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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in such a way that the pupil shall become 

 interested in the study from the first. The 

 first book, Elementary English, is designed 

 to furnish material for primary language 

 work, and to show how this material can be 

 used to advantage, embodying and represent- 

 ing the natural methods of language teach- 

 ing. The child is given something to do — 

 easy and practical — at every point, and is 

 not troubled by formal definitions and rules 

 to be committed to memory. The second 

 book is also based on the principle that the 

 best way to gain a working knowledge of the 

 English language is by the working or labora- 

 tory method. It is therefore largely made 

 up of exercises, and aims to teach through 

 practice. The subject is unfolded from a 

 psychological rather than a logical point of 

 view. What is to be memorized is reduced 

 to a minimum, and not presented till the 

 pupil is ready for it. The lessons in litera- 

 ture and composition are designed to help 

 the pupil to appreciate worth and beauty of 

 literature, and lead him to fluent and accu- 

 rate expression. 



The Bulletin of the Geological Institution 

 of the University of Upsala presents a series 

 of special papers of much interest to students 

 of that science, on studies in geology, largely 

 of Scandinavia, but of other countries as well. 

 Part 2 of Vol. Ill, now before us, has such 

 papers on Silurian Coral Reefs in Gothland, 

 by Carl Wiman ; the Quaternary Mammalia 

 of Sweden, by Rutger Sernander; Some Ore 

 Deposits of the Atacama Desert, by Otto Nor- 

 denskiold ; the Structure of some Gothland- 

 ish Graphites, by Carl Wiman; the Inter- 

 glacial Submergence of Great Britain, by H. 

 Munthe ; Mechanical Disturbances and Chem- 

 ical Changes in the Ribbon Clays of Sweden, 

 by P. J. Holmquist ; Some Mineral Changes, 

 by A. G. Hogborn ; and the Proceedings of 

 the Geological Section of the Students' Asso- 

 ciation of Natural Science, Upsala. The ar- 

 ticles are in German, English, and (in pre- 

 vious numbers) French. 



Two Spanish-American works of very dif- 

 ferent character have come to us from Val- 

 paraiso, Chili. One is entitled Literatura 

 Arcaica — Estudios Criticos, or critical studies 

 of old Spanish literature, by Eduardo de la 

 Barra, of the Royal Spanish Academy, which 

 were communicated to the Latin-American 



Scientific Congress at Buenos Ayres. The 

 author was invited to present to the congress 

 the fruits of his extensive studies on the 

 Poem of the Cid, but afterward modified his 

 plan and gave these, the results of his more 

 general investigations of the romances of the 

 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which Span- 

 ish critics regard as the most ancient they 

 have, and other romances attributed to the 

 twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with an 

 article on the Cid. This work is published 

 by K. Newman, Valparaiso. 



The other book is a volume of Rrimas, or 

 rhymes, by Gustabo Adolf o Beker, published 

 by Carlos Cabezon, at Valparaiso. The ordi- 

 nary student might think that the Spanish 

 language is one of those least in need of 

 spelling reform, but not so the author and 

 publisher of these poems, which are pre- 

 sented in the most radically " reformed " 

 spelling, and with them comes a pamphlet 

 setting forth the character and principles of 

 " Ortografia Rrazional." 



The report of a study of seventy-three 

 Irish and Irish-American criminals made at 

 the Kings County Penitentiary, Brooklyn, 

 N. Y., by Dr. H. L. Winter, and published 

 as Notes on Criminal Anthropology and Bio- 

 Sociology, contains numerous observations 

 bearing upon the effect of hereditary influ- 

 ences in criminality, but hardly sufficient to 

 justify the drawing of any general conclu- 

 sions. 



The late Mr. Lewis M. Rutherfurd, in de- 

 veloping the art of astronomical photography, 

 naturally gave much attention to the star 61 

 Cygni — which was the first to yield its par- 

 allax, and through which the possibility of 

 measuring stellar distances was shown — and 

 its neighbors. A number of the plates of 

 this series were partially studied by Miss Ida 

 C. Martin more than twenty years ago, and 

 the study has now been carried out by Her- 

 man S. Davis, as part of the work of Colum- 

 bia University Observatory. The results of 

 Mr. Davis's labors are published by the ob- 

 servatory in three papers : Catalogue of Sixty- 

 five Stars near 61 Cygni ; The Parallaxes of 

 6 l l andGP Cygni ; and Catalogue of Thirty- 

 four Stars near " Bradley 3077 " ; under a 

 single cover. 



In a small work entitled A Theory of 

 Life deduced from the Evolution Philosophy 



