552 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



science of the results given in any paper. 

 It goes still further, in that it sum- 

 marizes the advance made during the 

 year in each subject, and the contents 

 of the volume are rendered still more 

 accessible by a thorough author-genus 

 subject index. Everything seems to be 

 done that is possible to make the re- 

 sults of general biological studies avail- 

 able. Occasionally figures are repro- 

 duced and comprehensive, synoptic ar- 

 ticles on the recent advances in one 

 subject are printed. In the present 

 volume there is a report on senile de- 

 generescence, by Elie Metchnikov; on 

 the urinary tubules in vertebrates, with 

 seventeen figures, by P. Vignon; and 

 on the conditions of existence in and the 

 bionomic divisions of fresh waters by 

 G. Prouvot. The reviews are all signed 

 by the authors, the critical remarks be- 

 ing bracketed. Many of the reviews 

 have the dignity of distinct contribu- 

 tions to science, as where a half-page 

 abstract is followed by a two-page dis- 

 cussion. The reviewers, or 'collabora- 

 tors,' are drawn from various countries, 

 America, Austria, Belgium, England, 

 Russia and Scotland being represented 

 in addition to France. This periodical 

 may be commended in the strongest 

 terms to biologists and to others inter- 

 ested in the results of biology. It is 

 surprising that the work is still so little 

 known in this country. Scientific men 

 have a right to take pride in the un- 

 remunerative efforts of the chief editor, 

 Professor Delage, to make accessible the 

 literature of the science of general bi- 

 ology in order to facilitate its advance- 

 ment. 



ASTROPHYSICS. 

 The 'Atlas of Representative Stellar 

 Spectra, together with a Discussion of 

 the Evolutional Order of the Stars,' by 

 Sir Wm. Huggins, K. C. B., and Lady 

 Huggins (Wesley & Son), is not only 

 a sumptuous and beautifully illustrated 

 volume, but is also of great scientific 

 value. Sir Wm. Huggins belongs to 

 that group of men in England who, 

 unconnected with any university, de- 



vote themselves to research for the pure 

 love of truth. His distinguished ser- 

 vices to science received recognition on 

 the occasion of the Queen's diamond 

 jubilee, when with only two other sci- 

 entific men he received the order of 

 knighthood. His accomplished wife, 

 who is his constant coadjutor, was the 

 only woman mentioned in the list of 

 Jubilee honors. Sir Wm. Huggins may 

 be said to be the founder of the so- 

 called 'New Astronomy,' for scarcely 

 more than a quarter of a century ago 

 his spectroscope, turned upon a newly 

 discovered star, first revealed the cause 

 of the sudden lighting up of these bea- 

 cons in the heavens, and turned upon 

 the nebula showed them to be of glow- 

 ing gas. Since that time the telescope 

 of the Tulse Hill Observatory, armed 

 with spectroscope and camera, has been 

 constantly and laboriously analyzing 

 the light of star, comet and nebula, to 

 solve the mystery of their constitution. 

 "We never go anywhere," said Lady 

 Huggins; "astronomy, at best, is a 

 heart-breaking object of devotion be- 

 neath English skies, and we are always 

 at home to catch every gleam between 

 the clouds." 



This book gives, in charming narra- 

 tive, which would be read with interest 

 by one previously ignorant of the sub- 

 ject, the history of the pioneer work 

 "when nearly every observation re- 

 vealed a new fact, and almost every 

 night's work was red-lettered by some 

 discovery." 



There follow full details of later 

 work, especially of the first detection, 

 by the shifting of the lines of their spec- 

 tra, of the motion of stars towards us or 

 from us in the line of sight. We learn 

 also how terrestrial chemistry has been 

 enriched by this study of the stars, and 

 how the nature of long known elements 

 like hydrogen and the existence of un- 

 discovered elements like helium have 

 been first made out from stellar spectra. 



But, as the supreme problem for the 

 biologist is the development of man, so 

 the supreme problem for the astronomer 

 is that of the evolutional order of the 



