4i6 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



recognized, very little account is usually 

 taken of them in cooking, and the worst re- 

 sults from their non-observance naturally 

 occur among children whose digestive tract 

 is less able to deal with unsuitable material. 

 The first six chapters deal with the proper 

 food for infants, and its preparation. Laxa- 

 tive foods are given a chapter. Nursery diet, 

 fat in food, diet in illness, and diet for school 

 children are all chapters of special interest. 

 There are about twenty pages of receipts, as 

 well as a good index, appended. 



An Inductive Matiual of the Straight 

 Line and the Circle, by William J. Meyers, 

 has arisen through the difficulty which the 

 author has found in dealing with his own 

 classes in geometry by the ordmary method, 

 which is a purely deductive one. He be- 

 lieves that the inductive method will yield 

 as extensive and exact a knowledge in the 

 same length of time, a much greater readi- 

 ness in the application of the knowledge ob- 

 tained, and a more thorough " training of 

 the imagination, invention, and judgment." 

 Instead of a series of written proofs to 

 memorize, such as, for instance, the sum of 

 the three angles of a triangle is equal to two 

 right angles, the student takes the triangle, 

 and, with suggestions from the teacher where 

 necessary, works out the various relations be- 

 tween its sides and angles for himself. The 

 method seems a great improvement on that 

 usually adopted. (The author, Fort Collins, 

 Col.) ' 



Nature Study, by W. S. Jackman, was 

 written, says the author, for the purpose of 

 aiding the elementary teacher in imparting 

 this very important branch of knowledge to 

 the younger pupils. The close relation be- 

 tween Nature study and the other subjects in 

 the common-school course, and a few of the 

 more general and essential facts and laws of 

 natural science, are chiefly dwelt on. The 

 book is accompanied by a series of charts, 

 bound separately, which present " a con- 

 spectus of selected work in Nature study for 

 each month of the entire year." (The author, 

 Chicago, 85 cents.) 



The second series of Life Histories of 

 North American Birds Special Bulletin 

 No. 3 of the United States National Museum 

 by Charles Bendire, relates to the parrots, 

 cuckoos, anis, trogons, kingfishers, wood- 



peckers, goatsuckers, etc. ; swifts, hum- 

 mingbirds, cotingas, tyrant flycatchers, larks, 

 crows, jays, magpies, starlings, blackbirds, 

 orioles, and grackles ; while the former se- 

 ries (Bulletin No. 1) included the gallina- 

 ceous birds, pigeons, doves, and birds of 

 prey. The descriptions have especial refer- 

 ence to the breeding habits and eggs of the 

 birds, and are based on the collections in the 

 museum. The classification of the Ameri- 

 can Ornithologists' Union has been followed. 

 The seven plates contain more than two 

 hundred representations of eggs, reproduced 

 by chromolithography from original water- 

 color drawings. We are informed that the 

 oological collection of the museum has been 

 increased by the acquisition by gift of the 

 collection of seven thousand specimens of 

 Dr. William L. Ralph, of Utica, N. Y. We 

 hope the collections of all the ornithologists 

 will be completed soon, and that the rest of 

 the eggs may be allowed to become birds. 

 The very first sentence of the first descrip- 

 tion in this book tells a story that should 

 make all collectors pause. It is that the 

 range of the bird in question the only rep- 

 resentative of its family in the United States 

 is yearly becoming more and more re- 

 stricted. 



The Sixteenth Report of the United States 

 Geological Survey, the first issued under the 

 direction of Mr. Charles D. Walcott, appears 

 in four large, handsome volumes. From the 

 report of the director in the first volume we 

 learn that he has not made any radical 

 changes in either the policy or personnel of 

 the survey. Such modifications as have been 

 made are intended to bring his bureau more 

 in touch with some of the economic and 

 educational interests of the country. They 

 include improving the quality of the topo- 

 graphic maps and marking the subdivision 

 lines and the township and section cor- 

 ners on those of States containing public 

 lands ; placing the entire topographic force 

 within the classified civil service ; obtain- 

 ing authority from Congress to print and 

 sell topographic maps with text for edu- 

 cational purposes ; enlarging the Divisions 

 of Hydrography and of Mineral Resources ; 

 and the making of reconnaissance surveys 

 of regions supposed to contain impoi'tant 

 economic resources, in order to obtain in- 



