LITER AR Y NO TICES. 



419 



A Guide to Modern English History. By 

 William Cory. Part II, 1830 to 1835. 

 New York : Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 567. 

 Price, $3.50. 



The first part of this work related to the 

 first fifteen years of the great peace. The 

 expansion of the present volume, which in- 

 cludes only about a third as much time, is 

 justified by the author, on the ground of the 

 " excessive value of the work done for the 

 British Commonwealth in the years now 

 surveyed." These years, the author adds, 

 " are full of the virtue and wisdom which 

 make modern England supremely worthy of 

 a student's contemplation ; it seems not too 

 much to say that they form a period of 

 paramount importance in the history of 

 legislation and government." The work is 

 the composition of a sharp observer, and is 

 marked by vigorous thought and forcible 

 expression, and a bold, captivating style 

 that engages the reader and holds him. Mr. 

 Samuel R. Gardiner, who may be regarded 

 as an expert in the specialty of English his- 

 tory, characterizes it as " one not very well 

 calculated to guide those who do not know 

 a good deal of the way already, but admira- 

 bly fitted to enable those who do to test 

 those opinions which they have sometimes 

 too hastily formed." 



Address delivered by Edward Atkinson 

 at the Opening of the Second Annu- 

 al Fair of the New England Manu- 

 facturers' and Mechanics' Institute 

 in Boston, September, 6, 1882. Pp. 32. 



The end to be subserved by such indus- 

 trial exhibitions, Mr. Atkinson tells us, is to 

 make less arduous the daily work whereby 

 the larger part of the community earn their 

 daily bread. The author is not one who 

 takes a pessimist's view of life, and, al- 

 though he shows that the measure of com- 

 fort that each man, woman, and child can 

 yet enjoy, even in our prosperous land, does 

 not exceed on an average fifty or sixty cents 

 per day, he does not think or believe that 

 increase of wealth is of necessity comple- 

 mented by increase of poverty. Still the 

 small minority of people who can become 

 possessors of capital in any large measure 

 must justify the leisure which they or their 

 fathers have earned, by the use which they 

 make of the time and means at their dispos- 

 al. After showing how it is possible for our 



railroad kings to put money in our pockets 

 while amassing fortunes themselves, he com- 

 pares our happy lot with the unfortunate 

 condition, from an economic point of view, 

 of those countries that are burdened by 

 huge standing armies, and where the cpian- 

 tity produced, although relatively less, must 

 be divided among a greater number. The 

 advantages of developing the hand and 

 brain together are then referred to. The 

 last man or woman whom you desire to dis. 

 charge from the works which you control, 

 when the times are hard, is the one earning 

 the most for himself or herself ; the first to be 

 discharged is the unfortunate one whose hand 

 and brain have not been developed together, 

 and who can, in hard times, no loncer reo- 

 der you a service, even if paid a sum barely 

 sufficient to support life. " Owing to the 

 great natural, social, and political advan- 

 tages that we enjoy, the wages of labor and 

 the remuneration of capital must be greater 

 in proportion to the effort used than in any 

 other section of the world's surface ; and 

 these facts prove that the cost of produc- 

 tion is less in ratio to product than it can 

 be anywhere else." 



Although intended for delivery before a 

 limited audience on a particular occasion, 

 the address is of such general interest as to 

 deserve a wide circulation. 



Contributions to Mineralogy. By F. A. 

 Genth. Read before the American Phil- 

 osophical Society, August 18, 1882. 

 This pamphlet of twenty -four finely- 

 printed pages represents a large amount of 

 actual labor, and contains several important 

 contributions to science, in the form of 

 analyses and observations on altered min- 

 erals. That one mineral should be grad- 

 ually changed, particle by particle, mole- 

 cule by molecule, into a different mineral 

 having other chemical and physical proper- 

 ties, is a curious and interesting phenome- 

 non, worthy the study of such a chemist a3 

 Professor Genth. The first case described 

 is the alteration of corundum, in Madison 

 County, North Carolina ; it is found partially 

 altered to a massive greenish-black spinel ; 

 in Towns County, Georgia, a pink corundum 

 is found surrounded by greenish-white, cleav- 

 able zoisite ; an interesting occurrence of the 

 alteration of corundum into a feldspar is 

 near Media, Pennsylvania, at the " Black- 



