LITERARY NOTICES. 



135 



number will contain from sixty to one hun- 

 dred pages, and the subscription price will 

 be $3 a year. 



Talks with Socrates about Life. Trans- 

 lations from the Gorgias and the Repub- 

 lic of Plato. New York : Charle3 Scrib- 

 ner's Sons. Pp. 173. Price, $1. 



The character of the dialogues from 

 which these selections are taken is too well 

 known to require any special notice here. 

 The text is preceded by an introductory 

 analysis of the purpose of the " Talks " and 

 accounts of the interlocutors, and is followed 

 by annotations. The conversation is de- 

 scribed as relating to the perpetual contro- 

 versy between the material and the ideal, 

 and concerning the real original existence 

 of the moral law. 



United States Commission of Fish and 

 Fisheries. Report of the Commissioner 

 for 1884. Washington: Government 

 Printing-Office. Pp. 1204. 



Besides its usual routine work, the com- 

 mission directed a number of special under- 

 takings, all of which are fully described in 

 the report and the accompanying papers. 

 Among them were the prosecution of the 

 work on the pier, buildings, etc., at Wood's 

 Holl; the construction of oyster-ponds at 

 Wood's Holl and St. Jerome, and the in- 

 vestigation of the oyster-beds of Chesapeake 

 Bay ; the trip of the Albatross to the Carib- 

 bean Sea ; the investigation of the Florida 

 shad-fisheries, and the examination of the 

 oyster-beds in Long Island Sound ; the in- 

 vestigation of the fish-epidemic in Wiscon- 

 sin lakes; the collection of specimens of 

 cetaceans ; the occupation of stations at 

 Fort Washington on the Potomac, and at 

 Weldon, North Carolina; efforts to hatch 

 the codfish at Wood's Holl ; the planting of 

 lobsters in Chesapeake Bay ; and the im- 

 portation of the blue carp and of the Euro- 

 pean trout. The Appendix, which forms 

 most of the volume, and is devoted to spe- 

 cial papers and reports in full, contains the 

 reports of steamers (the Albatross and Fish- 

 Hawk) and stations; fifteen papers of a 

 general or statistical character on the fish- 

 eries of this country and Northern Europe ; 

 five papers on fish-culture, including a long 

 one, by Carl Nicklas, on pond-culture; a 

 series of statements from persons immedi- 



ately engaged on some results of carp-cult- 

 ure in the United States; and papers on 

 oyster-culture; five papers detailing scien- 

 tific investigation ; a statement by G. Brown 

 Goode, of the status of the commission in 

 1884, etc. 



Recent Advances in Meteorology. By 

 William Ferrel. Washington: Gov- 

 ernment Printing-Office. Pp. 440. 



This hand-book constitutes the second 

 volume of the report of the Signal Service 

 for 1885. It aims to present the principles 

 of meteorological science and their applica- 

 tions as they have been developed up to 

 this time, for the use of students, and espe- 

 cially for the purposes of a text-book to be 

 used in the Signal-Service school of instruc- 

 tion at Fort Meyer, Virginia. The effort 

 has been made to select, from the material 

 on hand, that which bears most usefully 

 upon practical meteorology. The mass of 

 matter was, however, found to be too large to 

 be compressed into a volume of the size thi3 

 was intended to be, and selection was neces- 

 sary. Plain clews are, nevertheless, given 

 to all facts and observations not directly 

 discussed in the book, by references to the 

 works and papers in which they are treated 

 of. Many researches and problems are sub- 

 jected to mathematical treatment; and an 

 important feature of the work is found in 

 the formulae and tables which are so fre- 

 quently needed in meteorological computa- 

 tions and discussions of observations, with 

 examples for their application. 



PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 



Analyses and Commercial Values of Commercial 

 Fertilizers and Chemicals. Atlanta, Ga. Pp. 13. 



Nelson, N. O. Profit-Sharing. St. Louis, Mo. 

 Pp. 40. 



The Annual Index to Periodicals for 1SS6. Lon- 

 don : Trubner & Co. Pp. 27. 



Annual Report of the California State Mineralo- 

 gist for 1836. Two vols. Sacramento, CaL Pp. 

 141 and 222. 



Report of the Alabama Weather Service. Au- 

 burn, Ala. Pp. 7. 



Report of tho Connecticut Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station for 18S6. New Haven : Tuttle, More- 

 house & Taylor. Pp. 168. 



Report of the Massachusetts Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station. Boston : Wright & Potter Print- 

 ing Company. Pp. 136. 



Putnam, Samuel P. The New God. New York: 

 Truth-Seeker Company. Pp. 31. 



Brinton, Daniel G.. M. D.. Philadelphia. Critical 

 Remarks on the Editions of Diego de Landa s Writ- 

 ings. Pp. 8. 



