420 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



no Bruno and his Monument, containing half 

 a dozen papers by as many authors, and rep- 

 resentations of the monument as originally 

 designed and as erected ; Ingersoll's Cen- 

 tennial Oration on the Declaration of Inde- 

 pendence and Memorial Oration on Koscoe 

 Conkling ; The Myth of the Great Deluge, 

 by James M. McCann ; Church and State ; 

 and a statement of What constitutes a Free- 

 thinker ? by Mr. Green. The last presents 

 several points of interest. Freethinkers, we 

 learn, "have no war with the Bible they 

 should have no prejudices against it " ; but 

 they are disposed to regard it as like other 

 books, and to decline to accept it, on trust, 

 at the value at which Christians hold it. 

 The author contends that his best and safest 

 friend in matters of religion is reason, and 

 holds everything subject to investigation. 

 "But, notwithstanding the freethinker re- 

 jects the Christian view of the Bible and 

 religion, he is an earnest advocate of certain 

 views and opinions of his own. He accepts 

 the truth wherever found. For this reason, 

 although he rejects the claim made for the 

 Bible and religion, he accepts whatever is 

 true or good in either." 



In The Death Penalty (Putnam's Ques- 

 tions of the Day Series, price $1.50) Mr. 

 Andrew J. Palm presents, in rather an im- 

 passioned manner, the principal objections 

 to capital punishment. He holds that it is 

 essentially cruel ; and that justice as well 

 as mercy should make great allowance for 

 human conduct. He puts aside the Bible 

 argument as not bearing upon the relations 

 of capital punishment to society at the pres- 

 ent time ; dwells upon the capriciousness of 

 juries, the perils of convicting the innocent, 

 and the harshness of treating the insane as 

 if they were criminals ; holds up the detesta- 

 tion with which the executioner is regarded 

 as evidence that the death penalty is repul- 

 sive to the better feelings of men ; shows 

 how inadequate is fear of the death penalty 

 to repress crime ; cites " the voice of expe- 

 rience " of states which have abolished 

 capital punishment as being on his side ; 

 and quotes the opinions of some noted men 

 on the subject. He then pleads for the re- 

 formatory theory of treatment ; and closes 

 with a chapter on war. 



The compact little work on Mixed Metals 

 or Metallic Alloys, by Arthur H. Hiorns 



(Macmillan, $1.50), gives the composition 

 and mode of making a great number of al- 

 loys, and in some cases describes the appa- 

 ratus used in producing them. The author, 

 who is principal of the School of Metallurgy 

 in the Birmingham and Midland Institute, 

 states that his book is designed to give prac- 

 tical men and students a more intimate ac- 

 quaintance with the nature and properties of 

 metals in the alloyed state, as well as with 

 metals in the free state. The first portion 

 deals with the principal chemical elements, 

 and their classification into suitable groups ; 

 the refractory materials used in making cru- 

 cibles and in furnace construction ; as well 

 as the properties and uses of various fluxes. 

 " It has been thought advisable to give a 

 brief account of the main properties of the 

 separate metals, and of the effect of certain 

 elements upon them, seeing that commercial 

 metals are not chemically pure substances, 

 and that the presence of the common im- 

 purities often produces a characteristic re- 

 sult, which may be a useful guide to the 

 manufacturer in special cases, and assist him 

 to determine the cause of those anomalies 

 which are constantly occurring in practice." 



A manual for medical students and phy- 

 sicians, on The Physical Diagnosis of the 

 Diseases of the Heart and Lungs, has been 

 published by Dr. D. M. Vammann (Put- 

 nams, $1.25). Some topics in this field 

 which have especially interested the author, 

 or on which a reasonable difference of opin- 

 ion exists, have been considered more in de- 

 tail than is usual in such a work. In particu- 

 lar the author has improved this opportunity 

 to explain at length his modification of the 

 Cammann stethoscope and the binaural hy- 

 drophone. The volume contains twenty-two 

 figures. 



A great deal of material is compressed 

 into a small compass in the Lessons in Ap- 

 plied Mechanics, by James H. Cotterill and 

 John Henry Slade (Macmillan, $1.25). The 

 volume is a text-book consisting largely of 

 matter contained in a more extended treatise 

 by the senior author. The chapters are 

 grouped under three heads : Part I, The 

 Principle of Work, includes the subjects of 

 motion, friction, work and energy, the opera- 

 tion of simple machines, the direct-acting en- 

 gine, unbalanced forces, and dynamometers. 

 Part II deals with Strength of Materials and 



