>S' CIENTIFIG LIT ERA T URE. 



131 



Verde Valley, Arizona, by Cosmas Mindeleff ; 

 Omaha Dwellings, Furniture, and Imple- 

 ments, by J. Owen Dorsey ; Casa Grande 

 Ruin, by Cosmas Mindeleff ; and Outlines of 

 Zufii Creation Myths, by Frank Hamilton 

 Gushing. 



The Miscellajieoun Papers by Heinrich 

 Hertz, in an authorized English translation 

 by D. E. Jones and G. A. Schott, published 

 by the Macmillan Company, form the first 

 volume of the author's collected works, as 

 edited by Dr. Philipp Lenard. The second 

 volume is a reprint of his Researches on the 

 Propagation of Electric Action (already pub- 

 lished in English as Electric Waves), and the 

 third volume consists of his Principles of 

 Mechanics, of which an English translation 

 is in press. The papers here included repre- 

 sent chiefly the earlier investigations which 

 the author carried out before his electrical 

 researches ; but the last three the Heidel- 

 berg lecture on the Relations between Light 

 and Electricity, an experimental investigation 

 of the passage of the cathode rays through 

 thin metallic tubes, and a tribute to Helm- 

 holtz, are of later dates. Nearly all the pa- 

 pers are extremely technical. In the intro- 

 duction Prof. Lenard gives a brief history of 

 Hertz's career in investigation, with notices 

 of the occasions on which some of the pa- 

 pers were composed, illustrated by liberal 

 extracts from the author's letters to his 

 parents. 



The Report of the Missouri Botanical Gar- 

 den for 1895, the seventh annual report, is a 

 favorable one in all respects. The finances 

 are entirely satisfactory, the receipts from 

 rentals having been increased by $'7,500 ; 

 profitable improvements and valuable addi- 

 tions have been made in the garden ; a larger 

 number of visitors by one third were record- 

 ed than in 1894, and they "showed no dis- 

 position to vandalism " ; the herbarium has 

 been added to, and now contains 242,162 

 specimens, valued at $24,216; besides 4,80V 

 wood specimens and veneers and microscopic 

 slides of woods ; and the library contains 

 20,549 volumes and pamphlets. The scien- 

 tific papers appended to the report include 

 one by Dr. Trelease on the Juglandacece of 

 the United States, particularly the hickories, 

 described with reference to their winter char- 

 acteristics ; a study of the Agaves of the 



United States, by A. Isabel Mulford ; an ac- 

 count of the ligulate Wolffias plants of the 

 Duckweed family of the United States, by 

 Charles Henry Thompson ; an address by 

 President Henry W. Rogers, of NorthAvestern 

 University, on the Value of a Study of Bot- 

 any ; and a catalogue of the Sturtevant Pre- 

 linnaean Library a gift of early Herbals, Nat- 

 ural Histories, and Medical Botanies, made 

 to the institution by Dr. E. Lewis Sturtevant, 

 of Somh Framingham, Mass. 



The Annual Report of the State Geoloffist 

 of New Jersey for 1894-'95 relates to the 

 Surface Geology, the Archaean Geology, Ar- 

 tesian Wells and Water Supply, and Forest- 

 ry. In surface geology Prof. Salisbury made 

 a general reconnaissance of the southeastern 

 parts of the State, and Mr. G. 0. Knapp of 

 the southwestern ; and the field work on the 

 surface formations is now done over nearly 

 all the State. Work was continued over the 

 Cretaceous and Tertiary formations, the Red 

 Sandstone formation, and the crystalline 

 rocks of the Highlands ; and special atten- 

 tion contmues to be given to artesian wells, 

 drainage, and natural parks and forest reser- 

 vations. Of the special papers on these sub- 

 jects we note that on forestry as being most 

 timely and full and definite ; and the subject 

 of forest fires receives in it a very satisfac- 

 tory discussion. 



A pamphlet on Oxides, the first of a series 

 under the general title. Chemistry at a 

 Glance, has been prepared by Herbert B. 

 Tuttle. After some introductory matter on 

 chemical physics, and a list of elements, 

 there follows a list of radicals with a graphic 

 formula for each. About half the pamphlet 

 is occupied by a list of oxides, giving the 

 properties and a graphic formula for each, 

 and there is a similar but shorter list of 

 compounds that the author groups under the 

 name "oxate." (The author. New York, 

 60 cents.) 



The contents of the Twentieth Annual 

 Report of the Department of Geology and 

 Natural Resources of Indiana for 1895 per- 

 tain almost wholly to economic geology. The 

 introductory portion embodies a general re- 

 view of the natural fuels of the State (coal, 

 petroleum, and natural gas), its resources 

 other than fuels, its natural history, the con- 

 dition of the State Museum which is under- 



