418 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which, taken all together, go far to make 

 up a formal treatise on the art. To fur- 

 nish to instructed anatomists, for whom the 

 book is primarily designed, information on 

 points of detail as to which their knowl- 

 edge or memory may be at fault, a collec- 

 tion of formulae is given and a number of 

 special methods are described. For begin- 

 ners, again, a collection is furnished of ex- 

 amples, which are not intended for imita- 

 tion, but as hints suggestive of the most fit- 

 ting processes. 



The Diamond Lens, with other Stories. 

 By Fitz-James O'Brien. New York : 

 Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 337. Price, 

 paper, 50 cents. 



Mr. O'Brien was of Irish birth, a poet 

 and story-writer of bright genius, whose 

 contributions to the newspapers and maga- 

 zines attracted much attention when they 

 were published, and were generally popular 

 and widely read, showing distinct originality 

 and strong powers of penetration and de- 

 scription ; they deserve to be remembered. 

 The present series, including a baker's dozen 

 of the stories, was published in 1881, with 

 a biography of the author, by Mr. William 

 Winter, and now appears again in a second 

 edition. 



The Life of Society. By Edmund Wood- 

 ward Brown. New York : G. P. Put- 

 nam's Sons. Pp. 270. Price, $2. 



This work is intended to present a gen- 

 eral view of the various factors, in nature 

 and man, that work upon the structure and 

 methods of society, and of the influence, in 

 turn, of society upon man. The author's 

 object has been, in a systematic study, to 

 obtain as deep and adequate a general con- 

 ception of society as possible, " the society 

 of any township or any country of the world 

 to-day, or the whole world of society in the 

 past. ... I wish," he says, " to find an ex- 

 planation of society that will suit wherever 

 society is in any country, or has been in any 

 country or age. I want to get a general 

 view of the constant part of every society. 

 I want to evidence and illustrate this by 

 social and historic facts, drawn from the 

 wide range of society in the past or the 

 present." In general, he adds, " I hope, 

 then, I have shown the real foundation of 

 social science, though, doubtless, there are 



deficiencies." The subject is considered un- 

 der the head of the effective causes acting 

 upon society, among which arc the influences 

 of the body, man's intellect, man's will, hab- 

 it and usage, disposition and feeling, etc. ; 

 then are considered various features of so- 

 ciety, the influence of the parts of society 

 upon one another, and of the whole upon 

 the parts ; the growth and progress of so- 

 ciety ; its incompleteness, imperfection, and 

 deterioration ; rhythm and epochs in the 

 life of society ; its laws, restraints, liberties, 

 forms, and institutions ; and, finally, a gen- 

 eral view of the spheres of society. The 

 work bears the marks of laborious thought. 



The Limits of Stability of Nebulous Plan- 

 ets, and the Consequences resulting 

 from their Mutual Kelations. By Pro- 

 fessor Daniel Kirk wood. Pp. 110. 



This monograph is an inquiry respecting 

 the extreme limits within which a planet's 

 atmosphere may exist, as measured by the 

 distance from the planet's center, at which 

 gravity and the centrifugal force will be in 

 equilibrium; and further into the original 

 or maximum values of the corresponding 

 distances, which were much greater before 

 the members of the system had contracted 

 to their present dimensions. These found, 

 the author applies the bearing of the an- 

 swers to the discussion of the question, 

 "Were the planets formed from nebulous 

 rings 



9 



Third Annual Report of the Ohio Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station, for 1884. 

 By William R. Lazenby, Director. Co- 

 lumbus, 0. : Myers Brothers, State Print- 

 ers. Pp. 240. 



The theory of the station, it is stated in 

 the introductory part of the report, " is to tell 

 the farmers of Ohio what they most need to 

 know " ; and much of the matter in the vol- 

 ume appears to answer to that description. 

 Field experiments were conducted during the 

 year with grasses, fruit, and garden vegeta- 

 bles. The primary object of the tests is to 

 improve upon the best-known methods of cul- 

 tivation and management. Among practical 

 questions, earnest attention was given to as- 

 certaining the comparative value of the best 

 varieties ; the effects of thick and of thin 

 seeding; the effects of sowing or planting 

 at different dates, different distances, and 



