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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



followed by systematic botanists — is made in 

 the ease of the gymnospei-ms, which are sep- 

 arated from the dicotyledons and made a 

 distinct class, coming immediately after the 

 cryptogams. "In nature," the author says, 

 " we find gymnosperms associated with the 

 higher cryptogams in the order of develop- 

 ment ; they form comjjrehensive types, includ- 

 ing the characters of. cryptogams, monocoty- 

 ledons, and dicotyledons — they are not true 

 dicotyledons " ; and she believes that if Jjs- 

 sieu had known what has been discovered 

 since his time, he would have favored the 

 change. The "Manual of Plants," forming 

 the second part of the volume (some 200 

 pages), contains lists of all the known orders 

 with their representative genera — a very de- 

 sirable feature, for few of our manuals give 

 them so exhaustively — with tables of abbre- 

 viations and etymons, or roots of botanical 

 terms and names of plants. 



Soaps and Candles. Edited by James Cam- 

 eron. Philadelphia : P. Blakiston, Son 

 & Co. Pp. 30(i. Price, $2.25. 

 Like the other technical hand-books in 

 the same series, this volume consists of the 

 articles in Cooley's "Cyclopaedia" on the 

 subjects to which it is devoted, with added 

 information from various sources. The user 

 of the book is assumed to have some knowl- 

 edge of general and analytical chemistry, 

 hence details of many chemical processes 

 are omitted. In the chapters devoted to 

 soaps, the materials employed are enumer- 

 ated, and the preliminary treatment of raw 

 fatty substances is described. Lye-testing 

 by the hydrometer and the chemistry of 

 saponification are touched upon, and the ap- 

 paratus and arrangement of the factory are 

 then set forth. Processes are given for 

 manufacturing a large number of house- 

 hold, toilet, medicinal, red-oil, soft, and in- 

 dustrial soaps, also a dozen methods of re- 

 covering glycerin from spent lyes. A chap- 

 ter on testing soaps closes this part of the 

 volume. In the same manner the manufact- 

 ure of candles is described. The volume is 

 illustrated with fifty-four cuts of apparatus. 



Not only new but novel is Quick CooMng 

 (Putnam, $1), which its author calls " a book 

 cf culinary heresies." Its chief departure 

 from the established culinary creed is in 

 asserting that " there is no waste in the 



kitchen so much to be deplored as wasted 

 time." Many of the recipes in the common 

 run of cook-books are extremely complicated, 

 and few women have the faintest realization 

 of the extravagant amount of time they con- 

 sume in proportion to the results achieved. 

 They have been made in the most random 

 fashion by adding one substance and manipu- 

 lation after another, according to the fancy 

 of the maker, and then slavishly followed, 

 without any intelligent effort to find a sim- 

 pler process for attaining an equivalent re- 

 sult. " Quick Cooking " claims to furnish, 

 in five, ten, or twenty minutes, dishes as 

 delicate and appetizing as those elaborate 

 affairs which one must potter over from twice 

 to ten times as long. This book contains 

 six hundred and thirty recipes, three hun- 

 dred and forty of which " can, severally or 

 in groups, be made ready for the table in 

 from five to fifteen minutes, and two hun- 

 dred and fifty of which require from fifteen 

 to forty minutes, or, rarely, an hour's time." 

 A " Black List " of thirty-nine favorite reci- 

 pes is appended, so called because the most 

 strenuous efforts have not succeeded in ma- 

 terially reducing the time which these dishes 

 require. Each of the three divisions is ar- 

 ranged alphabetically. The whole range of 

 dishes, from soups to sweetmeats, is repre- 

 sented. Prefixed to the recipes are some 

 practical suggestions of a general character, 

 and a table of weights and measures. 



" Comfort on $150 a year " is an idea that 

 will provoke from many an incredulous smile, 

 but that this idea can be realized by intelli- 

 gent management is demonstrated in How 

 she did it, by Mary Cruger (Appleton, 50 

 cents). In pleasant story form is told how 

 Faith Arden, with a few hundred dollars and 

 borrowing $700 more on mortgage, buys an 

 acre of rocky hill-side, erects a cottage upon 

 it, which she supplies with furniture from 

 her former home, and some articles con- 

 structed by herself, with the aid of a handy 

 carpenter, and then begins housekeeping 

 alone. She has an income of $300 a year, 

 and at the end of six months finds that her 

 living expenses, when there arc no extra 

 outlays, need not exceed $150 a year, leaving 

 an equal sum for interest, taxes, and the re- 

 duction of her mortgage. This gives her a 

 varied fare and many comforts. A former 

 school-friend, with two children old enough 



