LITERARY NOTICES. 



565 



wants of this country at the present time 

 for sound information. Whatever may be 

 the unattractiveness of the " dismal science," 

 we are satisfied that a large share of it is 

 due to the culpable dullness of writers on 

 economics. If a book upon money is stu- 

 pid, the author must take the responsibility, 

 for his subject is in his favor, and he may 

 count upon the interest of his reader if he 

 does not succeed in extinguishing it. Pro- 

 fessor Walker writes with a vigorous di- 

 rectness, a clearness of perception, and an 

 artistic skill in the use of examples and il- 

 lustrations, which give a keen pleasure to 

 the reader, and make every chapter of his 

 book entertaining as well as instructive. 

 His views are stated with an epigrammatic 

 point and argumentative force that will make 

 the perusal of his book a pleasure to all into 

 whose hands it may fall. Embroiled as we 

 are in this country in conflicts of opinion up- 

 on all aspects of the money question coin- 

 age and paper currency, mono-metalism and 

 bi-metalism, depreciation and appreciation, 

 expansion and contraction, high and low in- 

 terest, national issues and banking agencies, 

 and scores of other monetary problems 

 nothing is more needed than able popular 

 presentations of the principles that underlie 

 all this complex system of financial phe- 

 nomena, and we have seen no book better 

 adapted to clarify the public mind upon these 

 subjects than this of Professor Walker. 



Birds of the Colorado Valley. By El- 

 liott Cotjes. With numerous Illustra- 

 tions. Washington : Government Print- 

 ing-Oflice. 1878. Pp. 823. 



In preparing this work, Dr. Coues has 

 undertaken a vast amount of labor. The 

 whole subject of the bibliography of North 

 American ornithology and of the synonomy 

 of North American birds has been worked 

 up anew from the very bottom, and nothing 

 is given at second hand. Not only the 

 birds of the Colorado Valley, but also all 

 others of North America, are thus exhaus- 

 tively treated. The popular character of 

 this treatise is very marked. " Respecting 

 the biographies or life history of the birds 

 which constitute the main text of the pres- 

 ent volume," writes Professor Hayden, 

 " the author's view, that this portion of the 

 subject should be so far divested of techni- 



cality as to meet the tastes and wants of the 

 public, rather than the scientific requirements 

 of the schoolmen in ornithology, will doubt- 

 less meet with general and emphatic ap- 

 proval." The volume before us forms Part 

 I. of the treatise, " Passeres to Laniidce." 



Aids to Family Government : or, From the 

 Cradle to the School, according to 

 Froebel. By Bertha Mayer. Trans- 

 lated from the German by M. L. Hol- 

 brook, M. D. With an Essay on the 

 Rights of Children and the True Prin- 

 ciples of Family Government. By Her- 

 bert Spencer. New York : M. L. Hol- 

 brook & Co. Pp. 208. 



This book mainly consists of a transla- 

 tion of a little treatise on early education, 

 said to be very popular in Germany. It is 

 devoted to Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Kinder- 

 gartens, and some useful hints may be picked 

 out of it, though it will be chiefly useful in 

 swelling the tide of Kindergarten literature, 

 which is just now in fashion. The name of 

 Herbert Spencer appears upon the cover of 

 the title-page as author of a part of the 

 book, and there are a dozen pages of extracts 

 from him at the end. But from which of 

 his works they are taken, or in what con- 

 nection they are to be found, is not stated. 

 The quotations, however, on the rights of 

 children, are from a volume printed by 

 Spencer twenty-nine years ago, parts of 

 which he has since disavowed as no longer 

 representing his views, and among them is 

 the chapter on the rights of children. 



The Beneficial Influence of Plants. By 

 J. M. Anders, M.D., Ph.D. Pp. 12. 



This paper treats of the old question of 

 the influence of plants in houses on the 

 conditions of health. The author is in- 

 clined to agree with Pettenkofer, that, as 

 decomposers of carbonic-acid gas or as 

 generators of ozone, plants in rooms are 

 really of little or no value ; but, as a means 

 of supplying moisture to the air of furnace- 

 heated houses by the process of transpira- 

 tion, they become important agents in pro- 

 moting the health of the inmates. This 

 conclusion is based on the writer's own in- 

 vestigations, the results of which are given 

 in the paper. 



