LITERARY NOTICES. 



413 



diagrams to show the interactions of the 

 nervous and muscular parts, as it is now 

 proved that they take place. 



We have here no space for the details 

 of the book, but may refer to one of the 

 most delicate and interesting of the ma- 

 chines employed, which is a device for the 

 electric measurement of the muscle-pulsa- 

 tion. By its use the infinitesimal periods 

 of time consumed in these pulsations are 

 magnified and represented side by side in 

 a wavy line, so that their durations can 

 be compared and measured by a standard. 

 The continued strain of a muscle is shown 

 to be a chain of these tiny pulsations which 

 decline steadily in strength as each pulsa- 

 tion exhausts a certain amount of material 

 corresponding to the carbon removed from 

 its place under the steam-boiler by combus- 

 tion. The modem view that the power 

 generated by muscle is due to the hydro- 

 carbonaceous matter oxidized, instead of the 

 nitrogeneous element of muscular structure, 

 is clearly brought out. 



It has long been a question in what way 

 the nerves are mechanically or structurally 

 related to the muscles, or what is the nature 

 of the ultimate connection. Of course this 

 was a microscopical problem upon which 

 further light was constantly thrown as the 

 instruments reached higher powers, and ob- 

 servers became more skilled in their use, 

 and moi^e experienced in guarding against 

 errors. As was natural, different views 

 were entertained by different able observ- 

 ers, and, as was equally natural, sharp con- 

 troversies followed. How the case stands 

 at present may be gathered from the fol- 

 lowing statement from Chapter XV : " If 

 we trace the course of the nerve within the 

 muscle, we find that the separate fibers, 

 which enter the muscle in a connected bun- 

 dle, separate, run among the muscle-fibers, 

 and spread throughout the muscle. It then 

 appears that the single nerve-fibers divide, 

 and this explains the fact that each muscle- 

 fiber is eventually provided with a nerve- 

 fiber long nerve-fibers even with two 

 although the number of nerve-fibers which 

 enter the muscle is generally much less than 

 the number of the muscle-fibers which com- 

 pose the muscle. Till the nerve approaches 

 the muscle-fiber, it retains its three charac- 

 teristic marks the neurilemma, medullary 



sheath, and axis-cvlindcr. "When near the 

 muscle-fiber the nerve suddenly becomes 

 thinner, loses the medullary sheath, then 

 again thickens, the neurilemma coalesces 

 with the sarcolcmma of the muscle-fiber, 

 and the axis-cylinder passes directly into a 

 structure which lies within the sarcolemma 

 pouch, in immediate contact with the actual 

 muscle-substance, and is called the terminal 

 nerve-plate.^^ There are some differences 

 here in different classes of animals, but 

 " the essential fact is the same in all cases : 

 the nerve passes into direct contact loiih the 

 muscle-substance. All observers are now 

 agreed on this point. Uncertainty prevails 

 only as to the further nature of the terminal 

 plate." 



The Old Testament in the Jewish Church : 

 Twelve Lectures on Biblical Criti- 

 cism. By W. Robertson Smith, M. A. 

 New York : D. Appleton & Co. 1881. 



Probably no subject which interests so 

 many people and interests them so deeply 

 is so little studied or understood as the 

 history of the Bible. In these three king- 

 doms there are every Sunday between fifty 

 and sixty thousand clergymen of various re- 

 ligious bodies discoursing upon it, a very 

 much larger number of persons teaching it 

 in Sunday-schools and daj^-schools, an over- 

 whelming majority of the population read- 

 ing it, more or less, and looking to it as the 

 guide of faith and practice. Yet not one 

 man in a thousand, even in the educated 

 classes, knows anything about the respec- 

 tive dates of the different books of the Bible, 

 the mode in which they were preserved and 

 received into the canon of Scripture, or the 

 views entertained by scholars as to their 

 authorship. This ignorance is deepest and 

 most widespread as regards the Old Testa- 

 ment. Wonderful progress has been made 

 during the last fifty years in the criticism of 

 the numerous writings which make it up. It 

 is not too much to say that we have gained 

 more knowledge on the subject within that 

 period than all the labors of all Biblical 

 scholars succeeded in amassing during the 

 two thousand years that preceded. Yet 

 the bulk of the English cultivated public, 

 which learned at college at least all that is 

 known about the Servian Constitution and 

 the Twelve Tables, which has a fair idea 



