704 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



relative to the yachts and yachtsmen of 

 other clubs. The purpose of this book is 

 to supply such information, and in addition 

 to furnish portraits and biographical sketches 

 of persons who have been and are promi- 

 nently connected with yachting, and of those 

 who have been instrumental in promoting 

 the best interests of yachting, as well as 

 illustrations of the various yachts, with de- 

 scriptions of the same, their dimensions, ca- 

 pacities, and records. A history is given of 

 each yacht club separately, with a statement 

 of what has been done by its members in 

 promoting the sport of yachting. In the 

 first chapter the evolution of the yacht is 

 described from the beginning with the first 

 presumed attempt of the stone-age savage 

 to propel himself upon a log, through the 

 stages of the catamaran, the hollowed log, 

 the dugout, the birch-bark canoe, the more 

 elaborate canoes of the South Seas and the 

 Indian Ocean, Egyptian, classical, and Yiking 

 ships, and the stages of modern shipbuild- 

 ing to the elaboration of the pleasure boat 

 or yacht of to-day. The history of yachting 

 is next given. Leaving out the ships of 

 Amnon in Jacob's time and the Argonauts' 

 ship Argo, which were business vessels, the 

 first yachts proper on record appear to have 

 been those of Ptolemy Philopater of Egypt 

 and Hiero King of Syracuse. After twelve of 

 the broad quarto pages of the book on the 

 history in general, twenty similar pages are 

 devoted to yachting in the United States. 

 Then follow chapters on the Cost of Yacht- 

 ing and Yacht Decorations ; Type of Yacht ; 

 Centerboard ; Rig of Yachts ; Speed Rec- 

 ords of Sailing Yachts ; Trophies ; History ; 

 Record of Races ; descriptions of yachts and 

 biographical sketches of members of the five 

 leading Canadian yacht clubs, and similar 

 information relative to thirty- eight yacht 

 clubs in the United States. The volume 

 contains more than six hundred photo-etch- 

 ings of yachts and clubhouses, nearly two 

 hundred half-tone vignettes of yachtsmen, 

 more than forty full-page half-tone portraits 

 of commodores, and a hundred full-page 

 photogravures of yachts and clubhouses. A 

 second volume is to contain a leading chap- 

 ter relative to the introduction of steam on 

 yachts and to vaiious otiier motor powers ; a 

 history of the America's Cup; histories of 

 such yacht clubs as do not appear in the 



first volume; and photogravures and de- 

 scriptions of the vessels, cruisers, and war 

 ships of the American Navy. 



Natural Theology. By Prof. Sir G. G. 

 Stokes. London : Adam and Charles 

 Black. Pp. 2n. Price, $1.50. 



The second course of Gifford Lectures is 

 contained in this volume, the first series of 

 which was delivered and published in 1891. 



According to the will of the founder, the 

 subject was to be treated as a strictly nat- 

 ural science, without reference to or reliance 

 upon any supposed exceptional or so-called 

 miraculous revelation. 



Prof. Stokes has made no attempt to ful- 

 fill this requisition, stating at the close of the 

 course that the conception is hardly possible 

 to carry out in the manner contemplated, and 

 elsewhere that " any divorce between nat- 

 ural theology and revealed religion is to be 

 deprecated." He justifies his deviation from 

 the plan partly by an appeal to another 

 clause in the foundation, suggesting that the 

 lectures should be promoted and illustrated 

 by different minds. 



There are ten addresses in all, the first 

 six giving what arguments are offered in 

 favor of theism. The first topic is the the- 

 ory of the luminiferous ether and the char- 

 acter of the proof for its credibility, a lesson 

 being drawn from this not to reject what 

 transcends sense experience and to provide 

 a favorable reception for the supernatural. 

 Secondly, it is argued, as the simple laws of 

 motion did not account for inorganic phe- 

 nomena, but to them were added various 

 theories from time to time, such as gravita- 

 tion and magnetism, so we are justified in 

 assuming some hypothesis for the construc- 

 tion of living matter which physical laws do 

 not fully explain : this is named the theory 

 of directionism. If also this individual di- 

 recting power be supposed, by whose influ- 

 ence the bodily molecules are brought to- 

 gether, we obtain some notion of survival 

 after death, since it is not subject to phys- 

 ical dissolution. 



The exquisite construction of the " bacil- 

 lary layer" of the retina and the beauty of 

 color and marking found in plants and ani- 

 mals are adduced as evidences of design, and 

 the laws of chemical combination as testify- 

 ing to some scheme of creation including the 



