SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



8si 



investigations and of tlie practical experience 

 of the writer in the construction of tailleSvS 

 kites parakites is the awkward, half-Greeli, 

 half-English name he gives them and in the 

 perfection of methods for flying them in vari- 

 ous conditions of the atmosphere. Mr. Wog- 

 lom is a business man well occupied, and has 

 given attention to the making and flying of 

 kites only as an avocation and recreation, 

 without laying any claim to be a student in 

 the scientific bearings of the subject, or in 

 aerodynamics. Nevertheless, he never for- 

 gets the possibilities of a scientific outcome 

 from experiments with kites, and keeps them 

 well in the mind of his reader. His treatise 

 opens with a view of Oriental kite-flying, its 

 history, so far as it is recorded, from its use 

 in Malaysia a thousand years before the 

 Christian era, and the possible religious sig- 

 nificance of its origin to carry prayers to 

 the divinities above. Descriptions of Japa- 

 nese, Chinese, Javanese, and other Oriental 

 patterns follow; then the author's experi- 

 ments in kite making and flying, in photo- 

 graphing from kites, etc., are given, and the 

 principles of the construction and manage- 

 ment of kites as embodied in Oriental forms 

 and discovered in the author's own expeii- 

 ence are recorded, and the possible scientific 

 applications are glanced at. The whole 

 forms an interesting and instructive treatise. 



The main object of Mr. Holden's paper 

 on mountain observatories * is to study the 

 conditions suitable for astronomical work at 

 high levels, while meteorological and physio- 

 logical conditions enter into consideration in 

 a subordinate degree. The author's studies 

 bearing on the subject began during the 

 summer of 1873 in the mountains of central 

 Colorado. His observations were repeated 

 at intervals till he was called to Mount Ham 

 ilton in 1888, where he has had opportunities 

 to compare the conditions with those at nearly 

 every observatory in the United States and 

 with stations in other countries. His pur- 

 pose in this paper is to collect and study the 

 many scattered notices of the conditions of 

 good vision at mountain stations all over the 

 globe. We have thus notices or descrip- 

 tions of the experiment at Teneriffe, and of 



* Mountain Observatories in America and 

 Europe. By Edward S. Holden. Wasliington: 

 Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 77, 8vo, with Plates. 



the observatories at Nice, Mont Blanc, Ben 

 Nevis, the Santis, the Sonnblick, Arequipa, 

 El Misti, and many others abroad, and of the 

 mountain observatories in the United States 

 illustrated by many photographic repro- 

 ductions concluding with a few remarks on 

 scientific ballooning and kite - flying, from 

 which Mr. Holden expects even greater re- 

 sults, at least in meteorology, than from 

 mountain-top observation. A copious bibli- 

 ography of the subject is given. 



Plants and their Children, by Mrs. Wil- 

 liam Starr Dana (American Book Company, 

 65 cents), is a child's reading book, de- 

 signed, while it entertains and instructs, to 

 create an interest in children in botany. It 

 consists of a series of easy lessons or read- 

 ings on the wonders of plant life written in 

 such a manner as to make them entertaining 

 as stories. The various forms and curious 

 features of familiar plants and trees, includ- 

 ing their roots and stems, buds and leaves, 

 fruits, seeds, and flowers, are thus described. 

 The book is so arranged as to correspond 

 both with the course of the school year and 

 the seasons of development of plant growth. 



The Division of Forestry of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture has done 

 a creditable service in issuing its bulletin on 

 The Timber Fines of the Southern United 

 States. This publication consists of separate 

 chapters by Dr. Charles Mohr, on the spe- 

 cies known as the long-leaf, Cuban, short- 

 leaf, loblolly, and spruce pines, together 

 with a brief description of the wood of these 

 five pines, by Filibert Roth. The distribu- 

 tion and botanical characters of each species 

 are given, the products obtained from it, 

 conditions necessary to its growth, its ene- 

 mies, and the forest management required 

 by it. The information under each of these 

 heads is full and practical. In an introduc- 

 tion, B. E. Fernow, chief of the Division of 

 Forestry, calls attention ro the facts that 

 the Southern States abound in those sandy 

 soils which afford suSicient sustenance for 

 the pines but are practically useless for any- 

 thing else, and that the forest wealth of this 

 section is being seriously impaired by waste- 

 ful methods of cutting timber, by the re- 

 peated conflagrations that follow the lumber- 

 ing, and by the operations of the turpentine 

 gatherers. Contrary to a common belief, 



