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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



self in a vigorous and humorous style, and 

 brushes away the nonsense from the popular 

 idea of hypnotism with an unsparing hand, 

 exposing as he goes along many of the tricks 

 of platform "professors." He maintains 

 that good subjects, when not confederates, 

 are hypnotized by their own faith in the 

 power of the operator, that the healing by 

 saintly relics and Christian science is due to 

 just such faith, and that ghosts and witches 

 have had their only existence in a similarly 

 strong belief. 



Hypnotism is treated more respectfully in 

 a little pamphlet by Prof. G. A. Kcene (the 

 author, Masonic Temple, Chicago, 15 cents), 

 who gives a general exposition of the subject, 

 and firmly maintains its value in medicine 

 and surgery. All of these publications ex- 

 cept the second are illustrated. 



The Examination of Weismannism, by Dr. 

 G. J. Romanes (Open Court Publishing Co., 

 35 cents), consists of a series of essays dis- 

 cussing the phases of Weismann's theory of 

 evolution as they have appeared in that in- 

 vestigator's successive publications. The 

 first chapter is a statement of Weismann's 

 system up to the year 1886, and the second 

 supplies additions bringing it up to 1892. 

 Then follow examinations of Weismann's 

 theories of heredity and evolution as they 

 stood in 1891, and a final chapter brings the 

 subject up to 1893. From this discussion 

 Dr. Romanes excludes the doctrine of non- 

 inheritance of acquired characters, and deals 

 only with " the elaborate system of theories 

 which Weismann has reared upon his funda- 

 mental postulate." He represents these 

 theories as being in a continual flux and 

 change, and he had intended to add supple- 

 mentary chapters to future editions of this 

 book in order to keep pace with further de- 

 velopments which he expected to appear. 

 In his opposition to Weismann, Romanes was 

 largely on common ground with Spencer, but 

 there were points upon which he took issue 

 with the latter, some of which are set forth 

 in an appendix. Another appendix contains 

 certain supplementary suggestions on Weis- 

 mann's theory of germ-plasm. 



One important way in which the fingers 

 of primitive man assisted his wits is im- 

 pressed upon our attention by Dr. Levi L. 

 Conanfs study of The Number Concept (Mac- 



millan, $2). The number systems of nearly 

 all existing peoples evidently arose from 

 counting on the fingers some using one, 

 some both hands, and others supplementing 

 the fingers by the toes. Dr. Conant men- 

 tions, however, a few tribes who have nu- 

 meral words only for one, two, and many, 

 and some even whose only numeral seems 

 to be one. He shows from a large number 

 of numeral vocabularies that number words 

 have been suggested in very many languages 

 by the act of telling off the fingers in count- 

 ing. Examples are words meaning " the 

 end is bent " for 1, u the notched off " or 

 " one hand " for B, " one on the foot " for 

 11, and "one man" (all the fingers and toes) 

 for 20. While most peoples have five or ten 

 as their number base, a few have two, going 

 on with words meaning two-one, two-two, 

 etc. Four is also used as a base, but Dr. 

 Conant has found no recorded instance of a 

 number system formed on 6, *7, 8, or 9. It 

 has been announced recently that the Aphos, 

 an African tribe, have the best of all sys- 

 tems, the duodecimal, but the report has yet 

 to be verified. The vigesimal system, either 

 alone or combined with the quinary, appears 

 in many places and persists even in the 

 French quatrc-vingts. The author believes 

 that he has brought together for this discus- 

 sion the largest existing collection of numeral 

 systems. 



Among the publications issued by the 

 Sound Money League of Pennsylvania is No. 

 13, A Dissatisfied Farmer, which shows that 

 most of the depression under which agricul- 

 ture in the United States now labors is due 

 to competition, and especially to the compe- 

 tition of the wholesale operations carried on 

 in the West. The little pamphlet is illus- 

 trated with excellent photo-engravings show- 

 ing old and new methods of agriculture, 

 stock-raising, and transportation. (Room 

 248, The Bourse, Philadelphia.) 



Under the title The Union College Prac- 

 tical Lectures there have been collected in a 

 volume thirteen lectures delivered at Union 

 College in a course instituted by General 

 Daniel Butterfield. The plan of the course 

 has been evidently to get men prominent in 

 affairs to talk about their respective special- 

 ties to the students of the college. Thus the 

 first lecture on the list is an account of the 



