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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



He says, " This failure of a scientific treat- 

 ment has been most remarkable; " and, as 

 an attempt to remedy this defect by the de- 

 velopment of a distinct science of govern- 

 ment, the following treatise has been pre- 

 pared. The little book is systematic and 

 suggestive, and its matter is well presented ; 

 but the writer, in our opinion, has very 

 little true conception of what science is in 

 its applications to this subject. 



The Plains op the Great West, and 

 their Inhabitants. Being a Descrip- 

 tion of the Plains, Game, Indians, etc., 

 of the Great North American Desert. 

 By Richard Irving Dodge, Lieutenant- 

 Colonel United States Army. With an 

 Introduction by William Blackmore. 

 Illustrated. New York: G. P. Put- 

 nam's Sons. Pp. 448. Price $4. 



Tnis is a lively, entertaining, and with- 

 al a very instructive volume on the Indi- 

 ans and Western life. Its author writes 

 from observation and experience, and has a 

 happy faculty of seizing the most striking 

 and significant features in description, and 

 representing them in vivid and forcible lan- 

 guage. The work abounds in sketches of 

 travel, delineations of camp-life, pictures of 

 scenery, accounts of game, and episodes 

 of sporting adventure. But its main and 

 most important portion is that which is 

 devoted to the religion, social life, habits, 

 amusements, occupations, and what we may 

 call the general natural history of the 

 Indians. Appended to the volume is an 

 instructive table of Indians living in the 

 United States, omitting those in Alaska, 

 with the numbers and locations of the 

 tribes and fragments of tribes that still 

 survive. The introduction by Mr. Black- 

 more gives some striking facts in regard to 

 the destruction of the buffalo. He says 

 that during the three years 1872-'74 four 

 and a half million of these animals were 

 destroyed, of which three million were 

 killed merely for their hides. This is equal 

 to the destruction of all the cattle in Hol- 

 land and Belgium, and is as if in three 

 years half the cattle of Texas, or all the 

 cattle in Canada, had been carried off by a 

 plague! 



Mr. Blackmore quotes a passage from 

 Bishop Whipple, on " Our Indian Policy," 

 that furnishes an excellent example of 



the working of "American politics," and 

 gives data by which we can compare the 

 fruits of administration of the " best gov- 

 ernment on earth " with the miserable mon- 

 archy that rules on the other side of the 

 St. Lawrence : 



" One one side of the line is a nation that 

 has spent $500,000,000 in Indian wars ; a 

 people who have not one hundred miles 

 between the Atlantic and the Pacific which 

 has not been the scene of an Indian mas- 

 sacre ; a government which has not passed 

 twenty years without an Indian war ; not 

 one Indian tribe to whom it has given 

 Christian civilization ; and which celebrates 

 its centenary by another bloody Indian 

 war. On the other side of the line are the 

 same greedy, dominant, Anglo-Saxon race, 

 and the same heathen. They have not 

 spent one dollar in Indian wars, and have 

 had no Indian massacres. Why ? In 

 Canada the Indian treaties call these men 

 ' the Indian subjects of her majesty.' When 

 civilization approaches them they are placed 

 on ample reservations, receive aid in civ- 

 ilization, have personal rights in property, 

 are amenable to law and protected by law, 

 have schools, and Christian teachers send 

 them the best teachers. We expend more 

 than one hundred dollars to their one in 

 carinjr for Indian wards." 



TnE Applications of Physical Forces. 

 By Amedee Guillemin. Translated 

 from the French by Mrs. Norman Lock- 

 yer, and edited, with Additions and 

 Notes, by J. Norman Lockyer, F. R. S. 

 With Colored Plates and Illustrations. 

 London: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 741. 

 Price $12. 



Five years ago a sumptuous volume 

 appeared in Paris, by Amedee Guillemin, 

 which was translated into English by the 

 Lockyers, and republished by Macmillan, 

 under the title of "The Forces of Nature." 

 It aimed to be a popular account of the 

 great physical forces, gravity, heat, light, 

 and electricity. By the aid of numerous 

 and finely-executed engravings, it attempt- 

 ed to make clear the principles of pure 

 science with no reference to their uses or 

 applications to the practical arts. A com- 

 panion volume has now appeared by the 

 same author, editor, and publishers, which 

 supplements the first, by taking up the ap- 



