LITERARY NOTICES. 



415 



and cream are treated in the same careful 

 manner as the preceding topics, and one 

 can not but wish that the volume would be 

 in the hands of every dairyman in this 

 country. 



An Elementary Manual of Chemistry. 

 By F. H. Storer, Professor of Agricul- 

 tural Chemistry in Harvard University, 

 and W. B. Lindsay, Professor of General 

 and Analytical Chemistry in Dickinson 

 College. New York: American Book 

 Company. Price, $1.20. 



The authors state in the preface that this 

 work is the lineal descendant of the Manual 

 of Inorganic Chemistry of Eliot and Storer, 

 and a thorough revision of Eliot, Storer, and 

 Nichols's Elementary Manual of Chemistry. 

 These works have been so well and favor- 

 ably known that it is scarcely necessary to 

 commend the present volume for the com- 

 prehensive and intelligent manner in which 

 the subject is presented. 



The experimental and inductive methods 

 are employed to acquaint the student with 

 the main facts and principles of the science, 

 and by such discipline the observing facul- 

 ties are developed. As a i-ule, the experi- 

 ments mentioned are of a simple character, 

 and the directions are so explicit that a 

 novice in chemistry may repeat them before 

 a class. The work is an excellent one for 

 the purposes intended. 



Eskimo Life. By Fridtjof Nansen. Lon- 

 don and New York : Longmans, Green 

 & Co. Pp. 350. Price, $4. 



It is for the most part with genial humor, 

 but now and then in sadness and indignation, 

 that Dr. Nansen describes the life of these 

 hardy children of the North. His knowledge 

 of them was gained mostly in one winter, 

 during which, he says, " I dwelt in their 

 huts, took part in their hunting, and tried, 

 as well as I could, to live their life and learn 

 their language." Their daily life is presented 

 with much fullness of detail ; their appear- 

 ance and dress, their houses for winter and 

 tents for summer, their cookery and what 

 they regard as delicacies, their woman-boats, 

 excursions, etc., receiving due attention. A 

 chapter is given to a careful description, 

 with measurements, of that wonderful boat, 

 the kaiak, and the weapons and implements 

 that constitute its outfit, which is followed 



by a vivid story of a day's hunting in these 

 boats. Some less familiar sides of Eskimo 

 life are presented in the chapter on art, 

 music, and poetry, and in that on the drum 

 dances, which served both as judicial pro- 

 ceedings and as entertainments. Nearly a 

 hundred pages are devoted to religious ideas, 

 in which some curious bits of mythology 

 and folklore are presented. Dr. Nansen rep- 

 resents the character of the Eskimo as gen- 

 tle and patient. It is seldom that an Eskimo 

 does anything that his own race deems wrong, 

 crimes of violence being especially rare. 

 Some things, however, that he does, deeming 

 them proper, come into our category of im- 

 moralities. In his closing chapters on The 

 Introduction of Christianity, Europeans and 

 Natives, What have we achieved ? and his 

 Conclusion, Dr. Nansen laments the enervat- 

 ing influence of the civilization that Euro- 

 peans have inflicted upon the Eskimos. The 

 introduction of firearms has led them to ex- 

 terminate or scare away their game. The 

 imposition of i-eligious commands and civil 

 laws in a mass too great to be assimilated 

 has driven out the old restraints and obliga- 

 tions and caused the victims of the process 

 to fall between two stools. The ability to 

 read and write has been gained at the ex- 

 pense of diminished skill in the kaiak, so 

 that deaths from drowning have largely in- 

 creased. A long catalogue of this sort could 

 be gleaned from Nansen's pages, and he does 

 not hesitate to urge that his countrymen 

 should entirely withdraw fi'om Greenland. 

 The text is well illustrated with plates and 

 small cuts. 



The Penokee Iron-bearing Series of Michi- 

 gan AND Wisconsin. By Roland Duer 

 Irving and Charles Richard Van Hise. 

 (Monographs of the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey.) Washington : Govern- 

 ment Printing Office. Pp. 634, with 

 Plates. 



This report was designed by Prof. Irving 

 to be the first of a series which should treat 

 each of the important iron- producing dis- 

 tricts adjacent to Lake Superior. For a 

 time, in 1885 and 1886, Prof. Irving accom- 

 panied the surveying party in person, l.'r. 

 Van Hise gave the seasons of 1884, 1885, 

 and the larger part of the following year to 

 the work. When the survey began, the dis- 

 trict was one which explorers had but fairly 



