LITERARY NOTICES. 



129 



structions to their full extent, although he 

 started under the belief that they could not 

 be accomplished. 



Lieutenant Greely has his views of the 

 constitution of the polar regions, and they 

 are entitled to all the respect which the 

 opinions of a man of intelligence who has 

 had unusual opportunities for observation 

 have a right to command. He does not 

 doubt " that in the vicinity of the north 

 and south poles are glacial lands entirely 

 covered by ice-caps of enormous thickness, 

 which throw off the huge floebergs of the 

 north and the yet more remarkable flat- 

 topped icebergs of the south. The north 

 polar land is, I believe, of limited extent, 

 and its shores, or the edges of its glaciers, 

 are washed by a sea which, from its size and 

 consequent high temperature, its ceaseless 

 tides and strong currents, can never be en- 

 tirely ice-clad. . . . Far be it from me to 

 advocate a navigable polar sea. On the 

 contrary, I am firmly possessed with the 

 idea that an ice-belt from fifty to a hundred 

 miles wide borders the lands to the south- 

 ward, and that the water-space to the north- 

 ward can only be entered in extremely favor- 

 able years by the Spitzbergen route." 



We had marked many passages illustra- 

 tive of the monotonous life of the Arctic 

 winters and its depressing and irritating 

 effect upon the minds of the men ; descrip- 

 tive of the toilsome journey from Camp 

 Conger to Cape Sabine, and of the attempt 

 to cross Smith Sound ; and incidents of the 

 unprecedented sufferings of the party in their 

 spring of cold starvation at Cape Sabine ; 

 but we have no space for them. The story, 

 moreover, is not one that can be represented 

 by incidents selected here and there, but 

 should be taken in a whole. The head- 

 ings of the closing chapters fittingly suggest 

 its character. They are : " The Beginning 

 of the End " ; " The Last of Our Rations " ; 

 " The End by Death and Rescue." Of the 

 whole, Lieutenant Greely says : " No pen 

 could convey to the world an adequate idea 

 of the abject misery and extreme wretched- 

 ness to which we were reduced at Cape Sa- 

 bine. Insufficiently clothed, for months 

 without drinking water, destitute of warmth, 

 our sleeping-bags frozen to the ground, our 

 walls, roof, and floor covered with frost and 

 ice, subsisting on one fifth of an Arctic ra- 



VOL. XXIX. 9 



tion, almost without clothing, light, heat, or 

 food, yet we were never without courage, 

 faith, and hope. The extraordinary spirit 

 of loyalty, patience, charity, and self-denial 

 daily and almost universally exhibited by 

 our famished and nearly maddened party 

 must be read between the lines in the ac- 

 count of our daily life penned under such 

 desperate and untoward circumstances." 



Easy Lessons in German. By Adolphe 

 Dreyspring. New York : D. Appleton 

 & Co. Pp. 103. Price, 70 cents. 



The " Easy Lessons " is intended as an 

 introduction to the author's "Cumulative 

 Method," and to be adapted both to schools 

 and to home instruction. It is designed not 

 only for those who shun "full-grown" text- 

 books, and to whom price is a material con- 

 sideration, but more especially for the boys 

 and girls of the primary classes, to whose 

 intellectual status it is better adapted than 

 are the larger works. The aid of illustra- 

 tions is freely called in to enforce the mean- 

 ing of the nouns and verbs, so that each of 

 the conventional lessons into which the work 

 is divided is in fact a series of object-lessons. 

 We regard the author's system, which con- 

 sists of frequent repetition and the putting 

 of the word or set of words, which is the par- 

 ticular subject of the lesson, through its va- 

 rieties of combinations and changes, as an 

 excellent one. The exercises are conver- 

 sational, are made interesting and amusing, 

 and are so directly to the point they are de- 

 signed to enforce, that by the time the pupil 

 is through with one of them, it is well im- 

 pressed upon his mind, and not likely to be 

 forgotten. 



The Determination of Rock-forming Min- 

 erals. By Dr. Eugen Hussak. Author- 

 ized Translation from the German, by 

 Erastus G. Smith, Ph. D. New York : 

 John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 233. Price, 

 $3. 



This book is intended to supply a want 

 long felt by students of mineralogy and li- 

 thology. It presents, in a shape adapted for 

 use in the class-room and the laboratory, a 

 digest of numerous articles bearing upon the 

 subject, that have appeared in technical 

 journals and other publications of various 

 countries. 



The first part of the work treats of the 



