274 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stands by itself as the recognized guide of 

 conscious effort ; when infinity or perfection 

 is no longer conceived in relation to a being 

 or personality, but is still the loftiest motive 

 and the deepest source of spiritual joy — a 

 goal that may be still far away but is ulti- 

 mately to be reached. 



When we stroll along the road we see 

 many things in plant and animal life to 

 awaken curiosity and interest ; but as we 

 are generally intent upon other matters and 

 do not usually know precisely what they are 

 and how they are related to one another, 

 we pass them with little notice and straight- 

 way forget about them. Mr. F. Schuyler 

 Mathews has undertaken, in his Familiar 

 Features of the Roadside* to awaken a 

 more genuine and lasting interest in these 

 objects and to furnish information that will 

 help us to identify and distinguish them, 

 and to become, as it were, more personally 

 acquainted with them. "It might be pos- 

 sible," he says, " to find a wider field for the 

 study of Nature than the highway, but in 

 many respects certainly not a better one, 

 for if we keep on traveling we will have 

 eventually seen and heard about everything 

 that is worth seeing and hearing in the wide 

 world." This may be strongly expressed, 

 but there is certainly vastly more than we 

 suspect to be found by sharp eyes and keen- 

 ly tuned ears on the mountain tops and the 

 seashore, and in the bogs, forests, meadows, 

 pastures, glens, hills, lakes, rivers, and 

 brooks by which the road will lead us if we 

 follow it far enough. The author describes 

 such of these things as he has observed and 

 as came to his mind, and arranges and clas- 

 sifies them according to the seasons and their 

 associations. Thus he tells of the flowers 

 we may find early and late and the families 

 to which they belong, the singers of the 

 meadow and woodland and with musical and 

 unmusical voices, not letting the birds mo- 

 nopolize attention at the expense of the 

 frogs and squirrels ; and of the colors on 

 mountain, meadow, and woodland, and of 

 the colors of autumn. In the first chapter, 

 telling of a spring walk, all the flowers we 

 are likely to meet are described, and more 



* Familiar Features of the Roadside : The 

 Flowers, Shrubs, Birds, and Insects. New York : 

 D.Appleton and Company. Pp.209. Price, $1.75. 



kinds of singing amphibians are differen- 

 tiated than one without special information 

 would suppose existed. The illustrations 

 are fitting and excellent, and the bird notes 

 and other intonations are written in music. 



The main purpose of this volume * is to 

 present the results of recent archaeological 

 investigations in Tennessee, and more espe- 

 cially the district in which the so-called mound 

 builders' remains are found. The original 

 volume was published several years ago, and 

 its complete sale, combined with the recent 

 interesting and important discoveries, have 

 led the author to the preparation of this re- 

 vised and somewhat extended edition. The 

 subject is presented in a series of historical 

 and ethnological studies, the material being 

 found principally in the cists or box-shaped 

 graves built of stone slabs which have been 

 so extensively exhumed of recent years in 

 Tennessee. In accordance with a common 

 custom among savages at a certain stage of 

 development, these prehistoric people placed 

 vessels containing provisions and various 

 utensils in the graves for the use of the de- 

 ceased on his journey to the spirit land. 

 The remains, thus sealed up and protected 

 from the waste of time, are now exhumed in 

 a very perfect state of preservation. They 

 tell the story of ancient domestic life in the 

 Cumberland and Tennessee Valleys with re- 

 markable exactness, and hence are of great 

 ethnologic interest. Mr. Thruston describes 

 them with much detail. There are about 

 three hundred and sixty fairly good illus- 

 trations. 



When Mr. Ward's book \ first appeared 

 in 1883, you might probably have made the 

 rounds of the colleges without ever hearing 

 the word sociology, and if you did it was 

 only some grammarian growling about the 

 liberties which ignorance was forever taking 

 with etymology. But now, on the contrary, 

 the word and its congeners are almost as om- 



* The Antiquities of Tennessee and the Adja- 

 cent States. By Gates P. Thruston. Cincinnati: 

 The Robert Clarke Company. Pp. 369. Illus- 

 trated. Second edition. 



t Dynamic Sociology, or Applied Social Sci- 

 ence, as Based upon Statical Sociology and the 

 Less Complex Sciences. By Lester F. Ward, 

 A. M. In two volumes ; second edition. New 

 York : D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 7C6 and 

 690. Price, $5. 



