410 



LITERATURE AND LITERARY PROGRESS IK 1873. 



proved of great practical utility, were followed 

 by other important contributions to chemical 

 knowledge, including a "Dictionary of ChemU- 

 try," 6 voU., which he compiled with the as- 

 sistance of \Vohler, 1887-'51, and a supplement 

 to the same, 1850-'52 ; " Manual of Pharmacy," 

 1889 ; " Manual for the Analysis of Organic 

 Substances," 1838 ; " A Critical Examination 

 of the processes and results of the Analysis of 

 Organized Bodies," 1888; "Treatise on Or- 

 ganic Chemistry," 8 vols., 1841-'44; Introduc- 

 tion to the Study of Chemistry, 1843; "Let- 

 ters on Modern Agriculture," published in 

 1859; "New Letters on Chemistry," 1852; 

 and The Natural Laws of Agriculture," 1864. 

 Of late years his name had been widely used, 

 though possibly without his full sanction, in 

 connection with different forms of " Beef Ex- 

 tract or Essence of Meat." lie had given great 

 attention to the question of utilizing sewage, 

 and had written considerably on the subject. 

 Many honors were conferred upon Liebig by 

 learned societies, public institutions, and indi- 

 viduals, lie was an officer of the Legion of 

 Honor, a Foreign Associate of the French 

 Academy of Science, a Corresponding Fellow 

 of the Royal Society and of the Chemical So- 

 ciety, etc. He was created a baron in 1845, 

 and professorships were offered him in several 

 great cities ; and he was appointed successor to 

 Graelin at Heidelberg in 1850, but he declined, 

 and remained at Qiossen until 1852, when he 

 accepted the professorship of Chemistry at Mu- 

 nich and the presidency of the chemical labor- 

 atory. In 1860 he was appointed President ot 

 the Academy of Sciences of Munich as success- 

 or of Thiersch. He will justly rank as one of 

 the great benefactors of the age, both for the 

 practical knowledge he diffused as well as for 

 the impulse he gave to scientific research. 



LITERATURE AND LITKRAKY PROG- 

 RESS, 187.1. Commercially considered, the 

 year was not a prosperous season for litera- 

 ture. A diminished demand might be expected 

 to limit the supply. Newspapers are almost 

 a necessary of life, and magazines are among 

 the inexpensive luxuries; but books Bibles, 

 books of devotion, and school-books, except cd 

 are among the things most easily dispensed 

 with, when expenses must be out down. Dur- 

 ing the earlier months the trade was compara- 

 tively dull, with intervals of hopeful activity; 

 and the year ended under the cloud of finan- 

 cial revulsion, under which the circulation of 

 subscription-books was almost suspended, the 

 trade languished, and some intended pnldi.- 1- 

 tioas were postponed to a rnor.' convenient 

 season ; and yet, according to the report of 

 the Librarian of Congress, the number of pub- 

 lications, entered for copyright was 15,858, an 

 increase of about ton per cent, on the entries 

 of the preceding year. This includes not only 

 books and pamphlets, but maps, prints, arti- 

 cles in periodicals, etc., and the aggregate 

 gives no clew to the proportions of each 

 till less are we able from these reports to 



distinguish between "books that are books" 

 and " things in books' clothing." Nor shall we 

 attempt in this review a rigid classification. 

 While rendering due honor to the more notice- 

 able works in higher departments of literature, 

 it is of some interest to exhibit with consider- 

 able, though not exhaustive detail, the product 

 of the craft of book-making attempts as well 

 as successes books that exist for their uses, as 

 well as works that are their own excuse for 

 being. 



Si iBjfcK AND PHILOSOPHY. The public in- 

 terest in science, both in its principles and in 

 its applications, is seen in the fact that every 

 reputable periodical, designed for general cir- 

 culation, devotes more or less space to this 

 class of subjects ; and as the contents of maga- 

 zines are to an increasing extent republished 

 in book-form, every year sees the issue of a 

 number of such works as " The Year-Book of 

 Nature and Science," by Dr. J. C. Draper; 

 "Annual Record of Science and Industry," 

 by Spencer F. Baird; "The Science Record," 

 by A. E. Beecb ; and others that may have 

 escaped our notice. Some of these are very 

 complete and well-digested summaries of tbo 

 scientific progress of the preceding year. Tho 

 like indication is made by such popular serial 

 publications as "The International Scientific 

 Series," and " Half-Hours with Modern Sci- 

 entists," more particularly referred to in 

 another place, as well as by the issue of a 

 /'me, "The Popular Science Monthly," 

 in which science is popularized, but not'by 

 means of a superficial treatment. A book like 

 "Elements of Physical Manipulation," by E. 

 C. Pickering, designed to help the amateur in 

 vestigator in the use of apparatus and the 

 making of experiments, supposes the existence 

 in considerable numbers of the class of per- 

 sons for whom it was written. Of contribu- 

 tions to science special mention is deserved by 

 Prof. Josiah P. Cooke's " Chemical Physics," 

 and " Prehistoric Races of the United States," 

 by J. W. Foster. The philologist and the 

 classical scholar unite in lamenting the loss of 

 such a man as the late Prof. James Hodley, 

 LL. D., of Yale, whose " Essays, Philological 

 and Critical," are valuable both for their in- 

 trinsic worth and for what they reveal of tho 

 character of the author. "The Storv of tho 

 Earth and Man," by J. W. Dawson,' LL. 11., 

 is a popular exposition of the geological his- 

 tory of the earth, and argues against applying 

 to the origin of man the doctrine of evolution. 

 An elaborate and earnest, almost passionate, 

 argument against thnt doctrine is contained in 

 the second volume of the Rev. Dr. E. F. Burr's 

 "Pater Mnndl." A more dispassionate dis- 

 cussion, and more satisfactory to the lover of 

 science and religion, is found in the volume 

 entitled " Religion and Science: a Series of 

 Sunday Lectures on * * * tho Truths revealed 

 in Nature and Scripture," by Joseph Le Conte, 

 Professor of Geology in the'University of Cali- 

 fornia. 



