SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



13? 



litical, the technical, and the diplomatic situa- 

 tions of to-day with regard to the two chief 

 routes. In his concluding chapters he argues 

 for the construction of a canal as of tran- 

 scendent importance to the economic develop- 

 ment of America, and gives his reasons why 

 the United States should control the passage. 

 The volume is carefully indexed and contains 

 four maps. 



Among the papers accompanying the Re- 

 port of the United States Commissioner of 

 Education for 1894- 95 are two dealing with 

 important subjects connected with the edu- 

 cational system of Great Britain. One of 

 these is the question of religious instruction 

 in the free schools, and the other is the or- 

 ganization of secondary education as shown 

 by the report of a royal commission. The 

 legal aspects of the Manitoba school case are 

 given in another contribution. Foreign mat- 

 ters of interest treated in other papers are 

 the university education of women in Eng- 

 land, the educational status of women in 

 various countries, and English teaching on 

 the history of the American Revolution. Of 

 domestic interest are the chapters on teach- 

 ers' pensions, Chautauqua education, and 

 early educational history in the United States. 



The book on Alternating Currents aytd Al- 

 ternating Current Machinery, by Profs. Du- 

 gald C and John P. Jackson, forms Volume 

 II of their textbook on Electromagnetism 

 and the Construction of Dynamos (Macmil- 

 lan, $3.50). The authors have followed in it 

 methods that have been found advantageous 

 in teaching other branches of engineering. 

 The volume is designed to present the fun- 

 damental phenomena of alternating currents 

 as met with in engineering practice, and to 

 point out their controlling principles and ap- 

 plications. Descriptions and illustrations of 

 commercial machinery are not included per 

 se, though where practical data may be use- 

 ful in illustrating deductions in the text they 

 are copiously used. For the fuller information 

 of the reader, a large number of references 

 are given in footnotes. In the chapters on 

 polyphase currents the authors could not 

 hope to supply a list of references that would 

 remain long adequate, as material of over- 

 shadowing importance is being constantly 

 published. Descriptions of experiments hav- 

 ing only historical interest have been care- 



fully excluded. In the use of mathematics 

 the authors have sought to avoid presenting 

 unnecessary formulas on the one hand, or 

 giving results without reasons on the other. 

 Numerous original demonstrations of the 

 standard formulas have been introduced and 

 a few additions have been made to the no- 

 menclature. The volume contains over three 

 hundred diagrams and other figures, and is 

 adequately indexed. 



In a neatly printed little pamphlet ff. 

 Edwin Lewis has discussed The Philosophy 

 of Sex scientifically, delicately, and impres- 

 sively. His chapter on Reproduction and 

 the Origin of Sex and that on the Nature 

 and Relation of Sex lead up to an earnest 

 appeal for sexual purity, which can not fail 

 to help well-intentioned persons who are 

 weak or thoughtless or who do not know 

 where to turn for guidance. (Vermont Medi- 

 cal Publishing Co., Burlington, 85 cents.) 



Much out of the common run of text- 

 books is Numhtr and its Algebra, by Arthur 

 Lefevre (Heath, $1.25). It deals with the 

 theory of numerical operations, and is de- 

 signed to be introductory to a collegiate 

 course in algebra. It thus bears a similar 

 relation to algebra that the chapters on 

 chemical philosophy in books on chemistry 

 bear to their main subject. The mathemat- 

 ical operations whose natures are explained 

 range from counting up to work with radi- 

 cal surds, undetermined coeflScients, roots of 

 integral and quadratic equations, radix frac- 

 tions, and functions. The several chapters 

 are based on lectures which the author has 

 given for a number of years to his univer.sity 

 students with the especial design of aiding 

 the large part of them who were preparing 

 to teach, hence pedagogical applications will 

 be found throughout the book. "Plainly 

 the first step," says the author, " to the un- 

 derstanding of the algebra of number is to 

 understand the nature and laws of number. 

 It is hoped that these lectures have been a 

 fairly adequate guide and stimulus to this 

 step. After masteiing what may be called 

 the vocabulary of the language (proficiency 

 in this matter has been assumed), the next 

 step is to grasp the idea of algebraic /orm. 

 In the study of algebra this should be the 

 main standpoint. It is only by following out 

 the problems which arise in a systematic 



