564 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of Charles Barnard's American Association 

 paper on Tlie Battles of Science; and a 

 number of selected articles. A summary of 

 current scientific discussion is contributed to 

 each number by Prof. Angelo Heilprin. 



The second part of the text-book on 

 Plane Trigonometry, by S. L. Loney, deals 

 with analytical trigonometry (MacmiUan, $1). 

 Among the topics treated in this part are 

 exponential and logarithmic series, various 

 operations with complex quantities, Grego- 

 ry's series, and the principle of proportional 

 parts. A list of the principal formulae in 

 trigonometry is prefixed to the volume, and 

 the answers to problems are given at the end. 



A treatise on Amphioxus and the Ancestry 

 of the Vertebrates, by Arthur Willey, B. Sc, 

 lias been issued as the second volume of the 

 Columbia University Biological Series (Mac- 

 miUan, $2.50 net). The editor of the series, 

 Prof. Henry F. Osborn, says in the preface 

 that he suggested the course of lectures in 

 which this volume originated, and deems it 

 important that the author should bring within 

 the reach of students and of specialists 

 among other groups his extensive observa- 

 tions upon Amphioxus and other remote an- 

 cestors of the vertebrates, as well as the 

 general literature upon this group. 



The year ending with September, 1893, is 

 covered by the Eighteentii Year-Book of the 

 New y'ork S.ate Reformatory. The book 

 contains the reports of the board of mana- 

 gers, the superintendent, Z. R. Brockway, the 

 technological and military instructors, the 

 superintendent of schools, and the physician. 

 Instruction in thirty-four trades was im- 

 parted during the year to a total of eighteen 

 hundred and four inmates. The trades range 

 in character from such laborious occupations 

 as bricklaying, iron-forging, and stone-cut- 

 ting to such light and intellectual work as 

 frescoing, music, photography, stenography, 

 and typewriting. The year-book itself is a 

 very creditable exhibit of the work of in- 

 mates in type-setting, illustrating, and bind- 

 ing. In the schools the instruction ranges 

 from the elements of reading and arithmetic 

 given to illiterates up to lectures in history, 

 science, ethics, political economy, etc. For 

 military drill the inmates constitute a regi- 

 ment of sixteen companies, with a band. 

 -Vppcnded to the reports are a chapter on 

 dietary, one of anthropological observations 



with illustrations, and an account of innova- 

 tions made during the year. The board of 

 managers state that much misrepresentation 

 of the system of the institution was made 

 " by a sensational newspaper," and the super- 

 intendent reports that his plans for progress 

 were much retarded by a diversion of time 

 and attention to the investigation which fol- 

 lowed this attack. 



David T. Day's Tenth Annual Report of 

 the Mineral Resources of the Unied States 

 presents a statement of the mineral products 

 during the calendar year 1893, the industrial 

 conditions affecting those products, and the 

 recent additions to the knowledge of the min- 

 eral deposits in this country. Its scope is 

 thus similar to that of the preceding volumes, 

 with the addition of more than the usual 

 references to the condition of mineral in- 

 dustries in foreign countries. It appears 

 from it that the total value of our mineral 

 products in 1893 was the smallest since 

 1889. It represented $609,821,6'70, com- 

 pared with $688,616,954 in 1S92 a decline 

 of 11'44 per cent. The decline in value was 

 most conspicuous in pig iron and structural 

 materials, but many other minerals also de- 

 clined in the amount and the value of the 

 product, the exceptions being gold, anthra- 

 cite coal, aluminum, phosphate rock, and 

 gypsum. A few other products increased in 

 quantity but declined in value. 



The thirty-fifth volume of Annals of the 

 Astronomical Observatory of If award College 

 contains the first part of the Journal of Ob- 

 servations made by Prof. William A. Rogers, 

 at the observatory, to determine the places 

 of stars in the zone between the limits of 

 north declination 49 50' and 55 10'. The 

 catalogue resulting from these observations 

 has already been published in the fifteenth 

 volume of the Annals, and the discussion of 

 proper motions derived from the work forms 

 the twenty-fifth volume of the same series. 



The report of the Observations made at 

 the B'ue Hill Meteorological Observatory^ 

 Massacliusctts, in 1893, mentions as among 

 the investigations that were carried on dur- 

 ing the year the comparisons by Mr. S. P. 

 Fergusson of anemometers of different types, 

 and Mr. H. Helm Clayton's studies of the 

 upper air around cyclones and anticyclones, 

 as shown by cloud observations. Curious 

 wavelike oscillations of the barograph records 



