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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



means of various occupations ; and it is a 

 training of those faculties, not so much for 

 their own sake, though that is important, as 

 it is for the training of the mind. While 

 the eye is being trained to accuracy and the 

 hand to dexterity and manipulative skill, the 

 mind is being trained to observation, atten- 

 tion, comparison, and judgment." The main 

 object of this training is educational, to per- 

 fect the system of education, and so to raise 

 the standard of practical intelligence through- 

 out the community. 



Essays upon Heredity, and Kindred Bio- 

 logical Problems. By Dr. August Weis- 

 mann. Edited by Edward B. Poulton 

 and Arthur E. Shipley. Vol. II. The 

 Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1892. Pp. 226. 

 Price, $1.30. 



This volume is made up from four essays 

 upon the general subject of the title. In the 

 first, Prof. Weismann describes the place 

 and importance of retrogression in the de- 

 velopment of animal life. The second essay 

 deals with the musical sense in man and ani- 

 mals and its relation to natural selection. 

 The third essay is controversial, and is an 

 answer to certain criticisms of the views of 

 Prof. Weismann on sundry biological ques- 

 tions. The last essay deals with the question 

 of the reproduction of life, and is concerned 

 with an attempt to understand the signifi- 

 cance of the physical facts of the reproduct- 

 ive process. The work is addressed to stu- 

 dents of biology, and requires acquaintance 

 with the present state of biological inquiry 

 to be read understandingly. 



Contributions to North American Ethnol- 

 ogy. Vol. II, in Two Parts. The Kla- 

 math Indians of Southwestern Oregon. 

 By Albert Samuel Gatschet, and Vol. 

 VI. The Cegiha Language. By James 

 Owen Dorsey. Washington : Department 

 of the Interior. 



The monograph contained in the two large 

 quarto parts of Volume II is a portion of the 

 results of the Geographical and Geological 

 Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region carried 

 on under the direction of Major J. W. Powell. 

 As described in Mr. Gatschet's letter of trans- 

 mittal it deals with the beliefs, legends, and 

 traditions of the Klamath Indians, their gov- 

 ernment and social life, their racial and so- 

 matic pecularities, and, more extensively, with 

 their language. The group of Indians herein 



described comprises two chieftaincies, the 

 Klamath Lake Indians and the Modoc In- 

 dians, the latter celebrated for their stubborn 

 war with United States troops in 1872-'73. 

 About a hundred pages in the first part of 

 the monograph are devoted to an ethno- 

 graphical sketch, the other seven hundred 

 pages treating of the Klamath language and 

 giving many Klamath texts. The whole of 

 the second part is occupied with a dictionary 

 having Klamath-English and English-Kla- 

 math divisions. 



The language treated in Volume VI is 

 the speech of the Omaha and Ponka tribes 

 of Indians. Mr. Dorsey was a missionary to 

 the latter tribe from 1871 to 1873, and re- 

 sided with the Omahas from 1878 to 1880. 

 The material of his monograph consists of 

 myths, stories, and letters obtained from the 

 Indians, with translations, both interlinear 

 and consecutive. A dictionary and a grammar 

 of the Cegiha language are in preparation. 



Mathematical Recreations of Past and 

 Present Times. By W. W. Rouse Ball. 

 London and New York : Macmillan & Co. 

 Pp. 241. Price, $2.25. 



This is a book of curious interest, and, 

 although the author confesses that the con- 

 clusions are of no practical use, and most of 

 the results are not new, is not uninstructive. 

 In the first of the two parts into which it is 

 divided various problems and amusements of 

 the kind usually termed mathematical recrea- 

 tions are described. In successive chapters 

 are discussed questions connected with arith- 

 metic, geometry, and mechanics ; magic 

 squares ; and unicurval problems. In the 

 second are discussed the three classical 

 problems in geometry of the duplication of 

 the cube, the trisection of an angle, and the 

 quadrature of the circle, astrology, hypothe- 

 ses as to the nature of space and mass, 

 and the means of measuring time. Ques- 

 tions that involve advanced mathematics are 

 excluded from both parts. Among the par- 

 ticular topics considered are the arts of col- 

 oring maps, of expressing conditions of phys- 

 ical geography by contour maps, games of 

 position, the familiar " ferry-boat problems," 

 geometrical puzzles, paradoxes on motion 

 (sailing quicker than the wind, etc.), prob- 

 lems on force, inertia, work, stability of equi- 

 librium, etc., perpetual motion, the boome- 



