852 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



however, the tests made by the Division 

 show that timber that has been bled for its 

 resin is as strong as unbled, if of the same 

 weight. Some attempt has been made to 

 perform the difficult task of estimating the 

 remaining resources of the Southern pine 

 forests, and no pains have been spared to im- 

 press upon the owners of timber lands and 

 the operators of mills a knowledge of the 

 treatment required to preserve the value of 

 their investments. The volume is illustrated 

 with many plates and cuts. 



Fifty of the biographical sketches that 

 have appeared in this magazine have been 

 revised by the editor and issued in a volume 

 under the title Pioneers of Science in America 

 Appletons, $4). As the title denotes, the book 

 includes only Americans, and is devoted to 

 the earliest of these who were prominent in 

 the field of science. In revising and com- 

 pleting each of the sketches Dr. Youmans 

 has had the aid of some descendant or pupil 

 of the subject in all cases but a few of the 

 earliest. Some of the accounts have been 

 much extended for the book. That of Ben- 

 jamin Franklin, which opens the volume, is 

 entirely new, and is the first systematic ac- 

 count of what Franklin did in science. That 

 of S. F. B. Morse also has not appeared in 

 the Monthly. Among those that have been 

 largely rewritten are the sketches of Silli- 

 man, Torrey, Henry, Coffin, and Agassiz. 

 New portraits have been substituted for a 

 few made in the early days of the magazine 

 that were not uniform in style with the rest. 

 Steel portraits accompany the articles on 

 Franklin and Morse, and there is a heliotype 

 of W. B. Rogers. The latest subject in- 

 cluded in the volume is David Dale Owen, 

 who was born in 180*7. 



A handy little book embodying Tlie Ele- 

 ments of Commercial Laiu has been pre- 

 pared by Albert 8. Belles, lecturer on law in 

 the University of Pennsylvania (Holt, $1). 

 Under twenty heads, such as Parties, Assent, 

 Seller and Buyer, Partnership, Negotiable 

 Paper, Insurance, Shipping, Deeds and 

 Leases, and Corporations, it gives systemat- 

 ically and briefly the substance of what the 

 business man needs to know in order to se. 

 cure contracts that can be enforced, if neces- 

 sary, in the courts, and to avoid improperly 

 jeopai'dizing his own interests. The volume 



is indexed, and the topics treated in the sev- 

 eral numbered paragraphs of each chapter 

 are given at the head of the chapter. 



A first memoir on The Bomhycine Moths 

 of Ai7ierica North of Mexico, by Prof. A l- 

 pheus S. Packard, has been issued by the Na- 

 tional Academy of Sciences. It is devoted to 

 the Notodontidce, and includes descriptions of 

 the insects in their larval, pupal, and adult 

 forms, with notes on their habits, food plants, 

 geographical distribution, etc. This is the 

 first installment of what Prof. Packard in- 

 tends to be a general account, systematic and 

 developmental, of our North American bom- 

 bycine moths. He has aimed to describe 

 these moths in the light of Weismann's sug- 

 gestive and stimulating Studies in the Theo- 

 ries of Descent (1882), being convinced that 

 additional knowledge of their ontogeny will 

 lead to a comprehension of the phylogeny of 

 the higher Lepidoptera in general. From the 

 facts connected with the transformations of 

 the bombyces, also, he believes much may 

 be learned with reference to the transmis- 

 sion of acquired characters. The monograph 

 is accompanied by forty-nine plates, many of 

 them colored, and ten maps showing the 

 distribution of genera. There are also about 

 ninety figures in the test. 



Part IV, Vol. X, Second Series, of the 

 Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences 

 is devoted to papers on the crania, imple- 

 ments, and other objects found by Mr. 

 Clarence B. Moore in certain mounds in 

 Florida. In the first paper, Harrison Allen, 

 M. D., describes five crania from mounds on 

 the St. Johns River,' comparing them with 

 crania from other parts of North America. 

 In three papers which follow this Mr. Moore 

 describes a large number of implements of 

 stone, earthenware, and bone, and some of 

 shell and copper. The papers are accom- 

 panied by thirty-eight plates and many fig- 

 ures showing the crania and other objects of 

 full size. 



The first part of a comprehensive work 

 by David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren 

 Evermann on The Fishes of North and Mid- 

 dle America has been issued as Bulletin No. 

 47 of the United States National Museum, 

 It is a descriptive catalogue of the species of 

 fishlike vertebrates found in the waters of 

 North America, being in a sense a revision 



