13 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



such class, both original and selected from 

 foreign journals, are, as a rule, written by 

 experts, by men who have made special 

 study of the points they are discussing, or 

 have had experience in the application of 

 them. It also pays considerable attention 

 to topics of a more general scientific charac- 

 ter, and gives much withal that commends 

 itself to persons who are not specialists or 

 professionally informed, but who have an 

 intelligent interest in the progress of the 

 departments to which it is devoted. 



Proposed Plan for a Sewerage System, 

 and for the disposal of the sewage 

 of the City of Providence. By Samuel 

 M. Gray, City Engineer. Pp. 146, with 

 Plans and Maps. 



City Engineer Gray was deputed by the 

 City Council of Providence, a year ago, to 

 proceed with his assistant to Europe to in- 

 vestigate the various plans in practical op- 

 eration for the disposition and utilization 

 of sewage, and upon the information thus 

 obtained to report a plan for adoption in 

 that city. The list of cities and works he 

 visited, in England, Wales, Holland, France, 

 and Germany wherever, in fact, important 

 sewerage-works have been undertaken, or 

 systems for the disposition of sewage have 

 been tried, or are under trial shows that 

 his inspection was a busy one. In the plan 

 which he has devised, with the aid of these 

 observations, he has had in view the prin- 

 ciple which is in reality the Hamlet of the 

 question, but is too often left out, that " no 

 system of sewerage is complete which fails 

 to dispose of the sewage so as to avoid its 

 causing a nuisance." The report embodies 

 a large mass of information, presented with 

 commendable brevity. After an historical 

 review of the subject, the several systems 

 for disposing of sewage are considered as 

 to their general principles and specifically. 

 Among these are the systems of sewage in- 

 terception, or dry-sewage systems, the pneu- 

 matic systems (Licrnur, Berlier, and Shone) ; 

 the water-carriage system ; and the systems 

 of disposal by irrigation and precipitation; 

 with a comparison of the different methods 

 of purifying sewage. Although prepared 

 only for a special object, the report might, 

 in the absence of any other comprehensive 

 work, serve as a general manual of the sub- 

 ject. 



Tables, Meteorological and Physical. 

 By Arnold Guyot. Fourth edition, re- 

 vised and enlarged. Edited by William 

 Libbey, Jr. Washington: Smithsonian 

 Institution. Pp. 738. 



Professor Gdyot's original work, pub- 

 lished in 1852, was the first of the series of 

 " Tables of Constants," to which the Smith- 

 sonian Institution is gradually making im- 

 portant contributions, and has proved, by 

 the demand which arose for it, to be the 

 one of the series that has met the most 

 general public want. A second revised 

 edition was published in 1857, in which the 

 tables were so enlarged as to extend the 

 volume of the book from two hundred and 

 twelve to more than six hundred pages. A 

 third edition was published in 1879, with 

 further amendments. The author began 

 the revision for this fourth edition in 1879, 

 but was met with delays, and died before 

 completing the work, which was left for his 

 assistant and successor in his college pro- 

 fessorship to finish. The contents consist 

 of tables comparing the different thermo- 

 metrical scales, with reductions from one to 

 another; hygrometrical tables, with tables 

 for the conversion of metrical hygrometric 

 measures into others ; barometrical tables ; 

 hypsometrical tables ; geographical meas- 

 ures, in which means are given for reducing 

 the measures of all countries from one to 

 another ; meteorological corrections ; and 

 " Miscellaneous Tables useful in Terrestrial 

 Physics and Meteorology." The whole con- 

 stitute a valuable reference book. 



The Ornithologist and Oologist, Vol. IX. 

 1S84. Pawtucket, II. I. : Frank B. Web- 

 ster, publisher. Twelve Numbers. Pp. 

 152. Price, $1.50 a year; 15 cents a 

 number. 



As is implied in its title, this is a maga- 

 zine devoted to birds, their nests, and eggs. 

 It is beautifully printed, and is sustained by 

 a corps of competent and enthusiastic con- 

 tributors, who record in it their daily, week- 

 ly, monthly, yearly, or occasional observa- 

 tions, on these the most attractive of man's 

 companions on the earth. It is a pity that 

 so many of them consider it an indispensa- 

 ble preliminary to the observations to shoot 

 the birds or steal their eggs. In the pres- 

 ent state of science, these things, when they 

 are done, are unnecessary in nine cases OHt 



