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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the stories of his Conde Lucanor — " one of the books of the world " — 

 created the germ of the Taming of the Shrew. Passing a numerous list of 

 writers of respectable merit, for whose names even we have not room, we 

 come to the age of the Catholic kings and Charles V, when for a hun- 

 dred and fifty years literature most flourished in Spain. Among the fea- 

 tures of this period are the Amadis de Gaul— u the best in that kind " — which 

 inspired Cervantes ; Columbus, who, though of Italian birth, " was probably 

 the truest Spaniard in all the Spains," the poet Garcilaso de la Vega, 

 and Berual Diaz and other historians whose names dot Prescott's books. 

 Passing a large number of writers of mark whose works appeared in this 

 age, and stopping only to mention Alonzo de Ercilla y Zuniga's Araucana 

 as the first literary work of real merit composed in either American conti- 

 nent, we come to the age of Cervantes, whose story of Don Quixote— "the 

 friendless people's friend," as Browning styles him — is not more distin- 

 guished for its satirical wit and humor than for its kindly humanity ; and 

 Lope de Vega, that most prolific of all dramatic authors, who " left no 

 achievement unattempted," and died lamented by a hundred and fifty- 

 three Spanish and fifty Italian authors, who sang his praises. Among 

 other of the most distinguished writers of this and succeeding periods are 

 Mariana, " the greatest of all Spanish historians " ; Gongora, a famous poet 

 in his day; Quevedo; Tirse de Molina, the creator of Don Juan ; Calderon, 

 second as a dramatist among Spaniards, if second, only to Lope de Vega, 

 and Alarcon his compeer ; and Velasquez, great in art and not small in 

 letters. An interregnum came in during the reign of Carlos II, and 

 French influence made itself felt. The age of the Bourbons produced 

 among others the Benedictine Sarmiento, who as a botanist " won the ad- 

 miration and friendship of Linne." The present century has been marked 

 by the names of many authors of merit, novelists known to us in transla- 

 tions, by an active movement of historical composition developing bril- 

 liant monographs, and by a marked advance of scholarship and tolerance, 

 led by Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo ; with a tendency to produce '' a breed 

 of writers of the German type.'' 



GENERAL NOTICES. 



The great importance of the problems of 

 forestry and all that pertains to them can 

 not fail to be appreciated by any one who 

 has seen the devastation wrought in many 

 sections of this country by the " wood chop- 

 per." Forestry is one of the subjects where 

 natural science can step in and guide the 

 way to economic success, and where, in de- 

 fault of scientific methods, economically fatal 

 results inevitably ensue. The preservation 

 of forests has been an important problem in 

 Europe for many years, but until quite re- 

 cently it has received little attention in the 

 United States. One of the pioneers in the 

 field of forestry in this country was Franklin 

 B. Hough, whose Elements of Forestry is 

 still a used and useful manual. Among his 



many schemes for attracting attention and 

 study to this important subject was one of 

 making actual sections of the wood of Ameri- 

 can trees, and arranging them in a compact 

 and attractive manner for general distribu- 

 tion. This idea he never carried out, and it 

 has remained for his son, Mr. R. B. Hough, 

 to finally carry out the scheme, by publish- 

 ing a complete series of such sections, care- 

 fully prepared and compactly bound.* In 

 Part I of the series there are cuttings repre- 

 senting twenty-five species of American trees. 

 The sections are sufficiently thin to allow of 



* The American Woods. Exhibited by Actual 

 Specimens. Parti, representing Twenty-five Spe- 

 cies. By Romeyn B. Hough : Lowville, N. Y. 

 The Author. 



