130 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ties. This would be discouraging for book- 

 makers and book-sellers, but for the cir- 

 cumstance that the old editions become 

 soon worthless, and new ones indispensable. 

 And it would be hard on the book-buyers, 

 but for the fact that the new improvements 

 are often so invaluable as to be cheap at 

 almost any cost. We can not stop the 

 growth of the arts in order to keep the 

 treatises that we hare bought perennially 

 fresh. 



Cooley's " Cyclopaedia of Practical Re- 

 ceipts " is a work of high reputation, not 

 only for its comprehensiveness and accu- 

 racy, but because it has been kept faith- 

 fully up to the times by its successive revi- 

 sions ; and a careful examination of the 

 sixth edition shows that its standard of ex- 

 cellence has been strictly maintained. The 

 title " Receipts " is in some respects unfor- 

 tunate, as the work is by no means a mere 

 receipt-book, and it makes no clap-trap claim 

 on the ground that its receipts can be count- 

 ed by the thousand. It abounds in important 

 practical information of general interest in 

 reference to the materials furnished by com- 

 merce and used in the arts, their prepara- 

 tion, and their purity, and is very full in 

 illustrated directions for carrying on ma- 

 nipulations, and preparing numerous articles 

 and products of general utility. The work 

 is important to the chemist, the mechanic, 

 the manufacturer, and the householder. It 

 will be completed in two volumes, and the 

 second may be expected to appear in a few 

 months. 



Health, and how to promote it. By 

 Richard McSherrt, M. D., Professor 

 of Practice of Medicine, Maryland Uni- 

 versity, President of Baltimore Academy 

 of Sciences, etc. New York : D. Apple- 

 ton & Co. Pp. 185. Price, $1.25. 



Dr. McSherry has here made both a 

 readable and a useful little manual of hy- 

 giene. He has no hobbies, and does not 

 profess to be the author of any new theo- 

 ries for the preservation of health, but he 

 goes over the general ground of its condi- 

 tions as affected by education, as related to 

 the sexes, and as influenced by clothing, 

 exercise, diet, and the habitual use of stim- 

 ulants. Upon these topics there will be 

 found much fresh information, with many 

 judicious extracts from the best authori- 



ties, derived from wide and critical reading. 

 The author's pages are enlivened with many 

 personal references, and interspersed with 

 acute observations calculated to please as 

 well as to instruct the reader. The book 

 will well repay perusal, and we heartily com- 

 mend it. 



After Death, what? or, Hell and Sal- 

 vation, considered in the Light of 

 Science and Philosophy. By Rev. W. 

 H. Platt. San Francisco : H. Roman 

 & Co. Pp. 209. 



This is decidedly a lively volume. It 

 is a sort of colloquial symposium ; that is, it 

 undertakes to present both sides of a con- 

 troverted subject, or some of the issues of 

 religion and science. Yet it differs from 

 the symposium proper, in that the discussion 

 is carried on conversationally, and still more 

 that both sides are represented by one par- 

 tisan. The book is written by a clergyman, 

 and takes the form of a debate between 

 a preacher and a skeptic. The skeptic 

 seems a kind of poor stick, made to order 

 for the convenience of the preacher, who 

 cuffs him about in a very unceremonious 

 way, and finally " converts " him. 



The theory of the origin of the book we 

 are half inclined to infer may be something 

 like this : Rev. W. H. Platt is Rector of 

 Grace Church, San Francisco, which is no 

 doubt a sound and we trust a prosperous 

 orthodox establishment. It is quite likely 

 that, in that city of hoodlums, Chinese pa- 

 gans, and wicked doubters, some graceless 

 persons have poked fun at the Grace Church 

 people about their antiquated, superstitious 

 notions of hell. Now, even the regenerate 

 are liable to suffer from lingering remnants 

 of pride, and do not like to be made fun of; 

 and so, we may suppose, they turned to their 

 shepherd, Rev. W. H. Platt, for protection. 

 Whereupon, it may be further assumed, 

 he rose in some wrath and resolved to give 

 these scoffing skeptics more scientific hell 

 than they had ever had of the theological 

 sort. We vaguely conjecture this situation 

 from the first paragraph of the book : " The 

 scientist boldly asks the preacher why he 

 continues to preach the old-fashioned hell. 

 ' Do you not know,' he says, ' that intelli- 

 gent people now laugh at your lake of fire 

 and brimstone, your devil with horns and 

 dragon-tail, and all that sort of stuff?'" 



