LITERARY NOTICES. 



703 



difficult to see how the classroom can prove 

 as good a ground for this diversion as the 

 library. The provincial note of the book is 

 reached in the sixth chapter, Demands made 

 by the Community upon Her. It seems ob- 

 vious to us that if woman had done only 

 what the community required of her, she 

 would never have gone to college, and that, 

 having gone, it is unlikely she will thereafter 

 order her ways according to Mrs. Grundy. 

 Such a standard is surely not an ethical goal 

 for either man or woman, who needs to do 

 right for right's sake, even in the face of the 

 community. 



Electricity One Hundred Years Ago and 

 To-day. By Edwin J. Houston. New 

 York : The W. J. Johnston Co., etc. Pp. 

 199. Price, $1. 



The author aims in this volume to give 

 credit to every one who has contributed even 

 in the slightest degree to the development 

 of thought in the field of electrical science 

 and art. The great ideas and inventions by 

 which progress is marked are arranged in 

 three type groups : Immature or incomplete ; 

 untimely and therefore unfruitful ; and fruit- 

 ful, because mature and timely ; of which 

 the first class, though having but little visi- 

 ble influence, may at times be of value, be- 

 cause of their tendency to direct thought 

 along certain channels, thereby they become 

 forerunners of more important ideas. The 

 second class have to wait for recognition 

 and effect, but eventually contribute their 

 force to the advancing impulse ; while the 

 third class are fruitful at once. The first 

 enunciation of ideas concerning electricity is 

 traced back to the Greek philosopher Thales, 

 who experimented with the attraction of a 

 piece of amber that had been rubbed. He 

 was much before his time, for no advance 

 was made on his experiment till near the 

 close of the sixteenth century, when Dr. 

 Gilbert showed that powers of attraction and 

 repulsion are developed in several other bod- 

 ies by rubbing them. Stephen Grey, in 1729, 

 first pointed out the distinction between con- 

 ductors and non-conductors of electricity. 

 The power of wires to conduct the electrical 

 force to a distance attracted attention and 

 excited inquiry, in the course of which Wat- 

 son, in 1747, erected conducting lines several 

 miles in length, and used the earth as a re- 



turn conductor. He was succeeded by Frank- 

 lin, whose experiments arc familiar, and 

 were followed by the rapid development of 

 electrical discovery which has not yet slack- 

 ened. The invention of the electric tele- 

 graph, with the discoveries that made it pos- 

 sible and led up to it, and of the telephone, 

 are reviewed in a very clear and comprehen- 

 sive manner. The application of electricity 

 as a motive power and light producer was 

 first made commercially practicable after the 

 invention of the Gramme dynamo. Since 

 then it has been rapidly extended, and is 

 likely to become general all over the earth, 

 and as to all kinds of machinery. Still more 

 wonderful expansions of electricity seem to 

 be foreshadowed by the discoveries of Hertz, 

 Tesla, and other workers of the day. As 

 possible features of this future expansion, 

 Mr. Houston dreams of a cheaper means for 

 the production of electricity than is possible 

 by the present method ; perhaps producing 

 it directly from the burning of coal ; the en- 

 tire replacement of the steam engine by the 

 electric motor ; the successful solution of 

 the problem of aerial navigation, effected, 

 possibly, by means of the electric motor, and 

 being rendered possible as a result of improve- 

 ments in the economical production of elec- 

 tricity ; the replacing of the present electric 

 light, with its preponderance of useless and 

 injurious low heat rays, by some species of 

 electrically produced light which shall pos- 

 sess a smaller proportion of the useless 

 heat rays and a larger proportion of the 

 desired light rays ; a more intelligent means 

 than are now adopted in the therapeutical 

 applications of electricity to the curing 

 of diseases ; electrical transmission of pic- 

 tures ; electrical preparation of roadbeds by 

 vitrifying the clay or soil in situ ; and " an 

 apparatus for the automatic registration of 

 unwritten, unspoken thought, and its accu- 

 rate repetition at any indefinite time after- 

 ward." 



Science. A Weekly Journal devoted to the 

 Advancement of Science. 4 1 East Forty- 

 ninth Street, New York. Pp. 28. 15 

 cents a number ; $6 a year. 



We are glad to see the publication of 

 Science resumed. There certainly is room, 

 as Prof. Newcomb well observes in an edi- 

 torial address to its readers, for a journal de- 



