was drawn to this subject by the appearance of a new star in Cygnus in 1877. A little while afterward Nova Aurigæ appeared, presenting exactly the phenomena he had predicted. Professor Bickerton writes as one who understands his subject; there is nothing in his speculations, so far as we have observed, that grates harshly with known facts, and it can be read, as he reads it, to account plausibly for some of the facts--just as can several other theories of the formation of the universe which are still only speculations. The problem is yet far from comprehension, and is one of the legacies which the nineteenth century is destined to bequeath to the twentieth. (Published at Christ Church, New Zealand.)

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The Structure and Classification of Birds. By Frank E. Beddard. London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 548.

[B] Bush Fruits. A Horticultural Monograph of Raspberries, Blackberries, Dewberries, Currants, Gooseberries, and other Shrublike Fruits. By Fred W. Card. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 537. Price, $1.50.

[C] The History of the World, from the Earliest Historical Time to the Year 1898. By Edgar Sanderson. With Maps. New York: D. Appleton and Company. 1898.

[D] Life, Death, and Immortality, and Kindred Essays. By William M. Bryant. New York: The Baker & Taylor Company.

[E] Elements of Sanitary Engineering. By Mansfield Merriman. New York: John Wiley & Sons. London: Chapman & Hall, Limited. Pp. 216. $2.

[F] An Epitome of Human Histology. By Arthur W. Weysse. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 90. Price, $1.50.

[G] Elementary Botany. By George Francis Atkinson, Ph. D. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 444. Price, $1.25.

[H]: A History of Japanese Literature. By W. G. Aston, Late Japanese Secretary to H. M. Legation, Tokyo. D. Appleton and Company.

[I] An Elementary Text-Book of Botany. By Sydney H. Vines. London: Swan, Sonnenschein & Co. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 611. Price, $2.25.

[J] Animated Pictures. An Exposition of the Historical Development of Chronophotography, its Present Scientific Application and Future Possibilities, and of the Methods and Apparatus employed in the Entertainment of Large Audiences by Means of Projecting Lanterns to give the Appearance of Objects in Motion. Washington, D. C.: C. Francis Jenkins. Pp. 118, with plates.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins and Reports. Connecticut: Twenty-second Annual Report, for 1898, Part I, Fertilizers. Pp. 101.--Cornell University: No. 163. Three Important Fungous Diseases of the Sugar Beet. By B. M. Duggar. Pp. 30; No. 164. Peach-Leaf Cure, etc. By B. M. Duggar. Pp. 20.--Massachusetts Agricultural College (Hatch Station): No. 58. Manurial Requirements of Crops. Pp 16.--New Jersey: No. 135. Poisonous Plants. By Byron D. Halsted. Pp. 28.--North Dakota Weather and Crop Service, Fifth Annual Report. B. H. Bronson, section director. Pp. 78; Monthly Reports for October and November, 1898. Pp. 8 each.--Ohio: No. 96. The Army Worm and Other Insects. By P. M. Webster and C. W. Mally. Pp. 26; No. 97. Some Diseases of Wheat and Oats. By A. D. Selby. Pp. 32; No. 98. Small Fruits. By W. J. Green. Pp. 146.--West Virginia: No. 53. Commercial Fertilizers. By J. H. Stewart and B. H. Hite. Pp. 36.

American Asiatic Association, Journal of the. Vol. I, No. 5. John Foord, editor. Pp. 16.

Ayer, N. W., and Son. American Newspaper Annual, 1899. Philadelphia. Pp. 1400.

Berea Quarterly, February, 1899. Berea College, Kentucky. Pp. 28. 30 cents. $1 a year.

Berry, Arthur. A Short History of Astronomy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (University Series). Pp. 440. $1.50.

Bradford, Gamaliel. The Lesson of Popular Government. New York: The Macmillan Company. 2 vols. Pp. 520 and 590. $4.

Brown, William Harvey. On the South African Frontier. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 430, with map. $3.

Buckley, Arabella B. The Fairy-Land of Science. New York: D. Appleton and Company.

Clayton, C. Helm. Studies of Cyclonic and Anti-Cyclonic Phenomena with Kites. Blue Hill (Massachusetts) Meteorological Observatory. Pp. 15, with plates.

Force, General Manning F. General Sherman. New York: D. Appleton and Company (Great Commanders Series). Pp. 353.

Guignet, E., and Gamier, Edouard. La Céramique, Ancienne et Modern (Ceramics, Ancient and Modern). Paris: Félix Alcan. (Bibliothèque Scientifique Internationale.) Pp. 311. 6 francs.

Gellé, Le Dr. M. E. L'Audition et ses Organes (Hearing and Its Organs). Paris: Félix Alcan. (Bibliothèque Scientifique Internationale.) Pp. 326. 6 francs.

Hancock, James Denton. The Louisiana Purchase treated in its Relations to the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence. Pp. 8.

Herzberg, Henry. True _versus_ False Education. Pp. 20.

Hinsdale, Guy, M. D. Acromegaly. Detroit: William M. Warren. Pp. 88. $1.50.

International Correspondence School, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Short Courses in English Branches, Bookkeeping, Stenography, and Mechanical and Ornamental Drawing. Pp. 16.

Jacobs, Joseph. The Story of Geographical Discovery. New York: D. Appleton and Company. (Library of Useful Stories.) Pp. 200. 40 cents.

Kingsley, Mary H. West African Studies. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 633, with maps. $5.

Library Notes, Vol. IV, No. 16. Edited by Melvil Dewey. Simplified Library School Rules. Pp. 72. Quarterly. 50 cents. $1 a year.

Lille, Société Photographique de. Le Nord Photographie. January, 1899. (Sixth year.) Lille, France. Pp. 20.

Mason, William P. Examination of Water (Chemical and Bacteriological). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 135. $1.25.

Macalaster, The. Monthly. February, 1899. St. Paul, Minnesota, Macalaster College. Pp. 32. 15 cents. $1 a year.

Parsons, Frances Theodora. How to Know the Ferns. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 215. $1.50.

Rafinesque, C. S. Ichthyologia Ohioensis; or, Natural History of the Fishes inhabiting the River Ohio and its Tributary Streams. A reprint of the original, with life, etc. By R. Ellsworth Call. Cleveland, Ohio: The Burrows Brothers Company. Pp. 175. $4.

Reprints. Ashmead, Albert S., M. D. No Evidence in America of Pre-Columbian Leprosy. Pp. 10.--Grant, Sir James. The Alimentary Canal and Human Decay In Relation to the Neurons. Pp. 8.--Hopkins, Thomas C. Clays and Clay Industries of Pennsylvania; I, Clays of Western Pennsylvania (in part). Pp. 183.--Howard, L. O. The Economic Status of Insects as a Class. Pp. 33.--Jackman, Wilbur S. Constructive Work in the Common Schools. Pp. 18.

Russell, Frank. Explorations in the Far North. University of Iowa. Pp. 290.

Schiavone, Mario. Il Principio della dirigibilita orizzontalie degli aerostate ed Binaerostato (The Principle of the Horizontal Dirigibility of Aërostats and the Binaërostat). Potenza, Italy. Pp. 48.

Schubert, Hermann. Mathematical Essays and Recreations. Translated by T. J. McCormack. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company. Pp. 149. 75 cents.

Scrutten, Percy E. Electricity in Town and Country Houses. Second edition. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 148. $1.

Sloyd Bulletin No. 2, March, 1899. Boston: Sloyd Training School. Pp. 21.