418 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



GENERAL NOTICES. 



" An unscientific account of a scientific 

 expedition " is what Mrs. Mabel Loomis 

 Todd happily styles the story of the Amherst 

 Eclipse Expedition, told in Corona and 

 Coronet * — " Corona " being what the expe- 

 dition went to see, and " Coronet " the vessel 

 that took it to the observing station. Pro- 

 fessor Todd was the astronomer of the party, 

 and Mrs. Todd, who has published a work on 

 astronomy, was his companion. She believes 

 that certain aspects of the trip, covering as 

 it did more than ten thousand miles of sail- 

 ing for the party, and at least forty five thou- 

 sand miles of deep-sea voyaging for the 

 Coronet, were worthy of narration. The 

 astronomical purposes of the expedition, the 

 objects it sought to obtain, the scientific 

 bearings of the observations, and the meth- 

 ods, are intelligibly set forth in the introduc- 

 tion to the book. The rest is devoted mostly 

 to narrative, the social aspects of the voyage, 

 and the incidents. A short sojourn was 

 made at the Sandwich Islands, where the 

 more interesting objects were visited. Mrs. 

 Todd was with Kate Field when she died 

 there, and gives an account of her last 

 hours. A voyage of four weeks carried the 

 party to Yokohama, whence some of the 

 members went to the capital and other inter- 

 esting points in Japan, while the rest were 

 prepaiing the observing station at Esashi, 

 eleven hundred miles north of Yokohama — 

 " a village on the shores of the Sea of Okotsk, 

 among the hairy Ainu," in a region so re- 

 mote that the native steamers had only re- 

 cently begun to go there at all. Besides the 

 account of the observations, descriptions are 

 given of such Japanese experiences as life 

 in Kioto, cormorant fishing, yachting in the 

 Inland Sea, the tidal wave, and observations 

 among the Ainu, with a visit on the way 

 home to an Arizona copper mine. 



The late Prof. James D. Dana had be- 

 gun a revision of his Text-Book of Geology 

 a short time before his death. Prof. Willi; m 



* Corona and Coronet: Being the Narrative of 

 the Aruhtrst Eclipse Expedition to Japan, in Mr 

 James's Schooner Yacht Coronet, to observe the 

 Sun's Total Obscuration, August 9, 160(5. By 

 Mabel Loomis Todd. Boston and New York: 

 Houghton, Miillin & Co. Pp. 383. Price, $2.50. 



North Rice was requested by his family to 

 complete the revision, and the result is the 

 present volume.* It was intended in the 

 original plan of revision to preserve as far as 

 possible the distinctive characteristics of the 

 book. It was to be brought down to date as 

 regards its facts, but was still to express the 

 well-known opinions of its author, with the 

 general plan of arrangement kept unchanged. 

 It soon became evident, however, that more 

 and greater changes than had been contem- 

 plated would be required. The zoological and 

 botanical classifications would have to be 

 modified; the theory of evolution must have 

 more recognition than it had received, espe- 

 cially as Professor Dana himself had adopted 

 some of its features before his death ; and 

 the treatment of metamorphism was believed 

 to require considerable modification. In the 

 present edition the bearing of various events 

 in geological history upon the theory of evo- 

 lution is pointed out in the appropriate places, 

 and the general bearing of paleontology 

 upon evolution is discussed in the conclud- 

 ing chapter. All these changes seem to be 

 in the line of continuing the usefulness of 

 Professor Dana's most excellent and standard 

 work, and of keeping his name before stu- 

 dents as that of "one of the greatest of 

 geologists and one of the noblest of men." 



A true son of Nature is Mr. F. Sehuyler 

 Mathews, and he shows himself at his best 

 in his Familiar Life in Field and Forest, f 

 " There are few things," he says, " more grati- 

 fying to the lover of Nature than these mo- 

 mentary glimpses of wild life which he ob- 

 tains while passing through the field or forest. 

 Wild animals do not confine themselves ex- 

 clusively to the wilderness ; quite frequently 

 they venture upon the highway, and we are 

 apt to regard the meeting of one of them 

 there as a rare and fortunate occurrence. 

 The daisy and the wild rose appear in their 



* Revised Text-Book of Geology. By James 

 D. Dana, LL. D. Fifth edition, revised and en- 

 larged. Edited by William North Rice. American 

 Book Company. Pp. 482. 



t Familiar Life in Field and Forest. The Ani- 

 mals, Birds, Frogs, and Salamanders. By F. 

 Schujkr Mathews. New York : D. Appleton 

 and Company. Pp. 281. Price, $1.75. 



