420 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



book will seem to some a mere medley. Is 

 it a text-book of logic, a pious exhortation, 

 or a treatise on mythology ? " The ordinary 

 person will get exactly this impression from 

 a first glance at the book ; but he can not 

 help feeling a respect for the author's mind 

 from the fact that she realizes so well the 

 character of her own work. It consists of 

 a number of essays, dealing chiefly with 

 metaphysics, the Hebrew religion, and edu- 

 cational methods. One object of the volume 

 being to combat monotony and specializa- 

 tion in teaching, the chapters are far from 

 being severely methodical in scope or ar- 

 rangement. The author insists that too lit- 

 tle regard is commonly paid to the bearing 

 of different fields of knowledge upon each 

 other. She makes many references to the 

 work of George Boole, and frequently quotes 

 from his Laws of Thought. Another of her 

 authorities is Gratry, author of the Logique. 

 jEschines against Ctesiphon, edited by 

 Prof. Rufus B. Richardson (Ginn), has been 

 added to the College Series of Greek Au- 

 thors. A life of ^Eschines is prefixed to 

 the volume, and notes occupy about two 

 thirds of each of the pages on which the 

 text is printed. The book has a Greek in- 

 dex and an index of subjects. 



A Report of Explorations in the Allegha- 

 ny Region, made by Prof. David Starr Jor- 

 dan, has been published by the United States 

 Fish Commission. This examination had two 

 general purposes : first, to ascertain the 

 general character of the streams of the Alle- 

 ghany region of Virginia, North Carolina, and 

 Tennessee, and of western Indiana ; their 

 present stock of food -fishes, and their 

 suitability for the introduction of species 

 not now found there ; second, to catalogue 

 the fishes native to each stream, whether 

 food-fishes or not, in order to complete our 

 knowledge of the geographical distribution 

 of each species, and to throw light on the 

 laws which govern geographical distribu- 

 tion. The results of the observations re- 

 corded in this paper accord with a previous 

 conviction of the author, that the question 

 of distribution reduces itself to a question 

 of barriers of various sorts. Each species 

 extends its range in every direction, and 

 holds the ground thus taken if it can. 



The Bidletin of the United States Fish 

 Commission for 1887 consists of reports 



and correspondence on a wide variety of 

 topics. Among the more extended articles 

 are reports on the fishes observed in Great 

 Egg Harbor Bay, New Jersey, in 1887, and 

 on the investigations by the schooner Gram- 

 pus on the Southern mackerel-grounds, and 

 a review of the mackerels of America and 

 Europe (with plates). A fully illustrated 

 paper of over one hundred pages, by J. W. 

 Collins, describes the beam-trawl fishery of 

 Great Britain. Among the articles of more 

 popular interest are an account of the Ameri- 

 can Sardine Industry in 1886, by R. E. Earll 

 and H. M. Smith; and The Aquarium : a 

 Brief Exposition of its Principles and Man- 

 agement (illustrated), by William P. Seal. 



An account of The History of tlie Niaga- 

 ra River, by G. K. Gilbert, included in the 

 Report for 1889, of the Commissioners of 

 the State Reservation at Niagara, has been 

 reprinted in pamphlet form. It contains the 

 substance of the lecture which the author 

 gave before the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, at its Toronto 

 meeting in 1889, and is written in a style 

 which makes it attractive to the generally 

 intelligent person as well as interesting to 

 the geologist. Mr. Gilbert discusses the 

 changes of outlets of the Great Lakes caused 

 by the advance and retreat of the ancient 

 ice-sheet, and shows their bearing on the 

 history of the Niagara River. He then de- 

 scribes the work of the cataract in cutting 

 out its gorge, and concludes with a list of 

 questions which must be considered before 

 any satisfactory estimate of the rate of re- 

 cession of the falls can be reached. The 

 paper is illustrated with eight plates. 



Three monographs by Mr. Robert Ridg- 

 way, published in the Proceedings of the 

 United States National Museum, comprise a 

 Review of the Genus Xiphocolaptes of Lessor, 

 in which the existence of a much greater 

 number of clearly defined forms than have 

 been recognized by leading authorities was 

 made apparent ; a Review of the Genics 

 Sclerurus of Sioainson — in which several 

 forms that had been " lumped together " 

 had to be distinguished ; and a List of Birds 

 (sixty-six species) collected on the Island of 

 Santa Lucia, West Indies, Abrolhos Islands, 

 Brazil, and at the Straits of Magellan, in 

 1887-88, by the Fish Commission steamer 

 Albatross. 



