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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



plates amounting to over fifty pages have 

 been inserted here and there throughout 

 the volume, and the whole book has been 

 brought down to date. By these changes 

 the author believes that its usefulness has 

 been very materially increased. 



The third volume, completing the college 

 textrbook of Nichols and F>'anklin on the 

 Elements of Physics, has now been issued 

 (Macmillan, $1.50 net a volume). About 

 three fourths of the two hundred pages are 

 devoted to light and the rest to sound. The 

 calculation of the lengths and velocities of 

 waves of light, of the positions of the foci of 

 lenses and curved mirrors, and similar mathe- 

 matical exercises in connection with diffrac- 

 tion, photometry, polarization, and radiation 

 constitute the treatment of the former sub- 

 ject. There is more of description and less 

 of mathematics in the chapters on sound, yet 

 here the numerical values of wave motions 

 and of intervals are made prominent. It 

 may be well to repeat that the work, as a 

 whole, is designed as an advanced text-book 

 for colleges where an elementary course in 

 calculus is taught, and whatever of demon- 

 stration, illustration, or discussion may seem 

 needful to supplement the text should be 

 supplied from the knowledge of each in- 

 structor using the book. 



The varying prominence of the female 

 element in religious conceptions is set forth 

 in The God Idea of the Ancients, by Eliza 

 Burt Gamble (Putnams). This is one of the 

 lines of inquiry taken up by the author in 

 preparing an earlier work on The Evolution 

 of Woman, and her intention was to include 

 its results in that work. In the separate 

 volume in which the material has now been 

 embodied she presents evidence to show 

 that mankind construct their own gods and 

 remodel them from the materials supplied 

 by their own developing culture. She finds 

 sex to have been the fundamental fact not 

 only in the operations of Nature but in the 

 construction of a god ; that in an early age 

 woman's influence was in the ascendency 

 over that of man, and the religion of the 

 time reflected the altruistic female char- 

 acter, but with the rise of male dominion 

 the god idea took on egoistic qualities. 

 Creative power is the keynote of many an- 

 cient religions, whether they take the form 



of tree, sun, fire, or lingam and yoni wor- 

 ship, and the chief god is represented as 

 male or female, according as man or woman 

 has been regarded as having the more im- 

 portant office in reproduction. The author 

 examines a large number of the ancient reli- 

 gions, and points out the sexual significance 

 of many of their emblems and ceremonies. 

 In two chapters on Christianity a Continua- 

 tion of Paganism she shows that some of 

 these emblems and ceremonies have been 

 inherited by the Christian religion. The 

 book gives evidence of extended study; it 

 is concisely written, and its statements are 

 well fortified by quotations from authorities. 



In Lectures on Appendicitis (Putnams) 

 Dr. Robert T. Morris has given a general 

 description of this disease, including symp- 

 toms, both general and local, and the meth- 

 od of treatment which his own experience 

 has led him to believe the most satisfactory. 

 The preparation of surgeon and patient is 

 the subject of Chapter I. In Chapter II the 

 appendix is described and pictured. Appen- 

 dicitis, its symptoms and complications, is the 

 subject of Chapter III, and finally in Chapter 

 IV its surgical treatment is taken up. This 

 comprises about half of the book. The re- 

 mainder consists of a number of unrelated 

 essays on such topics as the actiou of various 

 solvents on gallstones, the drainage wick, 

 and a last resort hernia operation. Illustra- 

 tions are freely used. 



Water and Public Health, by James H. 

 Fuertes (John Wiley & Sons, $1.50), is an 

 attempt to make a comparative study of the 

 mortality statistics of the principal cities of 

 the world with reference to their water sup- 

 plies. The undertaking is obviously a large 

 one, and the annual mortality in a city is de- 

 termined by so many different factors that 

 a comparison based on water supply alone 

 can not fail to be misleading. Notwithstand- 

 ing this unavoidable incompleteness, however, 

 the book contains some valuable suggestions. 



The Development of the Frog's Egg, by 

 Thomas Hunt Morgan (Macmillan, $1.60), is 

 intended as an introduction to experimental 

 embryology. Owing to the wide distribution 

 and rather regular habits, despite its name, of 

 Rana temporaria, its eggs are always easy to 

 obtain ; and as it has both tenacity of life and 

 suitability for experimental purposes, it has 



