274 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gift a large number of stuffed animals from 

 the Boston Museum collection. Some of 

 these had been formerly in the famous Peale 

 Museum in Philadelphia. The work of a 

 guide in explaining the society's collections 

 to visitors was continued through the year 

 by the liberality of a Boston lady. An ar- 

 rangement was made with the Boston Nor- 

 mal School whereby the resources of the 

 society were employed to aid in the training 

 of teachers of science. Other evidences of 

 activity are reported. 



The numbers of the Journal of the Col- 

 lege of Science, Imperial University, Japan, 

 as they come to us, bear continuous evidence 

 of the original work that is done in scientific 

 investigation by Japanese students. The 

 latest three are Vol. VII, Part II, On the 

 After Shocks of Earthquakes, by F. Omori, 

 a careful study, with elaborate tables and 

 sixteen plates and charts ; Vol. VIT, Part 

 III, Mesozoic Plants from Kozuke, Kii, 

 Awa, and Tosa, by Matajiro Yokoyama, 

 Professor of Paleontology, with ten plates ; 

 and Vol. VIII, Part I, Studies on the Ec- 

 toparasitic Trematodes of Japan, by Seita- 

 ro Goto, of the Science College, with twenty- 

 nine plates. The last two papers include 

 full and definite descriptions of species. 



A curious insight is given into the 

 mythologies and modes of thought of some 

 of our Indian tribes by the study of Mr. J. 

 Walter Fewkes of The Walpi Flute Observ- 

 ance. This primitive drama, as we gather 

 from Mr. Fewkes's concluding paragraphs, 

 is performed on alternate years with the 

 " snake " ceremonials, to celebrate the com- 

 ing, in the early times, of the Horn or Flute 

 people to Walpi, where the Bear people and 

 the Snake people were living, and their re- 

 ception by them. The ceremony illustrates 

 the permanence and the significance of the 

 mythologies and the rituals of primitive 

 peoples, which are incomprehensible to our 

 ordinary knowledge. The ritual is not to 

 these peoples, Mr. Fewkes says, a series of 

 meaningless acts, performed haphazard and 

 without unity, varying in successive perform- 

 ances, but is fixed by immutably prescribed 

 laws which allow only limited variations. 

 Throughout the Flute ceremony there is the 

 same rigid adherence to prescribed usages 

 which exists in other rites, and there is the 

 same precision year after year in the se- 



quence of the various episodes. The observ- 

 ance is celebrated by a special fraternity, of 

 which, as well as of the ceremonies, carefully 

 detailed descriptions are given. 



In Hie World's Great Farm (Macmillan & 

 Co., New York) an attempt is made by Selina 

 Gay to set forth and illustrate the economy 

 of Nature. The world and all that is upon 

 it are regarded as a vast farm, its tillers and 

 its crops ; and the purpose of the book is to 

 tell what these crops are and how they are 

 grown. First is the tilling, which is done 

 by the pioneer laborers, the gases of air and 

 water breaking up the rocks ; the soil-makers 

 cryptogamic vegetation of lichens and 

 mosses pulverizing the rock fragments and 

 preparing them for the more dainty vegeta- 

 tion ; soil-carriers the winds and the waters ; 

 the field laborers burrowing animals, from 

 the earthworm up ; the office of water as a 

 factor in vegetable growth, the roots and the 

 food drawing from the soil ; leaves absorb- 

 ing nourishment from the air ; the blossom 

 and seed and the various agencies employed 

 in the fertilization of flowers, and to secure 

 the scattering of the seed ; the chances of life 

 of the plant and the way they are guarded ; 

 the friends and foes of the Nature farmer 

 and the militia by which the foes are kept 

 down ; and " Man's Work on the Farm " 

 the purpose being kept in view throughout, 

 as Prof. G. S. Boulger says in the preface, 

 to give an account which, while simple 

 enough to be understood by unscientific 

 readers, and so accurate as to teach nothing 

 that will afterward have to be unlearned, 

 shall also be extremely attractive in the se- 

 lection and marshaling of facts. 



A very favorable impression is made 

 upon us by the Popular Scientific Lectures 

 of Prof. Ernst Much, of the University of 

 Prague, of which a translation authorized, 

 revised, and commended by the author, by 

 Thomas J. McCormack, is published by the 

 Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago. 

 The lectures were delivered between 1864 

 and 1894, at Prague and Gratz, and were 

 intended to give the public an intelligent 

 comprehension of the nature of scientific 

 work in the lines covered by them, and en- 

 list their sympathy with it. The most of 

 them are very lucid explanations of facts 

 and phenomena concerning which the people 

 are inquiring, while the last four are of a 



