LITERARY NOTICES. 



415 



to be strangers. In making battlefields of 

 their custom-houses, ethnic dislike has, doubt- 

 less, served to stimulate commercial jealousy 

 among the people of Europe, and this in 

 its turn fans the animosities which endanger 

 peace. 



While their neighbors have been indulg- 

 ing in costly tariff reprisals upon each other, 

 the British, Dutch, and Swiss, firmly holding 

 to freedom as the right rule of trade, have, 

 perhaps unconsciously, borne testimony to 

 economy and ethics being fundamentally one. 

 Theirs has been the chief progress not only 

 in wealth, but education, the abatement of 

 crime, the lengthening of life. Russia, at the 

 other extreme of fiscal policy, aiming at 

 nothing short of the prohibition of foreign 

 trade, finds her markets depressed and her 

 treasury depleted. The oblique form of pro- 

 tection known as the bounty system has been 

 tried with results which, as traced by Mr. 

 Wells, must have surprised the experiment- 

 alists. France and Germany, in artificially 

 stimulating the production of beet- root sugar, 

 have only succeeded in taxing themselves 

 heavily to provide their chief rival in manu- 

 factures, Great Britain, with an important 

 raw material at less than cost. The British 

 industry in jam and sweets, expanded by 

 cheap sugar, now employs more people than 

 those needed to refine the sugar consumed. 



The general fall in prices during the re- 

 cent past has been a source of much embar- 

 rassment and perplexity in the world of com- 

 merce. Among the theories proffered in its 

 explanation that of the bimetallists has been 

 prominent, and Mr. Wells riddles it thor- 

 oughly. He shows that whereas the cost in 

 labor of producing gold has varied but little 

 for ages, silver during this generation has 

 been discovered in prodigious deposits ; 

 therefore any legislative attempt to main- 

 tain a hard-and fast relation between the 

 values of gold and silver must be vain. 

 He points out that the gold reserves in 

 the banks of the world are to-day, pro- 

 portionately to capital, larger than ever. 

 Furthermore, that the demand for gold con- 

 stantly diminishes as banking facilities over- 

 spread the world with their telegraphic trans- 

 fers, clearing-houses, and other devices for the 

 economy of coin. But if it be demurred, Does 

 not a debt incurred, say, ten years ago, require 

 to-day more wheat or iron for its satisfac- 



tion than the sum could have bought when 

 first borrowed ? Certainly, but the wheat 

 or iron represents no more labor now than 

 it did ten years ago, and its increase in 

 quantity stands for the new efficiency which 

 applied science has bestowed on toil. Let 

 the fall in the rate of interest be noted as 

 evidence that, among sufferers from reduced 

 pay, capital ranks as chief. 



In every page, whether considering the 

 eight - hour movement, the transportation 

 problem, the gigantic cost of protecting 

 American iron and steel for a decade, or any 

 other of the manifold lines of his inquiry, 

 Mr. Wells's analysis is transparent and im- 

 partial. In tracing the bearing of econom- 

 ic development on the welfare of man he 

 rises by breadth of mind and sympathy to the 

 dignity of a philosopher. 



A Popular Treatise on the Winds. By 

 William Ferrel, Ph. D., late Professor 

 and Assistant in the Signal Service. New 

 York: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 505. 

 Price, $4. 



Several essays bearing upon the mechan- 

 ics of the atmosphere have been published 

 by Prof. Ferrel at various times since 1856, 

 but, as they were of a very mathematical 

 character, they were adapted only to those 

 well-trained in mathematics. The present 

 volume is of a more popular nature, although 

 the simpler mathematical operations involved 

 in the presentation of the subject are re- 

 tained. After a general description of the 

 constitution and nature of the atmosphere, 

 the effect of the earth's rotation in the dy- 

 namics of the atmosphere is explained, the 

 general circulation of the atmosphere is de- 

 scribed, and its climatic influences are pointed 

 out. This circulation is shown to agree with 

 the laws governing the movements of gases 

 and vapors acted upon by heat and other 

 forces. The rest of the volume is devoted 

 to descriptions of the various kinds of winds, 

 monsoons, land and sea breezes, cyclones of 

 several varieties, and tornadoes, and explana- 

 tions of their special causes. Thunder-storms 

 water-spouts, hail-storms, and cloud-bursts, 

 with various other allied phenomena, are also 

 explained. The author offers his book to gen- 

 eral readers interested in the subject, and 

 to lecturers on meteorological subjects be- 

 fore college classes or other audiences. 



