POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



l 37 



Parker, "William W., M. D., Richmond, Va. The 

 Rise and Decline of Homoeopathy. Pp. 12. Burial 

 vs. Cremation. Pp. 8. 



Peterson. Frederick, M. D. Anodal DifFasion as 

 a Therapeutic Agent. Pp. 11. 



Riddle, A. G. Washington's Birthday Address. 

 Washington: Judd & Detweiler. Pp. 81. 



Rochester Public Schools, lSS9-'90. Pp. 205. 



Rosse, Irving C, Washington. Clinical Evidences 

 of Border-land Insanity. Pp. 1(5. 



Salmon, David. Longmans' Primary School 

 Grammar. Longmans. Pp. 124. 35 cents. 



Sanborn, J. W. Missouri Experiment Station. 

 Synopsis of Experiments. Pp. 40. 



Shoup, Francis A. Mechanism and Personality. 

 Ginn & Co. Pp. 343. $1.30. 



Siebel, J. E . Director, Chicago. Communications 

 of the Zymotechnic Institute. Pp. 72, with I'lates. 



Spencer, Herbert, and others A Plea for Lib- 

 erty. D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 414. $2.':5. 



Squire, Joseph. The Calaba Coal-field, Alabama. 

 Montgomery : Geological Survey. Pp. 1S9, with Map. 



Truth - Seeker Annual for 1891. New York : 

 Truth-Seeker Co. Pp. 114. 25 cents. 



Waith, William S. The Circle of Trigonometric 

 Functions. Pp. 32. 



"Woodward, C. M. The Educational Value of 

 Manual Training. O. C. Heath & Co. Pp. 95. 



"Woolsey, "W. J., St. Paul, Minn. Prophetic Evo- 

 lution. Pp. 16. 



POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



Onr Sequoia Forests. Counting as for- 

 ests all areas of a thousand acres and up- 

 ward, Mr. Frank J. Walker computes that 

 there are now 37,200 acres of Sequoia forest 

 in the United States, divided as follows : 

 King's River forest, 7,500 acres ; Kaweah 

 River, 14,000 ; Tule River, 14,000 ; Kern 

 River, 1,700 acres. They are all south of 

 King's River, and nearly all of them in Tu- 

 lare County, Cal., and extend over a belt of 

 country beginning at Converse Basin on the 

 north, and ending with the Indian Reser- 

 vation forest. The groves and forests with- 

 in this region are more than twenty in num- 

 ber, with an average distance between them 

 of perhaps three or four miles. The south- 

 ern limit of the Sequoia is the Deer Creek 

 Grove, which contains less than one hundred 

 and fifty Sequoias, scattered over an area of 

 perhaps three hundred acres. Too many of 

 these noble woods have already passed into 

 the hands of speculators, and are doomed 

 shortly to disappear. One tract, including 

 two townships, has lately been saved to the 

 public by the Vandever Bill. It embraces 

 the Sequoia Park forest and most of the 

 Homer Peak forest, and contains what are 

 known as the Fresno Big Trees among 

 them the General Grant, which is said to 

 be forty feet in diameter. Besides its value 



for the storage of waters needed for irriga- 

 tion, this whole region has charming natural 

 attractions that make it most eminently suit- 

 able for a park, of which Mr. Walker says : 

 " The height of the Sierra, culminating in 

 Mount Whitney, affords grand scenery of 

 peculiar charm and great variety. Here are 

 three Yosemites rivaling their noted proto- 

 type in many features, with a little world of 

 wonders clustering around the head-waters 

 of Kern, Kaweah, and King's Rivers. We 

 will simply mention the Grand Canon of the 

 Kern, where, for twenty miles, the mad 

 waters of the river are walled in with the 

 continuous battlements of the California 

 Alps, crowned with nameless and unnum- 

 bered domes and towers. Then, only a few 

 miles across the divide, extends the canon 

 of King's River, with its wealth of impress- 

 ive scenery ; and some eight miles farther 

 to the north lies the Valley of Tehipitec 

 the gem of the Sierra with its wondrous 

 dome of rock rising in rounded majesty 

 some six thousand feet from the level 

 of the river-cleft meadow at its feet. A 

 view of the most impressive and character- 

 istic scenery of the region is to be earned 

 by scaling one of the lofty peaks of the 

 Kaweah range. At least a hundred peaks 

 here rise to altitudes exceeding ten thou- 

 sand feet. . . . Here, standing on the crest 

 of the Kaweah Sierra, one looks across the 

 Grand Canon of the Kem, and the encircling 

 wilderness of crags and peaks is beyond the 

 power of pen to describe. Mounts Moriache, 

 Whitney, Williamson, Tyndall, Kaweah, and 

 a hundred nameless peaks the crown of 

 our country have pierced the mantle of 

 green that elothes the canons below, and 

 are piled into the very sky, jagged and bald, 

 and bleak and hoary a wilderness of eter- 

 nal desolation." 



The Custom of Potlatch. One of the 



most complicated and interesting institutions 

 of the Northwestern Indian tribes of Canada, 

 according to Mr. Horatio Hale's report on 

 the subject to the British Association, is 

 what is called potlatch the custom of paying 

 debts and of acquiring distinction by means 

 of giving a great feast and making pres- 

 ents to all the guests. It is somewhat difficult 

 to understand the meaning of the potlatch. 

 The author would compare its most simple 



