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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fundamentals." The philosophy of pruning 

 is explained and illustrated by recording and 

 picturing the history of a branch, and it is 

 shown that pruning does not devitalize plants, 

 but increases vigor by removing that which 

 would perish or be weak in the struggle for 

 existence, and concentrating the nourish- 

 ment in the rest. The nature and relations 

 of the fruit bud are described, as to differ- 

 ent fruit trees ; the nature of wounds and the 

 healing of them are treated of in a separate 

 chapter; the principles of pruning are un- 

 folded ; and under the heading of the inci- 

 dentals the details of the art are described, 

 with its special applications to different trees 

 and in " some specific modes of training," 

 and three chapters are given to the grape- 

 vine. 



We find Tlie Plant World: a Monthly 

 Journal of Botany^ edited by F. H. Knowl- 

 ton, of the United States National Museum, a 

 work of attractive qualities. The articles in 

 the third number — the only one we have re- 

 ceived — are brief, fresh, and to the point, 

 furnished by competent botanists and origi- 

 nal ojjservers. The magazine is published 

 by William N. Clute & Co., at Binghamton, 

 N. Y., for one dollar a year. 



The Little Pottery Objects of Lake Cha- 

 pala, Mexico, described by Prof. Frederick 

 Starr, in a bulletin of the Anthropological 

 Department of the University of Chicago, 

 consist of vessels, ladles, spindle-whorls of 

 terra cotta, considerable numbers of which 

 were found in the lake, but none in sites on 

 the land. They are too small for any prac- 

 tical use, but are made with much artistic 

 taste and skill. Professor Starr explains 

 them tentatively as votive offerings let down 

 into the water by cords passed through holes 

 provided in most of them, or in which resin 

 or gum may have been burned, or other 

 offerings placed. They are not unique, for 

 the American Museum of Natural History in 

 New York has similar objects from Tillo, 

 Oaxaca, and others are said to have been 

 found near Palenque and near Tehuantepec. 



Mr. William Paul Gerhard, a distin- 

 guished sanitary engineer and writer on the 

 subject, has given in a little book entitled 

 Sanitary Engineering, published by himself 

 at 36 Union Square, East, New York, a com- 

 prehensive manual of the qualifications and 



duties of the sanitary engineer, considering 

 the subject wholly from a practical point of 

 view. A course of study in sanitary engi- 

 neering is described, intended to embrace a 

 general knowledge of civil engineering, archi- 

 tecture, and sanitary science in all their 

 branches ; under the head of General Prac- 

 tice of the Sanitary Engineer are given brief 

 directions and hints concerning water supply, 

 sewerage, purity of water courses, sewage 

 disposal, street pavements, street cleaning, 

 removal of ice and snow, removal of refuse, 

 laying out of cities and towns, sanitation of 

 towns and houses, and a variety of kindred 

 subjects ; and the appendix includes an arti- 

 cle on The Work of the Sanitary Engineer in 

 Time of Epidemics, in Time of War, and in 

 Sudden Calamities in Civic Life. 



The Ninth Annual Report of the Inter- 

 state Commerce Commission on the Stati-atics 

 of Railways for the year ending with June, 

 1896, contains the usual reports and sum- 

 maries of the statistician, a summary of rail- 

 ways in the hands of receivers, notes of de- 

 cisions, and detailed statistical tables of mile- 

 age, corporate charges, receipts and expendi- 

 tures, etc. But little change is shown from 

 the conditions that prevailed in the year pre- 

 ceding. 



In Tlie Fungous Foes of the Farmer, a 

 more than ordinarily useful contribution to 

 the Bulletins of the Pennsylvania Depart- 

 ment of Agricultiu-e, Prof. Byron D. Halsted 

 undertakes briefly to describe the worst fun- 

 gous diseases of the farmer's crops and to 

 give methods that have been successful in 

 contending with them. As far as possible, 

 the fungi have been considered in the order 

 of their importance with each crop, begin- 

 ning with those of the field and ending with 

 those of the garden. 



The first three volumes of the Observa- 

 tions made at the Blue Hill Meteorological 

 Observatory were numbered XX, XXX, and 

 XL, the more easily to distinguish them from 

 the other volumes of the Annals of the As- 

 tronomical Observatory at Harvard College ; 

 but the system could not be continued indefi- 

 nitely without leaving too many numbers to 

 be assigned to later volumes not yet pub- 

 lished, so the report for 1896 is numbered 

 Volume XLIL The whole of the Blue Hills 

 having been taken by the Metropolitan Park 



