846 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



were preseBted in an illustrated lec- 

 ture by Prof. Cope and Mr. H. C. 

 Mercer; and the making of the 

 Mammoth Cave was explained, and 

 a colossal cave discovered a year ago 

 in Kentucky was described by Prof. 

 Hovey. The last gentleman urged 

 the formation of an American cave 

 club. The section resolved to place 

 a tablet on the spot where the Asso- 

 ciation of American Geologists was 

 founded. In the Section of Mechan- 

 ical Science Mr. W. S. Aldrich advo- 

 cated a national endowment for en- 

 gineering research, and the subject 



of irrigation for the eastern United 

 States was brought to attention. 

 The practical side of chemistry was 

 presented in such subjects as The 

 Chemical Problems of the Pottery 

 Industry, Sugar-making at the Pres- 

 ent Day, and The Use of Coal-Tar 

 Products in Food. 



In choosing Prof. Wolcott Gibbs 

 as the president of its next meeting, 

 the association has honored itself in 

 honoring a veteran chemist who was 

 famous when the majority of its 

 present most active members were 

 still schoolboys. 



^titutitxt %xttXidxiXZ* 



SPECIAL BOOKS. 



We have here a popular view of one division of the fruitful field that 

 is being worked by the physiological psychologists of the present genera- 

 tion in Italy.* The author lays a broad foundation for his treatment of 

 his subject by describing the general functions of each part of the brain 

 and those of the spinal cord. He then takes up the circulation of the 

 blood in the brain during emotion, on which he has made extended re- 

 searches. He has had opportunities to take tracings from the pulsations of 

 the brain in patients whose skulls had been fractured, and shows that any 

 sound or sight that stimulates mental action increases the quantity of blood 

 sent to the brain. He has tested the same thing also with a balance de- 

 vised by him which has a beam large enough for a person to lie at length 

 upon. Any mental excitement of the subject on the balance inducing a 

 rush of blood to the brain would cause the head end of the delicately poised 

 beam to sink. .When the normal condition of the subject was restored the 

 balance would regain its equilibrium. Dr. Mosso has also taken many 

 tracings from the respiration, the beating of the heart, and the circulation 

 of blood in the hands, each class of records showing the perturbations pro- 

 duced by excitement. The variation in the quantity of blood sent to the 

 hands and other outlying parts of the body underlies the phenomenon of 

 pallor, which with oppression of the chest and quickened beating of the 

 heart are among symj)toms of fear. Trembling is another one of these 

 symptoms which Dr. Mosso examines. Taking up facial expression, he 

 describes the nervous and muscular actions by which expression is pro- 

 duced, and follows this with a chapter on the physiognomy of pain, in 

 which he gives a series of photographs of a hospital patient undergoing a 



* Fear. By Angelo Mobso. Pp. 278, 12mo. London, New York, and Bombay: Longmans, 

 Green & Co. Price, $1,75. 



