28o 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



eye to practical reform. It is curious to 

 note the great difTerence between these two 

 municipalities in their origin — Philadelphia 

 having been governed by a close corporation 

 of between twenty and thirty members, while 

 Boston was a pure democracy, which ulti- 

 mately had over seven thousand voters — 

 and then to trace the steps by which both 

 were converted into cities of th.c modern 

 type with essentially similar organizations. 

 Various reform measures are described 

 and advocated in both the pamphlets be- 

 fore us ; but the perusal of them haj only 

 confirmed us in the view wc have long held 

 that the evils of city government are due 

 not to defective organization, but to defects 

 in the character of the people, for which 

 the true remedies are educational and 

 moral. 



OcR thanks are due to Mr. C. C. Ver- 

 meule, Topographer of the Geological Survey 

 of New Jersey, for calling our attention to 

 some errors in the summary of the work 

 of the survey which we gave in our Octo- 

 ber number, and also for furnishing us 

 some facts additional to what are given in 

 the report of the State Geologist. lie says : 

 " The notice of the Geological Survey of 

 New Jersey and of the report of the State 

 Geologist for 1886, in the October number, 

 contains several errors which are so im- 

 portant as to call for correction. The 

 topographical survey has been in progress 

 ten years, having been begun in 1877 ; and 

 will be completed during the present year. 

 The extension of the geodetic survey from 

 the primary chain of triangles, which was 

 thrown across the State about 1840, was 

 begun by Professor E. A. Bowser, Assistant 

 United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, 

 in 1875 ; and the report in question states 

 that this survey, not the topographical sur- 

 vey, will require two years more for com- 

 pletion. This geodetic work was still fur- 

 ther extended by the topographical survey 

 so as to average one station to each twenty- 

 five square miles, the stations being at a 

 distance of five miles apart, and not twenty- 

 five miles, as the notice states. 



" The impression is also given that the 

 total area covered by the topographical sur- 

 vey at the date of the report was eighteen 

 hundred and ninety - seven square miles, 



whereas the report states that this area 

 was covered during the year 1886, and that 

 the only work remaining to be done is the 

 revision of five hundred and seventy square 

 miles. At the date of this communication 

 this work has all been done, and maps of 

 the whole area of the State, on the scale 

 of one inch to a mile, have been published." 



A TEXi'-BOOK of Yolapiik, or an easy 

 method of acquiring the new " Universal " 

 language, prepared by Klas August Linder- 

 fult, Librarian of the Milwaukee Public Li- 

 brary, is in press, and will be published 

 immediately by C. N. Caspar and II. II. 

 Zahn & Co., Milwaukee. It has been pre- 

 pared for the English-speaking public, on 

 the basis of Alfred Kirchholf's " IIilfs.buch," 

 with a key and dictionaries. It will con- 

 tain about 120 pages, and will be sold at 

 fifty and seventy-five cents a copy. 



A "Hand-book of Volapuk" is also 

 announced, by Charles E. Sprague, of 1271 

 Broadway, New York. It will contain ex- 

 positions of the grammatical structure of 

 Volapuk ; progressive exercises ; cautions 

 and hints ; grammatical analyses ; a vocab- 

 ulary ; and a key to the exercises. It can 

 be used for home study, and presupposes 

 only a knowledge of English grammar. 

 Price, $1. 



PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 



Greer, Henry. Editor. Kecent Advances in 

 Electricitv, etc., 122 E. 26th Street, New York. 

 Pp. 55. $1. 



Brinton, Daniel G . M. D., Philadelphia. Were 

 the Toltecs an Historic Nationality ? Pp. 15. 



Primrose, Frank J., I'hiladi>li)hia. The Golden 

 Fleece. Monthly. October, l»s7. Vol. 1. No. 1. 

 Pp. 50. |2 a year. 



Shufeldt, R. W., M. D. A Review of the Mus- 

 cles used in the Classification of Birds. Pp. 24. 



Afn-ieultural College of Michigan. A New Con- 

 tagrious Disease among Horses iu America. Pp. 4. 



Calcutta Hom(Boi)athic Charitable Dispensary. 

 Report for 1SS0-V7. Calcutta, India. Pp. 11. 



Clavton. H. Helm, Readvillc, Mass. Loomis's 

 Contributions to Meteorology Reviewed. Pp. 61. 



Griswold, W. M., Washington, D. C. The Con- 

 tinuous Index. No. 12. May to August, 18S7. 

 Pp. 7. Bimonthly. 50 cents a year. The Novel 

 List. Pp. 8. 11) cents. 



United States Geological Survey. Report on 

 Methods of Business and Work. I'p 112. 



Mat.as, Rudolph, M. D., New Orleans. Report 

 on Removal of a Subcutaneous Parasite. Pp. 19. 



Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Sci- 

 ence. Proceedings of Eighth Annual Meeting. New 

 York city, 1837. W. li. Lazenby, Secretary, Co- 

 lumbus, Ohio. 



