134 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



taut treatises on meteorology ; and other 

 translations, giving the most recent and 

 trustworthy results, are in course of execu- 

 tion. The special indications for particular 

 localities have been largely increased. Of 

 the "general indications," from 82'6 to 87"3 

 per cent monthly were verified during the 

 year ; of the Pacific coast indications, from 

 76 - 7 to 923 per cent; of the cautionary off- 

 shore signals, 93'6 per cent for direction, 

 and 85'3 per cent for velocity; of the cold- 

 wave signals, 86"2 per cent. Four hundred 

 and eighty-nine stations were in operation 

 on the 30th of June, 1885. 



The Fall of Maximilian's Empire as seen 

 from a United States Gunboat. By 

 Seaton Schroeder, Lieutenant U. S. N. 

 New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 

 130. Price, $1. 



"A letter-book and a log-book," says 

 the author, " are the foundation upon which 

 the fabric of this narrative rests." Lieu- 

 tenant Schroeder was attached to the Unit- 

 ed States Steamer Tacony, Commander Roe, 

 which was dispatched to Mexican waters 

 in 1867, "to protect American interests " 

 in those regions while the people were rid- 

 ding themselves of the French and their 

 Austrian mock-emperor. He was, therefore, 

 more or less a personal observer of the 

 events that occurred from that time till the 

 intruders were finally expelled, and Maxi- 

 milian was executed ; and of all those trans- 

 actions in which foreign agents could par- 

 ticipate. Besides what he saw himself and 

 heard from his intercourse with the officers 

 of the fleets of other nations stationed in 

 the same regions, "a scrutiny of various 

 executive documents, departmental files, and 

 volumes of diplomatic correspondence, has 

 elicited from those musty sources certain in- 

 teresting matters not presented in any his- 

 tory connected with the closing scenes of 

 Prince Maximilian's short reign in Mexico." 

 The result of the whole is a modest, straight- 

 forward narrative which is a contribution 

 to history. 



Agriculture in some of its Relations 



with Chemistry. By F. n. Storer. 



New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. 



Two vols. Pp. 529, 509. 



This book, the author says, has been 

 written in the interest of persons fond of 

 rural affairs, and of students of agriculture. 



It makes no special appeal to chemists or 

 to students of chemistry. It is based upon 

 lectures, suggestive rather than encyclope- 

 dic, which have been delivered annually by 

 the author at the Bussey Institution during 

 the past sixteen years (1871-1887). These 

 lectures, which have been many times al- 

 tered and revised, were addressed to small 

 classes of students of two distinct types 

 viz., young farmers, and sons of farmers, 

 familiar with the manual practice of agri- 

 cultural operations, who were desirous of 

 studying some of the sciences which bear 

 most immediately upon the art of farming ; 

 and city-bred men, often graduates of the 

 academic department of the university, who 

 intended to establish themselves upon farms, 

 or to occupy country-seats, or to become 

 landscape-gardeners. The lectures are upon 

 a considerable range of subjects, which may, 

 perhaps, be only partly covered by such 

 headings as the relations of soil, air, water, 

 and the plant ; tillage ; manures (including 

 the chemical action of the soil, the special 

 manures in their variety, animal and vege- 

 table refuse, green manuring, vegetable 

 mold, farm-yard manure, composts, night- 

 soil, etc.) ; rotation of crops; action of fire 

 on soils; irrigation; sewage; the disposing 

 of farms ; various crops ; and pastures. To 

 such inspection as we have been able to 

 give them, the practical value of the lect- 

 ures appears high as compared with most 

 other works of the class. 



A quarterly journal is to be started at 

 an early date, to be entitled the " American 

 Journal of Psychology," and to be under 

 the editorial control of G. Stanley Hall, 

 Ph. D., of Johns Hopkins University. It 

 will attempt to gather up and present, in 

 a compact, accessible form, the results of 

 scientific psychological research which are 

 of value and are now widely scattered, and 

 even have sometimes to be looked for in 

 other departments of science. It will con- 

 tain original contributions of a scientific 

 character, recording experiments and studies 

 in all branches of the subject ; papers of 

 importance from other journals ; and di- 

 gests and reviews, in which attempts will 

 be made to give a conspectus of the more 

 important psychological literature of the 

 three months preceding publication. Each 



