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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ual activity, have now attained commanding 

 pre-eminence and supreme importance) will 

 in future constitute a distinctive feature of 

 the work." We understand that the inten- 

 tion is to allow about three eighths of the 

 space of each monthly issue to American 

 contributions; of the latter there are two 

 in the number before us, both excellent ar- 

 ticles: one, by Hon. Oscar S. Straus, United 

 States Minister to Turkey, upon the " De- 

 velopment of Religious Liberty in Ameri- 

 ca " ; the other, by Thomas G. Shearman, 

 Esq., entitled "The Protectionist Revival 

 in Great Britain." These articles have an 

 American copyright. The next number, we 

 are informed, will contain an article by 

 Mrs. Clara Lanza, of this city, upon " Fiction 

 as National Literature," and another by 

 Horace E. Deming, Esq., also of New York, 

 upon " The Machine in American Politics." 



Tables for the Determination op Com- 

 mon Minerals. By W. 0. Crosb?. Bos- 

 ton : J. Allen Crosby. Pp. 74. 



The reasons which have led Professor 

 Crosby to publish these tables are that the 

 best tables which have preceded them are 

 overloaded with descriptions of minerals 

 seldom met with, and give determinations 

 based largely on chemical properties, which 

 are not so conveniently ascertainable as the 

 morphologic and physical properties. Pro- 

 fessor Crosby's tables, which are an out- 

 growth of his experience as an instructor at 

 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 

 aim to determine about two hundred species 

 all that the student is likely to have oc- 

 casion to identify by their more obvious 

 physical and structural features, adding 

 chemical tests to be used when the identifi- 

 cation is not otherwise perfectly satisfacto- 

 ry. Only those tests have been selected re- 

 quiring the minimum of apparatus, reagents, 

 and previous chemical training. The prop- 

 erties of minerals, and the chemical and 

 blow-pipe tests referred to in the tables, are 

 explained in an introduction. In the ta- 

 bles, minerals are divided first into two class- 

 es, those with metallic and those with non- 

 metallic luster, and then by the color in the 

 former class and the streak in the latter, 

 and further by the hardness ; they are sub- 

 divided into forty-one groups. A concise 

 physical description of each species is given, 



by which it may be distinguished from the 

 others of the same group, and the last col- 

 umn of the tables is devoted to chemical 

 tests. An index of species is appended. 



The Argentine General Catalogue. Mean 

 Positions of Southern Stars determined 

 at the National Observatory, Benjamin 

 A. Gould, Director. Cordoba. 1886. 



This volume puts the public in posses- 

 sion of the main results of Dr. Gould's 

 great labors in Cordoba. The catalogue 

 contains 32,448 stars, and there are many 

 hundreds more in appended lists of clusters, 

 the number of observations exceeding 145,- 

 000. The work includes nearly all the stars 

 in the southern heavens, down to the 8-^ 

 magnitude, the exceptions chiefly lying north 

 of 23 of south declination, a region already 

 covered by other catalogues. Of the sur- 

 passing accuracy of the work, and the mi- 

 nute care with which every part of it has 

 been executed, it would be impertinent for 

 us to speak. To the layman, the contem- 

 plation of such a monument of genius, bend- 

 ing itself to incalculable assiduity, is truly a 

 moral lesson. 



A Systematic Hand-Book. of Volumetric 

 Analysis. Adapted to the Requirements 

 of Pure Chemical Research, Pathological 

 Chemistry, Pharmacy, Metallurgy, Manu- 

 facturing Chemistry, Photography, etc., 

 and for the Valuation of Substances 

 used in Commerce, Agriculture, and the 

 Arts. By Francis Sutton, F. C. S., F. I. C. 

 Fifth edition. Philadelphia: P. Blakis- 

 ton, Son & Co. Pp. 491. Price, $4.50. 



When discoveries of chemical reactions 

 and methods are being published so volu- 

 minously as at present, frequent revisions 

 are necessary to keep a manual of analysis 

 abreast of the times. In preparing this 

 edition of his hand-book, Mr. Sutton has 

 completely revised the work, and has add- 

 ed new methods. He has excluded some 

 of the matter of previous editions as being 

 of little value, among which is the system- 

 atic analysis of soils and manures by volu- 

 metric methods, also that of indigo, for 

 which no satisfactory process is known. 

 The opening section of the book is devoted 

 to a description of apparatus and instru- 

 ments. The second section is on analysis 

 by saturation, and comprises alkalimetry 

 and acidimetry, including in each division 



