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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



teer; it contains a history of the world, a 

 treatise on each of the arts, sciences, and 

 professions, a history of every literature, and 

 many other treatises which are frequently 

 issued as separate volumes. Fifty-two text- 

 books now used in colleges consist of articles 

 prepared by their authors for the Britannica. 

 There are three divisions of the Guide. For 

 boys and girls it has home readings in his- 

 tory, biography, science, and on sports and 

 games. For the student it has courses of 

 reading in history, language, literature, the 

 sciences from astronomy to zoology, the Bi- 

 ble, etc. In another division it has lists of ar- 

 ticles of interest to the merchant, the builder, 

 the electrician, the gardener, the physician, 

 the journalist, the miner, the home-maker, 

 and many others. Many of the references 

 are to the American Additions and Revisions, 

 which the Werner Company has inserted hi 

 its edition of the Britannica. 



The History of English Literature, by 

 Prof. W. M. Nevin, is based on the concep- 

 tion that literature, like history in general, 

 is an organic process or growth. It springs 

 up out of a nation's life and is its proper ex- 

 pression, always modified by its racial tend- 

 encies, its degree of civilization, its climate 

 and soil, and its relations with surrounding 

 nations. The book is designed to furnish 

 interesting and useful information to readers 

 generally, as well as to students in particular. 

 It was arranged to meet the needs of the au- 

 thor in lecturing to his classes, and hence 

 ought to be of practical value to the teacher 

 as well as the student. (Intelligencer Print- 

 ing Office, Lancaster, Pa.) 



The financial essays by Allen Ripley 

 Foote, collected in the book entitled A Sound 

 Currency and Banking System (New York, 

 G. P. Putnam's Sons), were written with the 

 conviction that business panics are ultimate- 

 ly the result of incorrect monetary educa- 

 tion finding its expression in unsound legis- 

 lation. Believing that the immediate return 

 and continued maintenance of a high degree 

 of prosperity for all the people are not pre- 

 vented by any natural economical condition, 

 the author seeks the appointment of a 

 monetary commission, which, he assumes, 

 acting discreetly, can devise a sound cur- 

 rency and banking system that will remove 

 the cause of financial panics ; and the pur- 

 pose of his essays is to assist in securing 



the appointment of such a commission and 

 help to a right understanding of the impor- 

 tance, aim, and direction of the work it 

 should do. 



While studying the Salishan languages of 

 Washington and Oregon, Dr. Franz Boas 

 learned that the dialects of the lower Chinook 

 were on the verge of disappearing, and that 

 some of them were remembered by only a 

 few individuals. This fact determined him 

 to make an effort to collect what little re- 

 mained of them. With considerable diffi- 

 culty he found a person who understood the 

 Chinook, was acquainted with its stories, and 

 intelligent enough to communicate them to 

 him. The results of his labors are embodied 

 in a paper on Chinook Texts, which is pub- 

 lished with the originals and interlineal and 

 current translations of the mythological and 

 other stories, by the United States Bureau of 

 Ethnology. 



In the Spirit of the Papacy, J. S. Hittell 

 examines the papacy in its political, intel- 

 lectual, and ethical, as distinct from its theo- 

 logical, aspects. He undertakes to show by 

 what devices it has tried to enslave the hu- 

 man race, and to prove that it is now dwarf- 

 ing the intellects of those Catholics who sub- 

 mit to its control. He says that there are at 

 present two great classes of Catholics those 

 including the high clergy, who resist every- 

 thing in the shape of an innovation or ad- 

 vance ; and a larger class, who have drawn 

 near to the Protestants, and who plead for 

 greater friendliness between the adherents 

 of the two great branches of the Christian 

 Church. (The author, San Francisco.) 



The two great sources of difficulty to the 

 beginner in geometry are the comparative 

 novelty of the subject-matter and the unac- 

 customed clearness of conception and ex- 

 actness of expression required in this new 

 study. In Elements of Geometry, by John 

 Macnie, edited by E. E. White (American 

 Book Co., $1.25), the author says that the 

 second source of difficulty is most easily 

 diminished by reducing the first to a mini- 

 mum. He has tried to present the subject 

 of geometry with a " logical strictness ap- 

 proaching that of Euclid, while taking ad- 

 vantage of such improvements in arrange- 

 ment and notation as are suggested by 

 modern experience. . . . The function of a 

 geometry is only secondarily the presenta- 



