LITERARY NOTICES. 



565 



1891, by Mr. Harry Hakes, has been pub- 

 lished in a convenient pamphlet for the read- 

 ing of that large class who, " in this hurrying 

 age, will neither purchase, peruse, nor possess 

 the extensive literature pertaining to the dis- 

 covery of America." It presents a clear and 

 fully adequate statement in brief of the work 

 of Columbus, and of his right to be regarded 

 as the real discoverer of America, of which 

 the author is a strenuous upholder. 



A paper on Michigan Flora, prepared for 

 the Thirtieth Annual Report of the Secretary 

 of the Michigan State Board of Agriculture, 

 by W. J. Beal and C. F. Wheeler, has in it 

 an element of surprise. Expecting to find it 

 a formal botanical catalogue, we find instead 

 a series of brief sketches, appealing at once 

 to readers who are of the people, on various 

 aspects of the vegetation of the State. First 

 is an account of the topography of the State 

 and the botanical regions, with lists of the 

 characteristic plants ; then a comparison of 

 the trees and shrubs of Michigan with those 

 of the rest of the world, the reason explained 

 why Michigan has so many trees and Great 

 Britain so few, Planting the Roadside and 

 about the Home, Planting a Wild Garden, 

 plants of various habits suitable for cultiva- 

 tion, The Procession of Flowers, timber 

 plants, forage plants, weeds, and so on, till 

 finally, after all the plants have been told 

 about, the formal catalogue is given. 



Mr. John Luchsinger contributed to the 

 eighth volume of the Wisconsin Historical 

 Collections a sketch of the Swiss colony of 

 New Glarus, Wis., which attracted much at- 

 tention, it being the first monograph on the 

 planting of an organized foreign colony in 

 the State. Since that time, thirteen years 

 ago, a healthy popular interest has been 

 awakened in the history of the several for- 

 eign groups of the State, and a renewed call 

 has been made for the Luchsinger paper. 

 The account has accordingly been rewritten 

 by the author, who came over a child with 

 the first settlers, and has been prominent in 

 the life of the colony. The present paper, 

 The Planting of the Swiss Colony at New 

 Glarus, Wis., greatly enriched by additional 

 documentary material and brought down to 

 date, is practically a new monograph, drawn 

 from original sources, and of great interest 

 to all students of our composite nationality. 



In a paper on The Relation of Philosophy 



to Psychology and to Physiology, Prof. Joseph 

 Le Conte uses the term philosophy as mean- 

 ing the science which treats of the activities 

 of free, self-conscious spirit. The various 

 forces, physical or psychical, are regarded as 

 operating on separate planes without grada- 

 tions, changeable from one form to another, 

 and always related by mutual dependence. 

 As the physical underlies and conditions 

 chemical phenomena ; the chemical, life phe- 

 nomena ; and the vital forces, psychical phe- 

 nomena ; and as the accomplished chemist 

 must understand physics, the physiologist 

 chemistry, and the psychologist physiology, 

 so also psychical forces underlie and condi- 

 tion the phenomena of free spirit, and there- 

 fore the philosopher must understand psy- 

 chology. 



In another paper, on Plato's Doctrine of 

 the Soid, and Argument for Immortality, in 

 Comparison with the Doctrine and Argument 

 derived from the Study of Nature, Prof. Le 

 Conte presents the evolution doctrine of 

 spirit — that the only significance of the whole 

 history of the evolution of the cosmos through 

 infinite time is, that it is a gestative process 

 for the birth of spirit ; and, with this, a cor- 

 responding theory of knowledge and method 

 of extending its domain, and a philosophy of 

 right conduct of life, or a theory of spirit 

 culture — a philosophy equally removed from 

 the ascetic on the one hand and from the 

 hedonistic on the other. 



The third part of Volume IX of the 

 Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences 

 of Philadelphia contains a Memoir on the 

 Genus Palaiosyops Leidy and its Allies, by 

 Charles Earle, and a paper on the Fossil Avi- 

 fauna of the Equus Beds of the Oregon 

 Desert, by Dr. R. W. Shufeldt. Palseosyops 

 is a fossil of the Bridger Eocene, of an ani- 

 mal that was more like the tapir than any 

 other living animal, of which a considerable 

 collection of material exists in the Museum 

 of the Philadelphia Academy and a larger 

 collection at Princeton, the two collections 

 being ample enough to permit a satisfactory 

 conjectural restoration. Dr. Shufeldt's stud- 

 ies of fossil birds are based upon the collec- 

 tions of Prof. Thomas Caydon, of Eugene 

 City, Ore., and Prof. Cope, of specimens 

 from Fossil and Silver Lakes. In the view 

 of the author, they establish the fact that 

 the birds of the later Tertiary time were sim- 



