SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



279 



lies. The average size of these families is 

 5.02 persons each. As for occupation, 60.68 

 per cent of all the persons were of the un- 

 productive class ; less than one per cent were 

 engaged in agriculture, fisheries, and mining, 

 or professional work; 17.78 per cent in do- 

 mestic and personal service; 10.14 percent 

 in trade and transportation ; 2.78 per cent in 

 some work in addition to their household du- 

 ties ; and 1.65 in some work besides going to 

 school. Special remark is made upon the 

 small proportion of women working at gain- 

 ful occupations. The average weekly earn- 

 ings of persons reporting were $5.93i, the 

 highest $7.64^, and the average number of 

 hours per week was fifty-nine. The number 

 of ilUterate persons was 2,752. Questions 

 were asked of the housekeepers whether they 

 had baked bread, spun, sewed, knit stockings, 

 or worked in the fields, in this country and in 

 Italy. In each case a considerable number 

 were found who had done one or more of 

 these things in Italy and ceased to do them 

 here. Three hundred and five persons had 

 sent the aggregate amount of $19,384, or an 

 average of $63.56 each, to bring relatives 

 from Italy ; 9 had invested $2,440 in land 

 in Italy and 76 had invested $260,665— or 

 an average of $3,430 each, in land in the 

 United States. Three hundred and ten — 271 

 men and 39 women — had visited Italy since 

 coming here — some of them twice, three, 

 four, and even five times. 



We have from George H. Barton, of the 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Re- 

 port B on the Scientific Work of the Boston 

 Party of the Sixth Peary Expedition to 



Greenland, detailing glacial observations in 

 the Umanak District, Greenland, well illus- 

 trated. 



In Crusoe's Island, of Appletons' Home- 

 Reading Book Series, we have geography, 

 travel, criticism, natural history, adventure, 

 and notes of human traits, all combined in a 

 single small, interesting, and instructive vol- 

 ume. The author, Frederick A. Ober, hav- 

 ing visited the Antilles to study birds under 

 the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 became desirous of learning more about those 

 attractive regions. With this desire oc- 

 curred to him the determination to search 

 out the truth respecting Robinson Crusoe, or 

 rather respecting the spot which Defoe had 

 in view in describing the scene of his great 

 story. In this book he proffers a descrip- 

 tion of what he believes is " the veritable 

 island in which Robinson Crusoe lived his 

 lonely life, the scene of his wreck, his cave, 

 his bower, his Man Friday ; the birds and 

 trees he saw or ought to have seen, to- 

 gether with the author's own experience." 

 Various quotations from Crusoe have been 

 used, which, together with the internal evi- 

 dence of the book itself, seem to show con- 

 clusively that " the island of his exile was 

 not Juan Fernandez in the Pacific Ocean, but 

 Tobago in the Caribbean Sea, not far distant 

 from the north coast of South America " ; 

 and Man Friday was a Carib from Trinidad. 

 This, however, is not all the book. The Na- 

 ture sketches, the tropical pictures, the de- 

 scriptions of birds, the account of the Caribs, 

 and the adventures, constitute of themselves 

 a story of rare interest. 



PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 



Agricultural Experiment Stations. Keports 

 and bulletins. Cornell University: Ko. 144. Notes 

 on Spraying and on the San Jose Scale. By H. P. 

 Gould. Pp. 16; No. 145. Some Important Pear 

 Diseases. By B. M. Duggar. Pp. 32.— Delaware 

 College: No. 36. Potash. Pp. 24; No. .38. An- 

 thrax. Pp. 10; No. 39. Sorghum. By C. L. 

 Penny. Pp. 23.— Michigan State Agricultural 

 College: N08. 151-153. Small Fruits and Vegeta- 

 bles. Pp. 96; Nos. 15.5 and 1. 6. Spraying, and Nurs- 

 eries and Orchards. Pp. :i-i\ No. 154. Corn Rais- 

 ing. By C. D. Sriiith, Director. Pp.24. — Montana: 

 No. 15. Larkspur Poisoning of Sheep. Pp. 16, 

 with plates.— New Hampshire College: No. 48. 

 Ninth Annual Report. By Charles S. Murkland. 

 Pp. 32; No. 49. Inspection of Fertilizers. Pp. 

 18.— Ohio: No. 84. Sixteenth Annual Report. 

 Pp. 72; No. 90. Sugar-Bect Investigations. Pp. 

 42; Newspaper Bulletin on Arsenite of Soda. Pp. 

 2.— Purdue University: No. 68. The Sugar Beet 

 in Indiana; No. 69. Insecticides, Fungicides, and 

 Spraying. Pp. 8. — United States Department of 

 Agricult^iire: Recent Laws against Injurious lu- 



sectfi, etc By L. O. Howard, entomologist. Pp. 

 68; The Cultivated Vetches. Pp. 8; Climate and 

 Crop Service, North Dakota Section. Pp. 8; Mis- 

 cellaneous Results of the Work of the Division of 

 Entomology. Pp. 100. — University of Illinois: 

 No. 49. The Sugar Beet in Illinois. Pp. 52; No. 

 50. Cost of Production of Corn and Oats in 18i C. 

 Pp. 24.— University of Kansas (Department of En- 

 tomology): Scale Insects Injurious to Orchards. 

 Pp. 62. 



Bailey, L. H. The Pnining Book, a Monogr.aph 

 of the Pruning and Training of Plants as applied 

 to American Conditions. The MacmiJIan Com- 

 pany. Pp. 5.'j7. $1.50. 



Beauchamp, W. M. Polished Stone Weapons 

 used by the New York Aborigines before and dur- 

 ing European Occupation. New York State Mu- 

 seum, Albany. Pp. Iu2. 



Blakiston, Son & Co., Philadelphia. Btokson 

 Medicine and Allied Sciem^es published during 

 1896, 1897, and 18'J8. Pp. 32. 



