628 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



By N. B. Wolfe, M. D. Chicago : Religio- 

 philosophical Publishing House. Pp. 570. 



Missouri University Report, 1875. Pp. 

 210. 



Report on the Mineralogy of Pennsylva- 

 nia. By F. A. Genth. Pp. 206. 



The Physiological Reasons why. By 

 A. Hutchins, M. D. Brooklyn : W. W. 

 Swayue. Pp. 50. 



The Genera Geomys and Thomomys. 

 By Dr. E. Coues. Pp. 73. 



Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural 

 Science. Vol. II., No. 4. 



Mineral Deposits in Essex County, Mass. 

 By C. J. Brockway. Boston : A. Williams 

 & Co. Pp. 60. Price, 50 cents. 



Fishes of Indiana. By D. S. Jordan, 

 M. D. Pp. 42. 



Reasons for embracing the Doctrines of 

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 E. H. Swmney. Pp. 120. 



Transactions of the American Society 

 of Civil Engineers. May, 1875. Pp.140. 



Bureau of Education. Nos. 3 and 4, 

 1875. Pp. 108. 



Melanosiderite. By J. P. Cooke, Jr. 

 Pp. 11. 



The Sun and the Earth, by Balfour 

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Insects of the Field. By E. S. Packard, 

 Jr. Boston : Estes & Lauriat. Pp. 31. 

 Price, 25 cents. 



MISCELLANY. 



rO HEEBEET SPENCEE. 



BY GRANT ALLEN.* 



Deepest and mightiest of our later seers, 

 Spencer, whose piercing glance descried afar 



Down fathomless abysses of dead years 

 The formless waste drift into sea or star, 



And through vast wilds of elemental strife 



Tracked out the first faint steps of yet unconscious 

 life; 



Thy hand has led us through the pathless maze, 

 Chaotic sights and sounds that throng our brain, 



Traced every strand along its tangled ways ; 

 And woven anew the many-colored skein ; 



I Professor of Mental Philosophy in Queen's C!ol- 

 lege, Jamaica. 



Bound fact to fact in unrelenting laws, 

 And shown through minds and worlds the unity of 

 cause. 



Ere thou hadst read the universal plan. 



Our Ufe was unto us a thing alone : 

 On this side Nature stood, on that side man, 



Irreconcilable, as twain, not one : 

 Thy voice first told us man was Nature's child, 

 And in one common law proclaimed them recon- 

 ciled. 



No partial system could suifice for thee, 

 Whose eye has scanned the boundless realms of 

 space ; 

 Gazed, through the aeons, on the fiery sea, 



And caught faint glimpses of that awful face, 

 Which, clad with earth, and heaven, and souls of 



men. 

 Veils its mysterious shape forever from our ken 1 



As tiny builders in some coral shoal. 



Eaising the future mountain to the sky. 

 Build each his cell, unconscious of the whole, 



Live each his little hfe, and work and die ; 

 Even so the lesser toilers in thy field 

 Build each the httle pile his narrower range can 

 yield. 



But, like a skillful architect, thy mind 

 Works up the rock those Insect reasons frame. 



With conscious plan and purpose clear defined 

 In arch and column, toward a single aim. 



Till, joining part to part, thy wider soul 



Piles up a stately fane, a grand, consistent whole. 



Not without honor is the prophet's name, 

 Save with his country and his kin in time ; 



But after-years shall noise ala'oad thy fame 

 Above all other fame in prose or rhyme ; 



For praise is his who builds for his own age, 



But he who buUds for time must look to time for 

 wage. 



Tet, though thy purer spirit do not need 

 The vulgar guerdon of a brief renown. 



Some little meed, at least, some little meed 

 Our age may add to thy more lasting crown ; 



Accept an unknown singer's thanks for light 



Cast on the dim abyss that bounds our little sight. 



Sleep and Digestion. Speaking from 

 his own experience, which would appear to 

 differ from the experience of other people, 

 Frank Buckland asserts that the best time 

 to go to bed is immediately, or very soon, 

 after the principal meal of the day. " All 

 animals," he remarks, " always go to sleep, 

 if they are not disturbed, after eating. This 

 is especially noticeable in dogs ; and the 

 great John Hunter showed by an experi- 

 ment that digestion goes on during sleep 

 more than when an animal is awake and 

 going about." Mr. Buckland finds a con- 



