LITERARY NOTICES. 



273 



the discussion of the morphological relations 

 and stratigraphical significance of the fossils. 

 Brief nominal histories have been appended 

 to the descriptions of many of the most im- 

 portant species, together with some of the 

 most salient points brought out in the pres- 

 ent investigation concerning the structural 

 features of the various types. In illustra- 

 tion, the leading Missouri species of each 

 genus have been figured, and also some of 

 those forms heretofore described from the 

 State, but never illustrated. Besides the 

 consideration of the fossils, the stratigraphy 

 of the State is described in an introductory 

 chapter, and a geological map is furnished. 

 In the present volumes animal remains are 

 represented. The fossil plants are to be de- 

 scribed hereafter. The work is thoroughly 

 well done. 



A History of the United States. By Al- 

 len C. Thomas, A. M., Professor of His- 

 tory in Haverford College, Pennsylvania. 

 Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. Pp. 410 + 

 72. Price, $1.25. 



This is a convenient and useful hand- 

 book of American history. The volume is 

 profusely illustrated, including some excellent 

 portraits of our distinguished men. Prof. 

 Thomas has condensed within very narrow 

 limits nearly all the essentials of our nation's 

 story. His aim has been to muster the main 

 facts, and impartially deal with events, the 

 causes of which are briefly but clearly 

 brought before the reader's mind. Though 

 the details of great battles are omitted, the 

 causes that led from time to time to hostili- 

 ties are disclosed, and the best authorities 

 are often cited. 



A recent publication of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture is a Monographic 

 Revision of the Pocket Gophers, exclusive of 

 the species of Thomomys, by Dr. G. Hart 

 Merriam. It is a pamphlet of 258 octavo 

 pages, illustrated with nineteen plates, four 

 maps, and seventy-one figures in the text. 

 Excepting part of the first chapter, less than 

 twenty pages, it is composed of the most 

 technical sort of biological material, abso- 

 lutely unintelligible to ninety-nine per cent 

 of the farmers for whose information it is 

 ostensibly published. The author, who is 

 Chief of the Division of Ornithology and 

 VOL. xlvii. 23 



Mammalogy in the department, explains its 

 appearance in these words : " In preparing a 

 bulletin on the economic relations of the 

 pocket gophers it became necessary to de- 

 termine the status and geographic distribu- 

 tion of the various forms. This study de- 

 veloped the fact that the group was sorely 

 in need of technical revision. The present 

 paper is the outgrowth of an attempt at such 

 a revision. It has grown so far beyond the 

 limits originally intended that a large genus 

 {Thomomys) has been of necessity omitted 

 and will form the subject of a subsequent 

 paper." So it seems that another volume 

 like this is threatened, and meanwhile the 

 farmers must wait for what may be of some 

 use to them the economic account, which, 

 the author tells us, " will appear as a sepa- 

 rate bulletin prepared by my assistant." The 

 biological information in the bulletin before 

 us has its value for science, but it is an im- 

 position to pay for its collection and publica- 

 tion with money that the people have devoted 

 to the advancement of agriculture. 



The first issue in the political series of 

 the Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin 

 is an examination of The Geographical Dis- 

 tribution of the Vote of the Thirteen States on 

 the Federal Constitution, by Orin G. Libby. 

 While State lines are used for convenience 

 in pointing out the distribution of Federal 

 and anti-Federal sentiment, attention is di- 

 rected especially to those social and eco- 

 nomic areas which have been the true units 

 in political history. The monograph is ac- 

 companied by General Walker's map show- 

 ing the distribution of the population of the 

 United States in 1*790, and a map showing 

 the distribution of the vote on the Federal 

 Constitution. 



Parts II and III of Vol. XXVI, Proceed- 

 ings of the Boston Society of Natural His- 

 tory, contain papers on Faceted Pebbles on 

 Cape Cod, by Prof. W. M. Davis ; Small Mam- 

 mals from the New Hampshire Mountains, 

 by Gerrit S. Miller, Jr. ; Some Typical Eskers 

 of Southern New England, by J. B. Wood- 

 worth; Spharagemon, a Study of the New 

 England Species, by Albert P. Morse; Theo- 

 ries of Evolution, by Prof. Edward B. Poul- 

 ton, of Oxford ; and briefer communications 

 from Profs. Harrison Allen, N. S. Shaler, 

 F. W. Putnam, W. G. Farlow, and others. 

 In the year 1893-94 the society received by 



