LITERARY NOTICES. 



*3S 



ton. "It is impossible," the compiler re- 

 marks, " to look over the columns of a daily 

 journal, especially during the progress of a 

 spirited political campaign, without encount- 

 ering numerous expressions and phrases, 

 the meaning of which can not be learned 

 from any dictionary, but which, to one who 

 is familiar with the current argot of the 

 period, are often quite as vigorously ex- 

 pressive as the most picturesque slang of 

 the street." Mr. Norton's attempt is to ex- 

 plain most of these expressions. Without 

 claiming to be exhaustive, he has included 

 a number of phrases which, he says, can be 

 found in no other compilation. Some have 

 passed out of current use, others are still 

 living. The definitions are studiously un- 

 colored. 



Prof. J. Howard Gore, in a paper on 

 TJie Decimal System of Measures of the Sev- 

 enteenth Century, presents the claims of the 

 priest, Gabriel Mouton, of Lyons, to be re- 

 garded as the originator of the decimal sys- 

 tem. As early as 1665 he proposed a 

 scheme of measures by tens, the unit of 

 which was derived from a minute of the arc 

 of the terrestrial great circle, and which 

 embodied the essential features of the scale 

 proposed by the official commission in 1799. 



W. M. Griswold, the industrious index- 

 maker, has prepared and publishes, at Cam- 

 bridge, Mass., in a pamphlet of fifty-two 

 pages, A Descriptive List of Novels and Talcs 

 dealing with American Country Life. Its 

 purpose is to direct readers, having a taste 

 for books of the kind, to a number of novels, 

 easily obtainable, but which may have become 

 forgotten in the rush of other novels coming 

 after them. Many of these books are typi- 

 cal, or have a historical value ; some of 

 them are of the first quality of excellence, 

 and should not be allowed to perish at least 

 in the present age ; and all are worthy of 

 the place given them. Descriptive notices 

 are appended to each of the titles, which 

 have usually been selected from reviews in 

 the standard critical journals. Other lists 

 of kindred character are promised. 



The Indiana College Association was 

 formed in 1878 for the mutual improvement 

 of its members and the consideration of 

 college instruction and management, . and 

 now includes representatives of fourteen in- 

 stitutions. It has held meetings every year, 



but no publications were made of the pro- 

 ceedings of its meetings from 1884 to 1888. 

 The full publication of the Proceedings and 

 Addresses of the thirteenth session, Decem- 

 ber, 1890, is accompanied by abstracts of 

 the proceedings of these five sessions. The 

 principal addresses at the meeting of 1889 

 were on The Religious Sentiment in it3 

 Relation to Scholarship, President J. J. 

 Mills ; Relations of Mathematics to Meta- 

 physics, Prof. A. S. Hunter ; The Function 

 of the Laboratory in Technical Schools, 

 Prof. Thomas Gray; The Study of Man 

 through Language and Literature, Prof. 

 Hoffman; Word Color, Prof. E. B. T. 

 Spencer ; and Mathematics in the Prepara- 

 tory Schools, Prof. R. J. Aley. 



A strange volume is that entitled A 

 Secret Institution, written by Clarissa C. 

 Lathrop (Bryant Publishing Co.), to de- 

 scribe the events that led to her incarcer- 

 ation in the Utica Insane Asylum from 

 1880 to 1882, her treatment there, and the 

 way she obtained her release. Its purpose 

 is to call attention to the injustice which 

 many persons have suffered through being 

 committed to asylums and kept there when 

 perfectly sane. The writer draws a dark 

 picture of asylum life, and her story shows 

 what terrible abuses are possible where the 

 light of investigation can not penetrate. 



A novel in which a representation of one 

 of the current forms of socialism is given 

 has been written by Albion W. Tourgee, 

 under the title Murvale Eastman, Christian 

 Socialist (Fords, $1.50). The social doc- 

 trines are applied in the dealings of a street 

 railway company with its employes. The 

 story is more than a mere vehicle for the 

 doctrines, being rich in plot and incident. 



A number of geological monographs of 

 much interest have recently been published 

 by Prof. Warren Upham. First on the list 

 in the amount of labor it represents is the 

 author's Report of Exploration of the Glacial 

 Lake Agassiz in Manitoba, which appears in 

 connection with the report of the geological 

 survey of Canada. Lake Agassiz was a 

 lake, the result of the damming of the 

 waters by ice in glacial times, which existed 

 in the Red River Valley in Dakota and Min- 

 nesota, and thence toward the north across 

 Manitoba into Saskatchewan, covering an 

 area (about 110,000 square miles) greater 



