420 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and are distinguished by a mark signifying 

 the fact ; " and for these alone can the com- 

 piler be wholly responsible." To facilitate 

 reference the work is divided into the sev- 

 eral sections of Bibliography, Dictionaries, 

 History, Biography, Chemistry, pure and 

 applied, Alchemy, and Periodicals the last 

 section having been taken from Prof. Bol- 

 ton's Catalogue of Technical and Scientific 

 Periodicals. Notes and comments, biblio- 

 graphical and explanatory, have been occa- 

 sionally introduced to aid students in con- 

 ceiving the character of a book or the status 

 of its author. The Bibliography forms vol- 

 ume xxxvi of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous 

 Collections. 



Mr. B. Douglas Howard, in a book en- 

 titled Life with Trans-Siberian Savages, de- 

 scribes his visit to the Ainus of Sakhalin, 

 whom he characterizes as " the most ancient, 

 distant, and least known savages surviving 

 in Asia." There has been very little com- 

 munication between this island and the rest 

 of the world, and there will hereafter be less, 

 as the Russians have made it a penal colony 

 and secluded it. Mr. Howard's relations of 

 his observations sound more like those of a 

 globe trotter than of a profound student, 

 and his accounts differ in several respects 

 from those given by other writers of the 

 Ainus of Tezo. He 'represents them as 

 plunged in the lowest savagery. He also 

 visited the Ainus in Yezo, and found them 

 little better. Yet he thinks that through the 

 Ainus of Yezo, with whom an intercourse 

 exists, we may learn to understand their 

 more primitive brethren in Sakhalin. He 

 further attempts to elucidate the Ainu re- 

 ligion. (Longmans, Green & Co., New York. 

 Price, $\.15.) 



Mr. W. J. Johnston has aimed, in the 

 preparation of his Elementary Treatise on 

 Analytical Geometry, at an easy and gradual 

 development of the subject. The require- 

 ments of two classes of students have been 

 kept in view : First, students in the univer- 

 sity colleges, by whom a limited course of 

 the subject is read, and for whom such a 

 course is marked out ; and, secondly, candi- 

 dates for mathematical honors, for whom 

 the chapters on Trilinears, Reciprocal Polars, 

 and Projection are included. These chap- 

 ters will also serve as an introduction to the 

 writings of Dr. Salmon. Many other features 



are introduced, the usefulness of which will 

 be perceived by the student. (Macmillan 

 &Co.) 



A work on Heat, prepared by Mark R. 

 Wright, is intended for those who have had 

 some elementary reading on the subject, or 

 who are able at once to attack a more ad- 

 vanced work, and is intended to place be- 

 fore such the leading facts and principles. 

 Among its features are the incorporation of 

 numerical examples to be worked out by the 

 student, and descriptions of experiments to 

 be repeated. While the author rejoices at 

 the disappearance of the method of studying 

 a science from a text-book alone, he suggests 

 that too much as well as too little time may 

 be spent over experimental science ; " mental 

 inertia is as possible in the laboratory as in 

 the lecture room." An elementary chapter in 

 thermo-dynamics is given, with an attempt 

 to explain and illustrate by examples the 

 first two laws and the meaning of Joule's 

 and Thomson's experiments. (Longmans, 

 Green & Co., New York. Price, $L50.) 



In coimection with the system of mete- 

 orological observations established by the 

 Smithsonian Institution, a collection of mete- 

 orological tables was compiled by Dr. Arnold 

 Guyot, and published in 1852 as a volume 

 of the Miscellaneous Collections. Second 

 and third editions were published in ISSV 

 and 1859, and a fourth in 1884 all the suc- 

 cessive issues being revised and added to. 

 The editions having been exhausted, the 

 work has been recast; and the tables are 

 divided into three parts Meteorological 

 Tables, Geographical Tables, and Physical 

 Tables each representative of the latest 

 knowledge in its field, and independent of 

 the others ; but the three forming a homo- 

 geneous series. The first of these parts 

 Smithsonian Meteorological Tables now pub- 

 lished, is, therefore, essentially a new publica- 

 tion. It is conformed, as far as practicable, 

 with the International Meteorological Tables. 

 A large number of tables have been newly 

 computed. 



Cortlandt F. Bishop contributes to the 

 Columbia College Series in History, Econom- 

 ics, and Public Law a study in the History of 

 Elections in the United States. General and 

 local elections are considered separately. The 

 history is given for each of the several colo- 

 nies. The qualifications required of electors 



