LITERARY NOTICES. 



565 



comprises a series of twenty-three designs 

 for school - buildings, ranging from a log- 

 house of one room to a brick building of 

 two stories and basement, and containing 

 eight rooms. Each design is accompanied 

 by a general description, in which the light- 

 ing, heating, ventilating, and toilet arrange- 

 ments receive due attention. The text is 

 abundantly illustrated with front and side 

 elevations, floor-plans, and details for doors, 

 fireplaces, transoms, screens, porches, win- 

 dows, belfries, gates, fences, etc. In all the 

 designs the principle that school - houses 

 should be attractive is insisted on, and their 

 porches with balustrades, the low overhang- 

 ing roofs, and exterior chimneys of many of 

 them, make the smaller ones look like dwell- 

 ings, while the large ones have the appear- 

 ance of libraries or club-houses rather than 

 the severe aspect usually associated with a 

 school-house. Attention is paid to economy 

 withal, especially in the designs for the 

 smaller buildings. The book is very hand- 

 somely printed and attractively bound, and 

 deserves a place in the library of every 

 school officer. 



Rocks and Soils : Their Origin, Composi- 

 tion, and Characteristics. By Horace 

 E. Stockbridge. New York : John 

 Wiley & Sons. Pp. 239. Price, $2.50. 

 The object of this book is to present 

 what aid the science of geology can furnish 

 to the important art of agriculture. Some 

 sixty pages are devoted to a sketch of the 

 geological history of the earth, and an equal 

 space to rock composition and decomposi- 

 tion. In this second division, the constitu- 

 ents of the most important crystalline and 

 non-crystalline rocks are given, the disinte- 

 gration of rocks by internal and by external 

 forces is described, and the products of 

 such disintegration are enumerated. The 

 internal agencies mentioned are volcanoes, 

 thermal waters, rock metamorphism, and 

 contraction of the earth's surface mani- 

 fested in gradual changes of surface-level, 

 in mountain formation, and in earthquakes. 

 The external forces of disintegration are 

 change of temperature, mechanical and 

 chemical action of water, action of the air, 

 and of organic life. The remaining divis- 

 ion of the volume deals with the further 

 transformation of the disintegrated rock 

 into soils by the incorporation of organic 



matter through the agency of plants and 

 animals, with the constituents and char- 

 acteristics of soils, and with the soil as re- 

 lated to the production of plants. Methods 

 of experimenting with and analyzing soils 

 are described here. An appendix contains 

 tables of percentages of the constituents 

 found in soils, agricultural products and 

 mineral fertilizers, and these are followed 

 by a list of authorities. 



A Manual of the Vertebrate Animals 

 OF the Northern United States. By 

 David Starr Jordan. Fifth edition. 

 Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. Pp. 

 375. Price, $2.50. 



The object of this manual is to give to 

 students and collectors a ready means of 

 identifying the vertebrate fauna, including 

 marine species, of the region which it cov- 

 ers, and of recognizing the characters on 

 which the families, genera, and species of 

 these animals are founded. A system of 

 analytical keys has been employed by which 

 differential characters arc brought into con- 

 trast. The present edition is wholly rewrit- 

 ten, and the order of arrangement is re- 

 versed, the lowest forms being placed first. 

 The artificial characters largely used in the 

 first four editions of this work for the anal- 

 yses of the genera have been for the most 

 part replaced by the less obvious characters 

 on which classification is actually based. 

 The region covered by the manual has been 

 extended, so that it now includes the district 

 north and east of the Ozark Mountains, 

 south of the Laurcntian Hills in Canada, 

 north of the southern boundary of Virginia, 

 and east of the Missouri River. In order to 

 keep the boot of moderate size, all descrip- 

 tions have been made very concise, while 

 sjTionymy and generally references to au- 

 thority have been omitted. Prof. Jordan's 

 name is a sufficient guarantee of the relia- 

 bility of the work. 



The Tariff and its Evils. By John II. 



Allen. (" Questions of the Day." No. 



LIII.) New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. 



Pp. 122. Price, $1. 



In this essay a ship-owner and merchant 

 of long experience combats the theories of 

 the protectionists as formulated by Senator 

 John Sherman in his speech to the Home 

 Market Club of Boston. The author natu- 



