698 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



drainage-work inaugurated by the Survey 

 and successfully carried on, is furnished by 

 Mr. George W. Howell. 



Geological Observations on the Volcanic 

 Islands and Parts of South America 

 visited during the Voyage of H. M. S. 

 Beagle. By Charles Darwin, M. A., 

 F. R. S. Third edition. With Maps and 

 Illustrations. New York : D. Appleton & 

 Co. Pp. 648. Price, $2.50. 



Geological changes take place with such 

 extreme slowness that a faithful account of 

 the geology of any place written in Darwin's 

 early life is nearly as accurate now as on 

 the day it was published, and for the pur- 

 poses of geological history even more valu- 

 able. That Darwin's observations are a 

 faithful description of the localities that he 

 visited, no one who knows the extreme thor- 

 oughness and conscientiousness of the man 

 will think of questioning. Another fact that 

 has operated to preserve the usefulness of 

 these observations is that they relate to 

 parts of the world that have not been so 

 much studied as Europe and North America, 

 so that the author was able to say in the 

 preface to his second edition, "I am not 

 aware that much could be corrected or add- 

 ed from observations subsequently made." 

 Some of his opinions, however, have not 

 stood the test of time so well as his facts, 

 and were abandoned by Darwin himself in 

 later life. The first half of the volume con- 

 tains the descriptions of the volcanic islands 

 visited by the Beagle, with a few observa- 

 tions made in Australia, New Zealand, and 

 at the Cape of Good Hope. These islands 

 include St. Jago in the Cape Verd group, 

 Fernando de Noronha, Ascension, St. Helena, 

 and the Galapagos Archipelago. There are 

 several cuts in the text, and a folded map 

 of the island of Ascension is inserted. An 

 appendix comprises descriptions of fossil 

 shells from several of the above-named 

 islands, by G. B. Sowerby, and descriptions 

 of corals from Tasmania, by W. Lonsdale. 



The second division of the volume treats 

 of the geology of South America, and almost 

 exclusively of that part of the continent 

 south of the Tropic of Capricorn. 



The chapters, except in a few cases, are 

 arranged according to the age of the depos- 

 its that they treat of. Considerable space 

 is given to evidences of elevation of the 



eastern and western coasts of South Amer- 

 ica, while the formations of the pampas and 

 the structure of the Cordillera are among 

 the subjects of chapters. An appendix con- 

 tains descriptions of Tertiary shells, by G. 

 B. Sowerby, and of Secondary shells, by 

 Prof. E. Forbes. Several folded plates illus- 

 trate the specimens described, and there is 

 a map of southern South America. 



The Relation of Labor to the Law of To- 

 day. By Dr. Lujo Brentano. Trans- 

 lated from the German by Porter Sher- 

 man. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. 

 Pp. 305. Price, $1.50. 



This work was prepared by the author 

 in answer to a request from his publishers 

 for a new edition of his " Labor Guilds Past 

 and Present." He thought that something 

 a little different a popular-scientific treat- 

 ment of the labor question from the point 

 of view of the labor-guilds would be of 

 greater interest. It is, according to the 

 translator, " as to quantity of matter an 

 abridgment, as to extent of ground cov- 

 ered, an enlargement" of the original work. 

 The occasion for reproducing the book here 

 is explained by the assumption that the clas- 

 sical political economy of England, prevalent 

 also in this country, has been built up almost 

 exclusively on the side of capital and the cap- 

 italist, and is full of theories and assump- 

 tions. Writers who have worked upon the 

 structure have been mainly bankers, capital- 

 ists, or doctrinaire professors. " It is owing 

 to a theory, an exploded theory, the wages- 

 fund theory, that the relations of labor have 

 not been scientifically discussed by our econ- 

 omists, and the treatment of the labor ques- 

 tion has been left mainly to unscientific, more 

 or less socialistic, even revolutionary, writ- 

 ers." As taught thus it discloses an antag- 

 onism between theory and practice, and is 

 charged with furnishing ammunition to so- 

 cialism. " Recognizing this antagonism, the 

 political economists of Germany have set 

 themselves to work to correct and to sup- 

 plement, in this and other particulars, the 

 classical, hypothetical, abstract political 

 economy." Further than this, by a critical 

 examination of the principles furnished by 

 the English economists, upon which the so- 

 cialists have built their superstructure, " the 

 German economists have been able to mod- 

 ify, correct, and supplement them, and have 



