SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



131 



the essentials of each exercise and as many 

 modifications of it as possible. For this rea- 

 son a variety of species has been used rather 

 than a few types, since, if our experience is 

 not at fault, this assists rather than confuses 

 our comprehension of the subject, and above 

 all prevents those false generalizations and 

 conceptions that must follow a narrow study 

 of forms. The student should collect and 

 prepare his own material. The anatomy of 

 the plant body, plant physiology, systematic 

 botany, and plant morphology are treated in 

 succession. 



In his Afloat on the Ohio* the Secretary 

 of the Wisconsin State Historical Society has 

 given us a book that may be read with pleas- 

 ure and profit by every lover of American 

 history and advancement and by persons 

 who enjoy beautiful scenery or are fond of 

 sketches of personal idiosyncrasies as well. 

 The author's primary object in making the 

 pilgrimage was historical ; that appears on 

 every page of the narrative as well as in his 

 own avowal that his purpose was to gather 

 "local color" for work in Western history, 

 the Ohio River having been an important 

 factor in the development of the West and 

 in the making of the nation and of its great- 

 ness to a much more predominant extent 

 than we are accustomed, in our superficial 

 view, to realize. The party of four, voyag- 

 ing in a skiff, floated down the stream by 

 day and camped on the shore at night ; and 

 they contrived to have some shopping to do 

 at every town so as to get more opportuni- 

 ties to explore. Their very starting place — 

 Redstone, or Brownsville, at the mouth of 

 Redstone Creek — is famous in history, be- 

 ginning even with its prehistoric founda- 

 tions, and is memorable for having been the 

 first English agricultural settlement west of 

 the Alleghanies, and for its prominence as a 

 post in the frontier wars ; and it was only 

 the portal, as it were, to the succession of 

 historical sites that are distributed along the 

 whole length of the great river. The de- 

 scriptions of the ever-varying scenery of the 

 river, which are given in a few 'happy 

 touches here and there, are another element 

 of attractiveness in the narrative. At the 



* Afloat on the Ohio. An nistorical Pilgrim- 

 age of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff from Redstone 

 to Cairo. Chicago : Way & Williams. 



beginning of the voyage are the manufactur- 

 ing establishments, forming an almost con- 

 tinuous line for miles along either shore of 

 the river ; farther down it is more rural, 

 with wide bottoms on one side, sharp bluffs 

 and high hills on the other, alternating with 

 one another, broad meadows, cultivated 

 farms, and forests ; towns that were pros- 

 perous in the days of stcamboating, and now 

 falling into decay, and other towns that 

 have brought railroads to themselves and 

 are busy and prosperous ; changing below 

 Louisville into broad reaches of meadow, 

 with the hills receding far away; and then 

 the bayous and swamps : truly the Ohio is a 

 stream of many aspects. It is a surprise to 

 learn how the more obscure parts have been 

 left behind by the railroads, which have 

 built up and developed the inland towns at 

 their expense, and how primitive the rural 

 populations still remain. In order to give a 

 clearer idea of the history which is inter- 

 woven with the narrative, a historical out- 

 line of the settlement of the Ohio is given 

 in the appendix ; and this is followed by a 

 bibliography. " It is time," the author says, 

 "that our Western and Southern folk were 

 awakened to an appreciation of the fact that 

 they have a history at their doors quite as 

 significant in the annals of civilization as 

 that which induces pilgrimages to Ticoa- 

 deroga and Bunker Hill." 



The soil of the subconscious forms a fer- 

 tile ground for the experimental labors of 

 Dr. Sidis,* and he harvests there a large 

 crop of new ideas in regard to the laws and 

 conditions that govern suggestibilit)'. This 

 state of mind is one open to suggestion, but 

 the latter term is not given its ordinary sig- 

 nificance of an external idea which influ- 

 ences the mental attitude. Neither is it 

 confined to the technical definitions of the 

 psychologists of Salpetri^re and Nancy who 

 employ it mainly in their studies of the neu- 

 rotic. Our author by definition and illustra- 

 tion furnishes a clear conception of his spe- 

 cial use of the word. "By suggestion is 

 meant the intrusion into the mind of an 

 idea, met with more or less opposition by 

 the person, accepted uncritically at last, and 

 realized unreflectively, almost automatically." 



* The Psychology of Suggestion. By Boris 

 Sidis, M. A., Ph. D. New York: D. Appleton and 

 Company. Pp. 38(5. Price, $1.15. 



