SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



275 



pended. The volume is illustrated with near- 

 ly three hundred figures and a considerable 

 number of plates. 



An address on The Railroad as an Ele- 

 ment in Education, delivered at the World's 

 Fair in New Orleans in 1885, by Prof. Alex- 

 ander Hogg, was widely circulated at the 

 time, attracted much attention, and was 

 noticed in the Monthly. It was an honest 

 and forcible attempt to present the benefits 

 the railroads have conferred upon society 

 and the nation, and to antagonize the un- 

 reasoning populistic prejudice against them. 

 It showed in a few words appealing directly 

 to public intelligence that railroads have 

 cheapened communication and transporta- 

 tion, have opened remote parts of the coun- 

 try, making them near and accessible, have 

 removed the dangers of local famine, have 

 contributed vastly to the national defense 

 while removing the necessity of keeping 

 large standing armies ; and that in view of the 

 services they render and of what is charged 

 for like work abroad, their rates are extreme- 

 ly low. Further, the men who have acquired 

 the most wealth through railroad manage- 

 ment have also distinguished themselves by 

 their benefactions to education and other 

 contributions to public welfare. This ad- 

 dress is now republished in a revised and 

 enlarged form,* with additional chapters re- 

 viewing the development of the ten years 

 subsequent to its original publication. Of 

 these chapters one of the most important is 

 the one on The Inception and History of 

 Strikes, the methods of which are shown to 

 be " wrong in principle and ruinous in prac- 

 tice." 



The first volume of Prof. W. J. JSeafs 

 Grasses of North America -J- was published 

 ten years ago, and was noticed by us in 

 November, 1887. It was designed more 

 particularly for farmers and students, and 

 comprised chapters on the physiology, com- 

 position, selection, improving, and cultivation 



* The Railroad as an Element in Education. 

 Revised and enlarged, with New Illustrations. 

 (Special edition). By Prof. Alexander Hogg, 

 Superintendent of Schools, Fort Worth, Texas. 

 Louisville, Ky. : J. Morton & Co. Pp. 118. 



t Grasses of North America. By W. J. Beal, 

 Professor of Botany and Forestry in Michigan 

 Agricultural College. In two volumes. Vol. II. 

 New York : Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 706. Price, $5. 



of grasses and clovers. The present volume 

 supplements the former one to a certain ex- 

 tent, but in most respects it is an independ- 

 ent work. In it the grasses are classified and 

 described, and each species is illustrated; 

 and chapters are added on their geographical 

 distribution, and also a bibliography. In 

 most cases the generic characters closely fol- 

 low those given by Bentham and Hooker in 

 Genera Plantarum. Extracts are given re- 

 garding the writings of prominent authorities 

 on the grasses ; and also notes regarding the 

 tribes and some of the genera. The author 

 has been permitted to examine, during hw 

 studies for this work, the herbarium of Mich- 

 igan Agricultural College, all the grasses in 

 the herbaria of the University of Michigan 

 and Harvard University (including the grasses 

 of the late Dr. George Thurber), those of the 

 Department of Agriculture at Washington, 

 and those of Prof. F. L. Scribner ; and, him- 

 self one of our leading botanists, has been as- 

 sisted by Prof. L. H. Bailey and Prof. S. M. 

 Tracy in the matter of -geographical distri- 

 bution, L. H. Dewey and A. A. Crozier. The 

 work is a real addition to our botanical litera- 

 ture, filling as it does a department that has 

 not before been completely occupied. 



Mr. Thomas D. Hawlcy, of the Chicago 

 bar, haa prepared and published a new sys- 

 tem of logic,* by which, he claims, reasoning 

 can be carried on by an infallible process, 

 even as the interest can be calculated upon a 

 promissory note. The method consists in 

 the repeated use of a few processes which 

 are performed in a mechanical manner, and 

 the results appear automatically. " Its tools 

 are a few simple signs namely, the capital 

 letters of the alphabet to represent positive 

 terms, the small letters to represent negative 

 terms ; the mathematical sign of equality, = 

 for ' is ' ; a short prependicular mark, J for 'or,' 

 and a square for the 'universe of discourse.' 

 When a square is divided into a proper num- 

 ber of sections it is called a Reasoning Frame. 

 By the use of the Reasoning Frame every 

 proposition which can possibly be made with 

 the letters used is set before us. We then 

 eliminate every proposition which is incon- 



* Infallible Logic: A Visible and Automatic 

 System of Reasoning. By Thomas D. Hawley, o( 

 the Chicago Bar. Lansing, Mich. : Robert Smith 

 Printing Company. Pp. 059. 



