LITERARY NOTICES. 



129 



into mutually helpful and stimulating rela- 

 tions with one another." This is necessary, 

 he says, because as specialization advances 

 the mutual dependence of specialists in- 

 creases, and isolation in work becomes more 

 and more unendurable. The first lecture is 

 by Prof. Whitman, on Specialization and 

 Organization, in the course of which he 

 states that a national marine biological sta- 

 tion with a strong endowment is the great 

 desideratum of American biology The sec- 

 ond leoture, on The Naturalist's Occupation, 

 is also by Prof. Whitman, and the others 

 are Some Problems of Annelid Morphology, 

 by E. B. Wilson ; The Gastrsea Theory and 

 its Successors, by J. P. McMurrich; Weis- 

 mann and Maupas on the Origin of Death, 

 by Edwin G. Gardiner ; Evolution and He- 

 redity, by Henry F. Osborn ; The Relation- 

 ships of the Sea-Spiders, by T. H. Morgan ; 

 On Caryokinesis, by S. Watase ; The Ear 

 of Man : its Past, Present, and Future, by 

 Howard Ayres ; The Study of Ocean Tem- 

 peratures and Currents, by William Libber, 

 Jr. The lectures are rather popular in char- 

 acter, and some of them are illustrated with 

 diagrams. 



Second Annual Report on the Statistics 

 of Railways in the United States to 

 the Interstate Commerce Commission, 

 for the Year ending June 30, 1889. By 

 Henry C. Adams. Washington : Gov- 

 ernment Printing-Office. Pp. 566. 



The railway mileage of the United States 

 at the date of making the report was 157,- 

 758-83 miles, of which 149,948'66 miles were 

 covered by reports to the commission. The 

 largest mileage is in Illinois, 9,829*48 miles, 

 and the smallest in the District of Co- 

 lumbia, 30-57 miles, but the District has 

 the most railroad to the square mile and 

 Nevada the least. The gauges of tracks are 

 being rapidly accommodated to two stand- 

 ards. The standard gauge, from four feet 

 eight and a half inches to four feet nine 

 inches, inclusive, is used by 1,371 roads, 

 representing 933 per cent of the total mile- 

 age, and the three-foot narrow gauge by 234 

 companies, representing six per cent of the 

 total mileage. This shows ninety-nine per 

 cent of the whole as conformed to these two 

 gauges. Of the 25,665 passenger-cars in 

 use, 23,348 are fitted with automatic coup- 

 lers and 23,546 with automatic brakes ; but 

 vol. xxxix. 11 



the freight-cars are not so well provided, so 

 that out of a total equipment of 1,097,591 

 engines and cars only 80,510 are fitted with 

 automatic couplers and 128,159 with auto- 

 matic brakes. As compared with foreign 

 railway administration, the number of men 

 employed per mile of line is remarkably 

 small. The record of accidents to men em- 

 ployed " shows in a startling manner the 

 dangerous nature of railway employment " ; 

 and a comparison in the matter with Eng- 

 land " is greatly to the discredit of the 

 United States." Information is given re- 

 specting the organization of property for 

 operation, on the relations of the roads in 

 a system to one another, the capitalization 

 of railway property, earnings and expenses, 

 and the merits and defects of railway sta- 

 tistics. Complications introduced by con- 

 struction accounts, express companies, out- 

 side freight lines and car companies, and 

 private and corporative ownership of roll- 

 ing-stock make it difficult to obtain com- 

 plete statistics ; but, as far as the work of 

 the railway companies proper is concerned, 

 a fairly satisfactory exhibit is made. The 

 tables in the appendixes give, of detailed 

 information for the year : Classification of 

 railways and mileage, amount of railway 

 capital, earnings and income, general ex- 

 penditures, payments on railway capital, 

 and summary of financial operations of op- 

 erating roads. 



Grammar and Language. Bv E. de L. Starck. 

 Boston : W. B. Clarke & Carruth. Pp. 

 185. Price, $2.50. 



This book is defined in the sub-title as 

 An Attempt at the Introduction of Logic 

 into Grammar. The attempt is intended to 

 be applied no further than to the seven lan- 

 guages with which the author is acquainted, 

 among which the three groups of the Indo- 

 European family the Teutonic, the Slavic, 

 and the Romance are represented. The 

 author believes that he discovers a general 

 principle underlying linguistic phenomena. 

 Grammar has, he affirms, been studied too 

 much from the pedagogical side of the ques- 

 tion, while the scientific side has been left 

 out. It has been a drawback in the study of 

 foreign languages that each one is presented 

 to the student disconnected from his mother 

 tongue or any other. On the other hand, 

 the principles of general grammar, in crown- 



