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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion as will express precisely the degree of 

 stability, dignity, and elegance which cor- 

 responds with the import of the acts to be 

 expressed." The architecture of the past, 

 the vague ideas of writers, and the aimless 

 practices of the present, are reviewed and 

 criticised in the light of these fundamental 

 principles, and the conclusions are reached 

 in the end that the dilettanteism of mod- 

 ern architecture must be rooted out before 

 the art can revive and exercise a whole- 

 some influence on society ; it must be under- 

 stood that " the road to architecture is long, 

 tortuous, and thorny, and not a well-paved 

 highway upon which man may amble into 

 fame " ; false taste has had its day, and 

 style must also be cast off, when "nothing 

 will be left but to pursue architecture pure 

 and simple." 



Dangers to Health: A Pictorial Guide 

 to Domestic Sanitary Defects. By 

 T. Pkidgin Teale, M. A., Surgeon to the 

 General Infirmary at Leeds. Third edi- 

 tion. Philadelphia : Presley Dlakiston. 

 Pp. 170. Price, $3.50. 



The author, having discovered and recti- 

 fied numerous defects in his own house, and 

 having traced illness among his patients to 

 carelessness and dishonesty in drain-work, 

 became " indignantly alive to the fact that 

 few houses are safe to live in." He was 

 convinced also that a large fraction of the 

 incidental illness suffered in England, in- 

 cluding much childbed illness and some of 

 the fatal results of surgical operations in 

 hospitals and private houses, were the direct 

 result of drainage defects. He then sought 

 for the most impressive way of describing 

 faults of this class to the public, and chose 

 that of pictorial representation. The re- 

 sult is this work, which contains seventy 

 plates representing nearly as many impor- 

 tant faults to which domestic sanitary ar- 

 rangements are liable, with letterpress ex- 

 planations of the same, as well as of some 

 other faults not so susceptible of pictorial 

 representation. The illustrations are de- 

 signed to give the most forcible expression 

 possible of the fact to be told, and are clear 

 and distinct as to their meaning. Three of 

 the drawings arc designed as hints toward 

 securing adequate ventilation and the exclu- 

 sion of dust. 



A Study of the Pentateuch, for Popular 

 Reading. By Rufus P. Stebbins, D. D., 

 formerly President, Lecturer on Hebrew 

 Literature, and Professor of Theology, in 

 the Meadville Theological School. Bos- 

 ton : George H. Ellis. Pp. 233. Price, 

 $1.25. 



This book embraces the substance of 

 some articles which were published in the 

 " Unitarian Review " in 1879 and 18S0. The 

 first paper is a review of the attacks of Dr. 

 Kuenen, one of the most brilliant and reck- 

 less of the Dutch rationalistic critics on the 

 authenticity of the Old Testament Scriptures. 

 The other essays embody the author's own 

 examination of the books of the Pentateuch, 

 with reference to their authenticity, in re- 

 spect to the external evidence, or that af- 

 forded by the references to them and quota- 

 tions from them made by a succession of 

 Hebrew writers from David to Josephus ; 

 and the internal evidences, or those afforded 

 by the style and methods of expression of 

 the books themselves, and the allusions con- 

 tained in them as indicative of the time 

 when they were composed. The definite 

 conclusion is reached that the Pentateuch 

 is substantially of the Mosaic age, and large- 

 ly, either directly or indirectly, of Mosaic 

 authorship. 



The Opium -Habit and Alcoholism. A 

 Treatise on the Habits of Opium and its 

 Compounds, Alcohol, Chloral-Hydrate, 

 Chloroform, Bromide of Potassium, and 

 Cannabis-Indica. By Dr. Fred. IIkman 

 Hubbard. New York : A. S. Barnes 

 & Co. Pp. 259. Price, |2. 



It is believed that the opium-habit is in- 

 creasing in the United States with frightful 

 rapidity. It has spread much faster since 

 the introduction of the hypodermic syringe, 

 and has reached an extent which is partially 

 represented by the payment of five million 

 dollars annually for the drug, and by the 

 estimate that there are now not less than 

 500,000 consumers in the country against 

 225,000 in 1870. The object of the author 

 of this work has been to place in the hands 

 of the profession a carefully arranged analy- 

 sis of the peculiar physical condition induced 

 by the indulgence of the habit, with descrip- 

 tions of the symptoms that appear and the 

 changes that take place under treatment. 

 This is done by the presentation of accounts 



