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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



various creatures which the previous chap- 

 ters have thus studied. The book is well 

 printed and illustrated, and, while there are 

 some lapses into technical phraseology, the 

 text is in the main readily comprehensible 

 by a child of ten or twelve. 



A work by Dr. C. Christiansen, of Co- 

 penhagen, on the Elements of Theoretical 

 Physics, has been translated by Prof. W. F. 

 Magie, of Princeton (Macmillan, $3.25). 

 Although with ill-judged modesty labeled 

 " Elements," it is an advanced text-book pre- 

 senting the mathematical side of the subject 

 exclusively and using the calculus through- 

 out. The translator deems it valuable be- 

 cause it presents the fundamental principles 

 of theoretical physics, and develops them so 

 far as to bring the reader in touch with 

 much of the new work that is being done in 

 the subject. While not in every respect ex- 

 haustive, he regards it as stimulating and 

 informing, and as furnishing a view of the 

 whole field that will facilitate the reader's 

 progress in special parts of it. He says 

 further that there has been a need of such a 

 book in which the various branches of the 

 subject are developed in connection with one 

 another and in a consistent notation. 



The lectures delivered at the Princeton 

 sesquitennial celebration by Prof. A. A. W. 

 Hubrecht on The Descent of the Primates 

 have reached us in book form (Scribner's, 

 $1). While the subject is a highly technical 

 one, and the treatment is necessarily such as 

 to place the argument beyond the reach of 

 any one but a specialist, the investigation has 

 so important a bearing on the evolutional 

 origin of the human race that it has been 

 deemed worthy of permanent form. The 

 contention is, briefly, that the usual way of 

 looking upon the three subdivisions — the 

 duckbills, the marsupials, and the placental 

 mammals — as a real and historical sequence 

 is not in accordance with their true relation- 

 ships. This is not, as the author says, a 

 new idea, but was originated some years ago 

 by Huxley. The author has derived his 

 material chiefly from a study of the embry- 

 ology of the tarsius, a curious and rare form 

 hitherto ranked with the lemuroids. 



The Mechanical Arts Simplified, by D. B. 

 Dixon (Laird & Lee, Chicago), is one of 

 those so-called handbooks of useful informa- 



tion. It seems to contain a great deal of 

 accurate information, in the shape of tables 

 and formulae, for the mechanic and the me- 

 chanical engineer, but it is largely a com- 

 pilation of unrelated and isolated facts which 

 have little practical value for the average 

 mechanic, and which are of slight value, at 

 best, in such a book, because of the dif- 

 ficulty of finding them. For instance, on 

 page 258 we have first a table giving the 

 weights of thirteen metals, followed by some 

 tables on flour and corn mills extending 

 through page 259 ; page 260 discusses the 

 miner's inch and the flow of water through 

 vertical rectangular openings, and page 261 

 gives us, among other things, a table of mor- 

 tality statistics based on American experi- 

 ence, the date when the first steamboat plied 

 the Hudson, when the first sawmaker's anvil 

 was brought to America, when kerosene was 

 first used for lighting purposes, when the 

 first lucifer match was made, and the date 

 of the appearance of the first newspaper 

 advertisement. 



A list of Reagents and Reactions known 

 by the Names of their Authors, based on the 

 collection of A. Schneider, has been issued 

 by the Pharmaceutical Review Publishing 

 Company, of Milwaukee. It is of interest 

 chiefly to pharmacists and analysts (price, 

 50 cents). 



A little volume on Les Insectes nuisibles, 

 by A. Acloque, that has recently come to us 

 is devoted to giving the habits and mode of 

 development of noxious insects, and the best 

 known means of combating these creatures. 

 The book contains sixty-seven cuts. (F. 

 Alcan, Paris, paper, 60 centimes ; cloth, 1 fr.) 



In English Local Government of To-day 

 (Vol. IX, No. 1, Columbia Studies in Eco- 

 nomics) M. R. Maltbie gives us a careful 

 economic discussion of the relations between 

 central and local government. The purposes 

 of the inquiry are thus set forth in the intro- 

 duction : " First, to show the growth and his- 

 torical development of the English system of 

 central and administrative control ; second, 

 to outline its present legal and practical 

 status; and, third, to ascertain the actual 

 results obtained through it." The author 

 arrives at the conclusion that local self-gov- 

 ernment, pure and simple, has been proved 

 inefficient, and that it is possible to estab- 



