LITERARY NOTICES. 



277 



Passing to inflected and analytic tongues, the 

 history of the Semites and the Indo-Euro- 

 peans and their several languages is sketched. 

 The rest of the volume seven chapters is 

 devoted to a more detailed survey of the 

 Indo-European family, its roots, parts of 

 speech, compounds, and its phonetics being 

 separately discussed. In the closing chapter 

 the chief events in the history of the English 

 and French languages are noted. 



Practical Lessons in Physical Measure- 

 ment. By Alfred Earl, M. A. London 

 and New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 

 350. Price, $1.25 net. 



Believing that a" training in physical 

 measurement is the most solid basis of 

 scientific kno\vledge, the author has pre- 

 pared this book as a laboratory manual for 

 an introductory course of study in science. 

 It is devoted to simple measurements of 

 length, mass, and time, and care has been 

 taken to make the course logically progress- 

 ive. The author hopes also that the book 

 may serve in some degree to bridge over the 

 space between the laboratory and other class 

 rooms by acting as a " practical arithmetic," 

 and to some extent as a " practical gram- 

 mar." A large number of exercises on each 

 variety of measurement are given, and the 

 general character of the course is promising 

 for thorough results. 



In The Care and Feeding of Children 

 (Appleton & Co., 50 cents) Dr. Emmett Holt 

 offers a guide to mothers and nurses in the 

 form of a catechism. The questions and an- 

 swers were first prepared for the instruction 

 of nursery maids, and pertain to the proper 

 oversight of babies from a few days old to 

 as many years. The directions have the 

 merit of precision and of brevity ; and, 

 while many of the precautions are needless 

 for healthy children, no harm can come in 

 any case from following the rules given for 

 infants over a year old. 



As usual with books of its kind, the im- 

 portance of rearing babies naturally is not 

 sufficiently emphasized, and several sugges- 

 tions tend to defeat such nurture. Patented 

 foods are, however, rigorously condemned 

 with reason, and this is perhaps more than 

 might be expected, even of a doctor, in an 

 artificial age. 



The American Historical Register is a 

 new periodical, begun with the September 

 number, 1894, as a monthly gazette of the pa- 

 ti'iotic societies of our country, with Charles 

 H. Browning as editor in chief and a num- 

 ber of men and women representing the pa- 

 triotic societies as associate editors. It is 

 intended to be generally historical, biograph- 

 ical, and genealogical in its scope, and to be 

 a literary exchange and repositoi-y for Amer- 

 ican historical students. The first number 

 contains an account of the work of the Asso- 

 ciation for the Preservation of Virginia An- 

 tiquities, and articles on the Hillegas family, 

 the Daughters of Liberty; Major William 

 Dyce, of New York ; Stories of Colonial 

 Families ; General James Taylor, of Ken- 

 tucky; General William Henry Harrison, 

 Major George Croghan, and the Medal of 

 Honor Legion. (Published at Philadelphia.) 



A Laboratory Manual of Physics and 

 Applied Electricity has been arranged and 

 edited by Prof. Edward L. Nichols, from his 

 own work and that of his associates in the 

 department of physics in Cornell University, 

 to supply in some measure the needs of a 

 modern laboratory, in which the existing man- 

 uals of physics have been found inadequate. 

 The author has thought best in it to encour- 

 age continual reference by the student to 

 other works and to original sources rather 

 than to provide a complete and sufficient 

 source of information. The first volume, 

 now before us, embraces a junior course in 

 general physics, and has been especially pre- 

 pared by Ernest Merritt and Frederick J. 

 Rogers. It is the outgrowth of a system of 

 junior instruction that has been gradually de- 

 veloped during a quarter of a century, and 

 affords explicit directions, together with dem- 

 onstrations and occasional elementary state- 

 ments of principles. (Published by Macmil- 

 lan & Co. Price, $3.) 



The fifth Report of the Missouri Botanical 

 Garden, for 1893, represents the financial 

 condition of the trust as sound and the garden 

 as kept in good condition. The trustees are 

 able to carry forward a surplus of $14,649. 

 The additions to the herbarium during the 

 year consisted mainly of current American 

 collections. As now arranged, the herbarium 

 contains the Engelmann collection of 98,000 

 specimens of all groups; the general her- 

 barium of higher plants, 108,000 specimens ; 



