LITERARY NOTICES. 



56. 



and weight. The appendix includes a col- 

 lection of names in biography, fiction, geog- 

 raphy, mythology, etc., with the pronuncia- 

 tion and definition of each, arranged in a 

 single alphabetical list. There are also a 

 glossary of foreign words and phrases, a list 

 of cases of faulty diction, lists of disputed 

 spellings and pronunciations, abbreviations, 

 signs, and one giving the sentiments of 

 flowers and gems. The scientific alphabet 

 used throughout the dictionary to indicate 

 pronunciation is explained at length in the 

 appendix, and there is also a key showing 

 the pronunciation of Anglo-Saxon, L;itin, 

 Greek, and thirteen modern languages with 

 the aid of this alphabet. In the appendix, 

 as in the body of the work, the form and 

 arrangement of the matter have been care- 

 fully adapted to popular use. In a great 

 many families the dictionary is the only ref- 

 erence book, and to these especially the 

 Standard will prove highly satisfactory. 



Dr. Judas : a Portrayal of the Opium 

 Habit. By William Rosser Cobbe. 

 Chicago : S. C. Griggs & Co. Pp. 320. 

 Price, $1.50. 



Nine years of dreadful experience joined 

 to the facile diction of an able journalist are 

 here applied to warning all who will read of 

 the horrors of opium slavery. The author 

 tells the story of his own subjection vividly, 

 impressively, fascinatingly with incidents 

 from the experience of others and observa- 

 tions on the effects of other narcotic drugs. 

 The habit was fastened upon him from the 

 administration of morphine during an illness 

 by his physician. He declares that a great 

 majority of the two million persons habit- 

 ually using narcotic drugs in the United 

 States were introduced to the habit by care- 

 less physicians, whom he censures severely. 

 From the start he found himself compelled 

 to deceive and lie in order to conceal the 

 practice. For this he despised himself, and 

 he was also in constant dread of being 

 found out. Delusions as to hostile inten- 

 tions of those about him and threatening 

 voices haunted him. The unsettling influ- 

 ence of the drug caused him to endanger 

 the support of his family several times by 

 giving up his position. He had bewildering, 

 grotesque, and dreadful dreams, and among 

 his other ills were insomnia, periods of de- 



vol. xlvii. 4*7 



pression, and a variety of aches and pains. 

 After many attempts to break his chains, he 

 was cured by a treatment lasting thirty days, 

 thus contradicting the verdict of many phy- 

 sicians that " the opium habit is a vice 

 which can not be reached by medical sci- 

 ence." The author vigorously denounces 

 De Quincey's book, and contradicts many of 

 its statements which are favorable to opium. 



Elementary Lessons in Electricity and 

 Magnetism. By Silyaxus P. Thompson. 

 London and New York : Macmillan & 

 Co. Pp. 607. Price, $1.40. 



This is a new and revised edition of a 

 work which first appeared in 1881. The re- 

 vision was rendered necessary by the large 

 advances which have been made in the elec- 

 trical world during the last ten years. These 

 advances have occurred not alone in the 

 practical electrician's department, in the way 

 of perfecting old and creating new machinery 

 and thus opening new fields for its applica- 

 tion, but also in the general acceptance and 

 extending of theories which ten years ago 

 were mere speculations. 



The most striking of the latter has been 

 the establishment of the identity between 

 light waves and electrical waves, a fact the 

 probability of which Clerk Maxwell sug- 

 gested many years ago, and which has since 

 been practically established by the work of 

 Heinrich Hertz. In view of the widespread 

 and constantly growing uses and applica- 

 tions of electrical energy in the arts and in 

 transportation, it seems quite essential that 

 even a common-school education, to which, 

 unfortunately, much the greater number are 

 limited, should include such a study of elec- 

 trical theory and practice as would, at any 

 rate, teach the student the dangers and means 

 of guarding against accident when in the 

 neighborhood of this most subtle and silent 

 of workers. This book, while rather more 

 extensive than such a superficial knowledge 

 would require, is simply and clearly written 

 and well arranged, and, as its name implies, 

 begins at the bottom. 



The first three chapters have to do re* 

 spectively with frictional electricity, current 

 electricity, and magnetism, and together 

 constitute Part I. Part II contains chapters 

 on electrostatics, electro-magnetics, elec- 

 tricity as a heating, lighting, and motor 



