LITERARY NOTICES. 



''7S 



in this number. Its contents comprise three 

 papers ; " On the Transparency of the Ether," 

 by D. B. Brace ; " On the Propriety of Re- 

 taining the Eighth Verb-Class in Sanscrit," 

 by A. H. Edgren ; and " On the History of 

 the Auxiliary Verbs in the Romance Lan- 

 guages," by J. A. Fontaine. The first paper 

 is an investigation of the phenomena which 

 would occur if there were any absorption 

 of the light-energy of stars by the ether, 

 through frictional forces or imperfect elas- 

 ticity. The result of the author's calcula- 

 tions is, that the apparent finiteness of the 

 stellar universe can not be due to absorp- 

 tion, as Struve supposed ; and that, if the 

 universe is infinite in extent, " the average 

 density of distribution of self-luminous 

 bodies outside our own system must be ex- 

 ceedingly small, as otherwise the sky would 

 appear of a uniform brightness, approxi- 

 mating that of the sun." 



In his Annual Report of the Division of 

 Forestry for 1887, the chief, Mr. B. E. Fer- 

 now, defines the work of the division as in 

 the main that of a bureau of information. 

 During the past year the division has dis- 

 tributed different circulars of information to 

 wood-consumers in general, to railroad man- 

 agers, to educational men, and to members 

 of the National Grange. Those, together 

 with a letter to the Commissioner of the 

 Land-OfBce on what is a timber-tree, are re- 

 produced in full or in substance in the report. 

 The pamphlet also contains statistics in re- 

 gard to exports and imports of wood and 

 wood products, from 1880 to 1887, and the 

 mill capacity of the country. Seeds and 

 seedlings, mainly of cone-bearing trees and 

 willows, have been distributed to some ex- 

 tent. Mr. Fernow thinks it is time for the 

 division to undertake systematic original in- 

 vestigations. The scientific basis of forest 

 management must be built up from research- 

 es in forest biology, timber physics, soil 

 physics, and soil chemistry ; its economic 

 basis will consist of forest statistics, tech- 

 nology of woods, and forest policy ; and its 

 practical basis will comprise knowledge of 

 methods of planting, managing, and harvest- 

 ing forests. The report contains notes on 

 certain species of trees, the seed of which 

 has been distributed from the department 

 during the season, telling their value and 

 the mode of their propagation. These notes 



are followed by statements of the condition 

 of the forestry interests in the several States 

 and Territories. 



The Toyo Gakugei Zasshi (" Eastern Sci- 

 ence Journal " ), in Japanese, is edited by a 

 committee consisting chiefly of professors in 

 the Imperial University at Tokio, Japan, and 

 has the large circulation, for a country like 

 Japan, of three thousand copies. The num- 

 ber which has been sent to us as a specimen 

 has articles on the primeval world of Japan 

 (accompanied by illustrations of Japanese 

 geology), the aborigines of Japan, the sub- 

 marine world, "A Great Eastern Problem," 

 and "The Standard Time of Japan," with 

 notes and miscellanies on various subjects, 

 and reviews of books. 



The Kitchen, a Magazine devoted to Sci- 

 entific Cookery in all its Branches (J. II. 

 Lewis, publisher, Chicago), is a monthly 

 magazine devoted to what the publisher 

 justly considers the central and predominant 

 interest of all housekeeping. Subjects per- 

 taining to cookery are presented in an un- 

 technical, common-sense style, and occupy 

 about half of each number. The rest of the 

 space is devoted to matters of different char- 

 acter, the object seeming to be, besides culti- 

 vating well the special field of the periodical, 

 to furnish a variety of reading, and make it 

 attractive in other directions. Price, 20 cents 

 each number ; 82 a year. 



The character of Chemical Experiments 

 for Medical Students, by W. S. Christopher, 

 M. D. (R. Clarke, $1), has been conformed 

 to the limited time allowed for the study of 

 chemistry in most medical schools. Hence 

 it includes only such methods and facts as 

 the student will need to use in the practice 

 of his profession. It is a laboratory manual, 

 the experiments covering work with the prin- 

 cipal metals and acids, using Beilstein's ex- 

 amples. In addition, the more important 

 alkaloids and some organic compounds of 

 medical interest are considered. In physio- 

 logical chemistry the work deals with the 

 proteids and carbohydrates, the digestive 

 processes, blood, bile, milk, and urine. The 

 acid tests recently introduced for the clinical 

 examination of stomach contents are also 

 given. It is intended to be used with some 

 systematic treatise on chemistry. 



"We have received from Thomas Prosser 

 & Son, the New York agents of Friedrich 



