8 5 6 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



York : Charles Collins, and the Baker & Taylor Co. 

 Pp. 110. $1. 



Shufeldt, K. W. Comparative Osteology of Arc- 

 tic and Subarctic Water Birds. Pp. 1(5, with Plates. 

 Saurognathisin of the Pici, etc. Pp. 10. 



Spencer, Herbert. Justice. D. Appleton & Co. 

 Pp. 291. $1.25. 



Stejneger, Leonhard, and Test, F. E. New Ge- 

 nus and Species of Tailless Batrachian. Smith- 

 sonian Institution. Pp 2, with Plate. 



Stewart, Seth T. Plane and Solid Geometry. 

 American Book Company. Pp. 406. $1.12. 



Weinberg, A. How to make a Trial-balance in 

 less than an Hour. Baltimore. Pp. 23. 



Whitman, C. O.. and Allis, Edward Phelps, Jr., 

 Editors. Journal of Morphology. June, 1SU1. Ginn 

 & Co. Pp. 179, with Plates. 



Wilson, H. Augustus. Illustrative Cases of Con- 

 genital Club-foot. Pp. 21, with Plates. 



Winchell, N. H. and H. V. Map of the Iron 

 Regions of Minnesota. 



Winslow, I. O. Principles of Agriculture. 

 American Book Company. Pp. 152. 



Wisconsin, Report of the State Board of Health. 

 Pp. 150. 



Wright, John A., Philadelphia. Practical Work- 

 ing aud Results of the Interstate Commerce Act. 

 Pp. 40. 



POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



The American Microscopical Society. 



The American Microscopical Society was 

 the first of the scientific organizations to 

 meet this year at Washington. Dr. John 

 S. Billings made an address of welcome, 

 and spoke at some length of the microscopic 

 work that was done at Washington in the 

 scientific offices of the Government, by the 

 local society, in the Army Medical Museum, 

 and particularly of that of the late Dr. J. J. 

 Woodward. The use of the microscope in 

 Government work was further discussed by 

 Dr. J. Melvin Lamb. Most of the papers 

 read were technical, but one by President 

 Frank L. James, on the Microscope in the 

 Investigation of Scorches and Burns on 

 Textile Fabrics, relating how the instrument 

 had been applied to establish the innocence 

 of a man charged with murder, was of gen- 

 eral interest. A committee was appointed 

 to consider the feasibility of inducing Amer- 

 ican manufacturers to make their instru- 

 ments of the same standard. A proposed 

 new constitution was considered, and the 

 society decided that it would call itself in 

 future the American Microscopical Society 

 instead of the American Society of Micros- 

 copists. 



Valne of Economic Entomology. The 



study of insects was exalted in the address 

 of Mr. James Fletcher as President of the 



Association of Economic Entomologists, 

 who asserted that there is no branch of 

 natural science or practical agriculture to 

 which entomology is second in importance. 

 The amounts lost and the value of the prod- 

 uce which might be saved every year in 

 our staple crops alone by following the ad- 

 vice of the competent entomologist are so 

 enormous, and of late years have been so 

 often proved, that before long the value of 

 these studies must certainly be more gener- 

 ally recognized. The chief hindrance is ig- 

 norance on the part of growers and con- 

 sumers of agricultural products, which is 

 being rapidly dissipated by the work of the 

 agricultural experiment stations. Estima- 

 ting the value of the agricultural crops of 

 the country at about $380,0:0,000, an aver- 

 age of about ten per cent, or $38,000,000, 

 was now lost given up to insects without 

 a struggle. 



The Farmers' Crisis. Nothing will be 

 gained for us, either from an economic or 

 political point of view, said Prof. E. J. James 

 in his address before the Economic Section 

 of the American Association, by belittling 

 or deriding the views of Western farmers on 

 the money cpiestion, on the tariff, or on rail- 

 road policy, taxation, and other topics. The 

 American farmer has a grievance a real 

 and true grievance one that will not be- 

 come less by pooh-poohing it, but one that 

 must be carefully studied by students of 

 economics and statistics to ascertain, if pos- 

 sible, how far it is justified and whether it 

 can be remedied, and, if so, by what means. 

 As a matter of fact, the wealth of the 

 United States is flowing away from its farms 

 into its factories and railroads; from the 

 country into the city; from the rural into 

 the urban districts. The policy of our rail- 

 road companies has borne hard upon the 

 individual farmer and upon the farmers as a 

 class. It has altered all the conditions of 

 agriculture in many sections of the country, 

 and in nearly all of them in such a way 

 as needlessly to burden and embarrass the 

 farmer. Our system of taxation rests most 

 heavily upon him ; and there is no doubt 

 that the financial policy of the country, in- 

 cluding the whole system of monetary trans- 

 actions built up by the combination of gov- 

 ernmental and private initiatives, discrimi- 



