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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



seeks to determine the final result of relig- 

 ious evolution. However k it is to be com- 

 mended, or however deplored, the advanced 

 mind of this generation is deeply engaged 

 with the most radical religious questions; 

 and it is fortunate, when, as in the present 

 case, the contestants are men of earnest- 

 ness, sincerity, and reverence, as well as of 

 fearlessness, brilliancy, and power. To the 

 readers of the " Monthly " nothing need be 

 said in regard to the special merits of this 

 controversy, except that they will find the 

 volume convenient from the completeness 

 of the views it presents. 



Land -Laws op Mining Districts. By 

 Charles Howard Shinn. Baltimore: 

 N. Murray. Pp. 83. Price, 50 cents. 



Mining - Camps. By Charles Howard 

 Shinn. New York : Charles Scribner's 

 Sons. Pp. 316. Price, $2. 



These two works present the results of 

 an investigation into the history of mining- 

 camps, undertaken with a hope of giving 

 the forms of social organization manifest 

 in the early " districts " of the Sierras, Coast 

 Range, and Rocky Mountains, their proper 

 place in the story of institutional develop- 

 ment on American soil. The work first 

 named is one of the " Johns Hopkins Uni- j 

 versity Series of Studies in Historical and j 

 Political Science " ; and the editor of the se- j 

 ries introduces it with the intimation that it 

 is a "natural, though unconscious, continua- 

 tion of Mr. Johnson's study of ' Rudiment- 

 ary Society among Boys,' " which we have 

 already noticed, " and that it might be called 

 4 Rudimentary Society among Men.' " The 

 second work is of larger scope and more 

 fully wrought out. Mr. Shinn has done a 

 good work in elucidating some peculiar phe- 

 nomena of social and political development. 

 What his essays teach may be illustrated by 

 quoting one of the passages in "Mining- 

 Camps": "In every important particular 

 the organizations of the typical mining- 

 camps, which we have been considering, 

 offer sharply-outlined contrasts. Camp-law 

 has never been the enemy of time-tried and 

 age-honored judicial system, but its friend 

 and forerunner. Axe of pioneer and pick 

 of miner have leveled the forests, and bro- 

 ken down the ledges of rock, to. clear a 

 place for the stately structures of a later 

 civilization. Rude mountain courts, rude 



justice of miner-camps, truth reached by 

 short cuts, decisions unclouded by the verbi- 

 age of legal lexicons, a rough-hewed, sturdy 

 system that protected property, suppressed 

 crime, prevented anarchy such were the 

 facts ; and on these frontier government 

 rests its claims to recognition as other than 

 mob-law, and better than passionate acci- 

 dent." 



" The Jukes " : A Study in Crime, Pauper- 

 ism, Disease, and Heredity. By R. L. 

 Dugdale. Fourth edition. New York : 

 G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 121. Price, 

 $1.25. 



This book embodies the substance of a 

 famous paper, which, first published in the 

 report of the Prison Association for 1877, 

 has probably done more to promote the in- 

 vestigation of methods for the reform of 

 criminals and the prevention of crime than 

 any other single document of the time. It 

 is, as the editor, Mr. Round, says in the in- 

 troduction, " known, read, and valued wher- 

 ever the civilization of the world has ad- 

 vanced far enough to be alarmed at the 

 increase of crime, and to be concerned in 

 reducing the criminal classes." It relates 

 the story of a large family of criminals, 

 prostitutes, and vagrants, which infested a 

 group of counties in New York for two or 

 three generations, all the descendants of a 

 prostitute who was left to go her ways for 

 evil unrestrained by any efforts to reclaim 

 her. A new edition has been demanded in 

 the interest of penal science. The original 

 paper is supplemented with further studies 

 of criminals, and an introduction insisting 

 on the importance of the investigations by 

 Mr. William M. F. Round, Secretary of the 

 National Prison Association. 



A Popular Exposition of Electricity. 

 With Sketches of some of its Discover- 

 ers. By the Rev. Martin S. Brennan. 

 New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 

 191. Price, 75 cents. 



The object of this book is to make all 

 familiar with the essential principles, at 

 least, of the science of electricity ; a pur- 

 pose which none of the learned and excel- 

 lent treatises devoted to the subject, " but 

 so illustrated with complex and intricate 

 mechanical diagrams as to frighten away 

 the timid and uninitiated," seem adapted to 



