272 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the Academy Press. It presents those gen- 

 eral facts concerning evolution in the domain 

 of life that every intelligent person should 

 be acquainted with, and in a manner well 

 calculated to arouse the interest and hold 

 the attention of hearers or readers. This 

 lecture has been pronounced by good judges 

 a most satisfactory summary of the great 

 doctrine with which it deals. 



A useful book for the phonetic teaching 

 of reading is A Sound-English Primer, by 

 Augustin Knoflach (Stechert, 25 cents). Its 

 plan is to teach children first how to read 

 phonetic print, and then, using this knowl- 

 edge as a stepping-stone, to impart the 

 ability of reading the ordinary spelling. 

 The author's scheme of phonetic spelling 

 recognizes six long and six short vowel- 

 sounds, the long vowels being distinguished 

 by doubling the letters. No new letters are 

 employed ; q, not being needed as a conso- 

 nant, is used for the sixth vowel, and six 

 digraphs are used for consonants that have 

 no single letters to represent them, namely, 

 ch, sh, zh, th, dh, and ng. A notable feat- 

 ure of this system is that it indicates accent. 

 In words in which it does not conform to a 

 simple rule, the accent is marked either by 

 a diacritic or by doubling a consonant. Pre- 

 fixed to the book is an account of a test of 

 this mode of teaching made last summer 

 with a part of Mr. Knoflach's manuscript. 

 In a little over three weeks a six-year-old 

 boy, who had never had any instruction in 

 reading before, was made able to read a 

 large portion of an ordinary primer. Mr. 

 Knoflach's book has clear print arid is of 

 convenient size. 



No. 3 in the series of pamphlets on North 

 American Fauna, issued by the Department 

 of Agriculture, embraces the Results of a 

 Biological Survey of the San Francisco 

 Mountain Region and Desei-t of the Little 

 Colorado, Arizona, by C. Hart Merriam and 

 Leonhard Siejncgcr. It contains a general 

 description of the region and annotated lists 

 of the mammals, birds, reptiles, and batra- 

 chians found therein, with a few notes on 

 the forest trees that are common in that 

 locality. The skulls and dentition of many 

 of the animals are figured, and there are 

 also colored maps showing the distribution 

 of forest trees about the mountain. 



In an essay on the Origin of Plane Trees, 



reprinted from the American Naturalist, Prof. 

 Lester F. Ward criticises a paper by Prof. 

 Johann Janko on the same subject. Janko 

 excludes from the genus certain American 

 species that had not before been challenged, 

 and ignores others ; but the chief point that 

 Prof. Ward urges against him is that he has 

 overlooked the significance of the basal 

 lobes that occur on the leaves of some spe- 

 cies. 



Among the results of Prof. Angelo Hen- 

 prill's study of the Geology and Paleontology 

 of the Cretaceous Deposits of Mexico, made 

 during his expedition to that country in the 

 spring of 1890, are the conclusions that the 

 deposits, covering or scattered over a large 

 part of the country, are continuous with the 

 Cretaceous area of the interior basin of the 

 United States ; that they are a part of the 

 Middle or Upper Cretaceous series ; that no 

 true Lower Cretaceous beds have been so far 

 identified in Texas or Arkansas ; and that 

 no marine deposits of unequivocally Lower 

 Cretaceous age have thus far been deter- 

 mined in the United States east of the Rocky 

 Mountains. 



Pilot Knob ; a Marine Cretaceous Vol- 

 cano, of which Prof. Robert P. Hill has 

 published a study, is one of a group of hills 

 composed of igneous rock standing a few 

 miles southwest of Austin, Texas. From 

 its structure, as studied by the author, it 

 appears to be the neck of an ancient vol- 

 cano which rose out of and deposited its 

 debris in the deep water of the Upper Cre- 

 taceous sea. From its isolated position it 

 must have been an isolated eruption. The 

 hill probably belongs to a great chain of 

 igneous localities, eruptive and basaltic, ex- 

 tending from the mountains of northern 

 Mexico to the Ouachita system of Arkansas. 



The Account of the Determination of the 

 Mean Density of the Earth by Means of a 

 Pendulum Principle, by /. Wilsing, of Pots- 

 dam, has been translated and condensed for 

 the Smithsonian Report by /. Howard Gore. 

 The value found by Mr. Wilsing is 5-o h i9 

 0-012. 



A second edition, revised and enlarged, 

 is published by Blakiston, Son & Co. of 

 Leffmann and Beani's Examination of Water 

 for Sanitary and Technical Purposes. The 

 more recent methods of water analysis may 

 be found in this volume, including those rcc- 



