566 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cordance with the best modern theories. A 

 brief introductory chapter on dynamics gives 

 some of the general ideas relating to force 

 which are applied later to the special subject 

 of the volume. The usual topics are taken 

 up, and the language and the amount of 

 mathematics employed adapt the book to 

 college preparatory or freshman year classes. 

 There is a directness and conciseness about 

 the mode of treatment that contrasts with 

 the formal and encyclopedic character of 

 some works of a generation ago, which are 

 still in use. The volume contains one hun- 

 dred and sixty-five diagrams and figures of 

 instruments. 



The contrast between old and new meth- 

 ods in education can not be better illustrated 

 than by comparing an old-fashioned primer 

 with Our Little Book for Little Folks, ar- 

 ranged by W. E. Crosby. In the latter we 

 do not find an alphabet on the first page, 

 followed by the most mechanical of word 

 exercises, with a few crude black pictures 

 interspersed among them. We have, in- 

 stead, little sentences in which some words 

 are in vertical script, while others are repre- 

 sented by well-drawn pictures. Some pages 

 are in white on black, as they would appear 

 on a slate or blackboard ; some of the les- 

 sons consist of verses set to simple music ; 

 at intervals through the book are plates on 

 which appear in their natural colors the ob- 

 jects drawn in black and white on the read- 

 ing pages ; there is a frontispiece plate of 

 seven national flags, and a plate at the end 

 on which the three primary colors are shown 

 and the three secondary colors produced by 

 combining the primary ; another feature is 

 the many simple outline figures which the 

 child can copy with the pencil or by laying 

 sticks together. If this is not a "royal 

 road " to learning it is at least a flowery 

 path. (American Book Company, 30 cents.) 



Those desirous of having a popular vol- 

 nme from the pen of the late G-. J, Romanes 

 will be pleased with the collection of Essays 

 which Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan has prepared 

 (Longmans, $1.75). Prof. Morgan has chosen 

 ten essays which Mr. Romanes had contrib- 

 uted to various English and American re- 

 views, only one of them, that on the Origin 

 of Human Faculty, in Brain, being taken 

 from the pages of a technical journal. Sev- 



eral of the essays deal with psychology, which 

 was the especial field of the author, for ex- 

 ample, The Darwinian Theory of Instinct, 

 Mind in Men and Animals, Mental Differ- 

 ences between Men and Women, and Hyp- 

 notism, while in those treating of other sub- 

 jects, as folklore in the essay on Primitive 

 Natural History, hygiene in the one on 

 Recreation, or disease in that on Hydro- 

 phobia and the Muzzling Order, the philo- 

 sophical insight of the man into mental 

 states and operations, and his power of 

 placing his thoughts clearly before the 

 reader are everywhere apparent. 



The second and concluding part of the 

 reports secured by the Secretary of the 

 Treasury on the Condition of Seal Life on the 

 Rookeries of the Pribilof Islands has been 

 issued as a Senate document. This publica- 

 tion contains descriptions of the condition of 

 the rookeries in 1893, 1894, and 1895, by C. 

 H. Townsend, a similar description for 1895 

 from an examination made by F. W. True, 

 and an account of the mode of seal hunting 

 practiced by a Canadian sealing schooner, as 

 reported by A. B. Alexander, all of these 

 writers being officers of the United States 

 Fish Commission. All these reports furnish 

 conclusive evidence as to the large propor- 

 tion of female seals in milk that are killed, 

 the consequent starvation of thousands of 

 nursing pups, and the rapidly progressive 

 reduction in the numbers of seals on the 

 rookeries that is going on. The volume is 

 fully illustrated with maps and photographic 

 views. 



The author of America and the Ameri- 

 cans, from a French Point of View, draws no 

 very flattering picture of our social life and 

 institutions. It has been suggested that he 

 is not a Frenchman at all, but an American 

 who under this convenient disguise tells his 

 countrymen some disagreeable but whole- 

 some truths about themselves. The book 

 is nowhere on the title-page mentioned as 

 being a translation, a fact which seems 

 to favor this view. Whoever the author 

 may be, he shows himself intimately ac- 

 quainted with the peculiarities and customs 

 of the country he so severely criticises. Evi- 

 dently a man of culture who knows men and 

 manners on both sides of the Atlantic, he 

 touches with a caustic pen on the less lova- 



