LITERARY NOTICES. 



417 



wherein the unsolved problems of life are 

 dealt with, we are led to a clearer apprehen- 

 sion of what we do not, rather than what we 

 do know concerning the insoluble. This, in 

 the light of certain to compound a term 

 scio- dogmatic allegations extant, is at least 

 refreshing, if not entirely novel. 



Legends of the Micmacs. By the Rev. 

 Silas Tertius Rand. Wellesley Philo- 

 logical Publications. New York : Long- 

 mans, Green & Co. Pp. 452. 



These legends, which are published un- 

 der the direction of the Department of Com- 

 parative Philology of Wellesley College, 

 were collected by Dr. Rand during the forty 

 years of his service as a missionary among 

 the Nova Scotia Indians from whom they 

 are derived. The stories were related to him 

 in Micmac, by the native Indians, and were 

 then translated and written down by him in 

 English. The original manuscript is a vol- 

 ume of nine hundred quarto pages. A few 

 of the legends have already been published 

 in the Dominion Monthly and the Ameri- 

 can Antiquarian ; and some have been used 

 and cited from in Mr. Leland's Algonkin 

 Legends and in Mr. William Elder's article 

 in the North American Review on the Ab- 

 origines of Nova Scotia. Dr. Rand is 

 quoted as saying, concerning the origin of 

 these stories and their relationship to Eura- 

 pean tales and myths : " I have never found 

 more than five or six Indians who could re- 

 late these queer stories ; and most if not all 

 of these are now gone. Who their original 

 author was, or how old they are, we have no 

 means of knowing. Some of them are evi- 

 dently of modern date, because they refer to 

 events that have taken place since the ad- 

 vent of the whites. Some of them are so 

 similar to some of the old European ' fairy 

 tales ' and ' wizard stories ' in our English 

 story books as to lead to the impression 

 that they are really one and the same." Mr. 

 Leland has noticed some curious coincidences 

 between the Norse myths and those of the 

 Wabanaki or northeastern Algonkins, to 

 which branch the Micmacs belong, and in- 

 clines toward an explanation of the resem- 

 blances by the theory of direct transmission. 

 Dr. Rand's biographer gives him the credit 

 of being the discoverer of Glooscap, a myth- 

 ological character which Mr. Leland calls 

 VOL. XLV. 32 



" the most Aryan-like of any ever evolved 

 from a savage mind," and with having saved 

 from oblivion the mythological lore of a peo- 

 ple that are losing with every generation 

 their hold on customs and manners. Prof. 

 Horsford, of Wellesley College, took a great 

 interest in the publication of this work ; and 

 the editing of it for publication has been 

 done by Helen L. Webster. 



Alternating Currents : An Analytical 

 AND Graphical Treatment for Students 

 and Engineers. By Frederick Bedell, 

 Ph. D., and Albert Gushing Crehore, 

 Ph. D. New York : The W. J. Johnson 

 Company (Limited), 41 Park Row. Pp. 

 325. 



As precluding the necessity for further 

 search after a certain class of handbooks on 

 alternating currents the present work, de- 

 signed to answer any query from the simplest 

 to the most complex, will amply repay a 

 careful perusal. A thousand and one inter- 

 esting comparisons recur within its pages, 

 and it abounds with easy solutions to tech- 

 nical problems. It is a consistent applica- 

 tion of the modern method of solving thinss 

 easily, and many of our educational series 

 are wisely adopting a similar course. As 

 the authors suggest, the principles underly- 

 ing the subject need clear elucidation, more 

 particularly as incessant advances in the 

 utilization of alternating currents and the 

 apparatus employed are, and with pronounced 

 effect, hourly coining to the front. The com- 

 parative newness of the theory regarding 

 these currents has attracted the attention of 

 electrical engineers from all quarters, so that 

 any problem one might select has already 

 been fully treated by known writers. Still, 

 nearly the whole bulk of solutions extant, 

 apply in most instances to special cases. 

 From this fact has arisen the desire to have 

 the subject treated generally. 



The work is divided into two parts. The 

 first is entirely analytical in its nature, and 

 the second is mainly graphical. Circuits 

 involving resistance and self-induction are 

 minutely considered, and the elementary 

 principles establishing the equation of ener- 

 gy are dealt with as founded upon the ex- 

 periments of Faraday, Coulomb, Ohm, and 

 Joule. From this it is manifest that no pre- 

 vious knowledge of electricity or magnetism 

 is necessary in order to grasp the solutions 



