LITERARY NOTICES. 



851 



omits and partly to what it takes in. The 

 author says in his preface : " Most of the 

 ground has, I am aware, been already cov- 

 ered, especially as regards so-called surgical 

 anatomy. But the entire range of anatomy 

 has not hitherto, I think, been treated from 

 the point of view of the senior student, who, 

 having quitted the dissecting-room, is in need 

 of a volume which shall supply him with 

 such anatomical information, free of weary- 

 ing detail, as is essential for his successful 

 and intelligent work in the medical and 

 surgical wards and in the special depart- 

 ments of his hospital." He also says : 

 " Having always found it impracticable to 

 draw a hard-and-fast line between facts 

 which bear upon the science of medicine and 

 those which chiefly concern the practical 

 surgeon, I, a surgeon, have presumed in 

 this Manual boldly to trespass upon the do- 

 mains of the physician, as well as of the 

 specialist." This fact makes the book bet- 

 ter calculated to be of use to American stu- 

 dents than it otherwise would be, for the 

 medical profession and the public in this coun- 

 try have likewise found it " impracticable to 

 draw a hard-and-fast line" between physi- 

 cians and surgeons such as exists in England. 

 Accordingly, there is less minute description 

 of parts than in manuals for the dissecting- 

 room, while malformations and disorders, 

 and the operations which these call for, are 

 described more fully than is usual except in 

 the most complete treatises. The style of 

 the book is clear and concise, the text is 

 liberally illustrated, and the mechanical 

 work of the volume is excellent. 



Heat as a Form of Energy. By Prof. Rob- 

 ert H. Thurston. Boston: Houghton, 

 Mifflin & Co. Pp. 261. Price, $1.25. 



Prof. Thurston has produced a book for 

 the general reader rather than a text-book 

 for the student. It traces the development 

 of the science of heat from the speculations 

 of the ancient philosophers down to the re- 

 sults of the latest experiments. After stat- 

 ing the ideas of the philosophers in regard 

 to heat, the author gives an outline of the 

 modern science of thermodynamics. In the 

 next chapter he shows how the transfer of 

 heat in various ways is an essential feature 

 in many of the world's important industries, 

 and in many great operations of nature. 



.Most of the latter half of the volume is de- 

 voted to the development of heat-engines 

 — machines for transforming heat into me- 

 chanical energy. The author is evidently 

 in a favorite field when describing the de- 

 velopment of the steam-engine, for he de- 

 votes considerable space to this topic, and 

 illustrates the account with pictures of sev- 

 eral successive forms of engines. The book 

 is the third of the Riverside Science Se- 

 ries. 



The explorations by the United States 

 Fish Commission steamer Albatross during 

 the year 1889 covered a considerable extent 

 of mainland and inland coast waters from 

 California south of Point Conception to 

 Washin^on. The new discoveries of fishes 

 along the shores of California, Oregon, and 

 "Washington were almost wholly from greater 

 depths than fifty fathoms. Of the sixty spe- 

 cies of fishes obtained from the Revillagige- 

 dos Islands, only about a dozen had been 

 previously recorded there ; not more than 

 half were yet known from the mainland ; and 

 the other half included new forms and shapes 

 from the islands of the western Pacific and 

 from the Galapagos. The collections from 

 the Gulf of California were obtained mainly 

 along the shores and in the shallower waters 

 of its northern portion. The deeper waters 

 of the Gulf have a bottom of blue mud sin- 

 gularly barren of life. The Preliminary Re- 

 port of Mr. Charles H. Gilbert on the fishes 

 collected by the steamer contains descrip- 

 tions of ninety-two species — all new. The 

 New Fishes collected off the Coast of Alaska 

 and the Adjacent Region to the Southward is 

 the subject of a paper by Mr. Tarleton H. 

 Bean. Eight of the genera are among the 

 common forms of the Atlantic, and four of 

 them are apparently new to science. Other 

 papers to which the scientific results of the 

 explorations of the Albatross have given rise 

 are a Catalogue of Fishes collected at Port Cas- 

 tine, St. Lucia, by David Starr Jordan, and 

 a Catalogue of Skeletons of Birds collected at 

 points along the South American coast, by 

 Frederic A. Lucas. All are published by 

 the United States National Museum. 



A description of Etheostoma tippecanoe, 

 a New Species of Fish from Tippecanoe River, 

 Indiana, is described by David Starr Jordan 

 and Barton Warren Fvermann, and figured 



