SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



711 



refuted. On the other hand, whatever 

 pertains to the real history of astronomy 

 has been given with sufficient fullness to 

 make it plain; the principles which are 

 illustrated by enormous masses of obser- 

 vations that there is no room to record; 

 short biographical sketches of leading as- 

 tronomers other than living ones; a con- 

 siderable number of dates, such as those 

 of the births and deaths of astronomers ; 

 and even descriptions of such obsolete 

 theories as appear to form an integral 

 part of astronomical progress. Among 

 the illustrations are portraits of a few of 

 the eminent astronomers of the past. 



The special articles in the Bulletin 

 of the Department of Labor, Nos. 18 

 and 19, are Wages in the United States 

 and Europe, 1870 to 1898, in the Septem- 

 ber number, and Mr. Dunham's paper 

 on The Alaskan Gold Fields and the Op- 

 portunities they offer for Capital and 

 Labor, and Mutual Relief and Benefit 

 Associations in the Printing Trade, by 

 W. S. Wandly, in the number for No- 

 vember. 



The Rev. Dr. Adam Miller is a retired 

 minister who has devoted his leisure 

 hours to the study of sunshine, in which 

 he has included all that properly belongs 

 to the sun. He has read the standard 

 works on astronomy, and some, but ap- 

 parently not all, the later results for 

 comparison, it seems, rather than infor- 

 mation, and he has performed some origi- 

 nal and ingenious experiments with the 

 sunlight. His views, therefore, as ex- 

 pressed in The Sun an Electric Light 

 (Chicago), are his own. He has come to 

 the conclusion that the material theories 

 of the origin of the sun's light and heat 

 do not account for the facts, and are 

 therefore insufficient if not wrong; pos- 

 tulates a theory that the phenomena are 

 matters of electric action made percep- 

 tible to us by refraction through the 

 atmosphere, and makes an unnecessary 

 and inconsequent attack on the theory 

 of the conservation of forces. When Dr. 

 Miller assumes that his views of the in- 

 sufficiency of present theories and of the 

 electrical nature of the sun's action are 

 new, he shows that he is not fully read 

 up in the current literature on the sub- 

 ject. The insufficiency of present views 

 is confessed, and the discussions of the 

 subject with the various suppositions 

 which he criticises are efforts to find bet- 



ter explanations. The causal identity of 

 electricity, heat, and certain other forces 

 is accepted. But, given that electrical 

 action is the basis of it all, what then? 

 Philosophers know of no way of main- 

 taining electric action except through 

 material processes, and the way they are 

 replenished to keep it up is as hard to 

 find out as would be the way fuel is sup- 

 plied to keep up a solar fire. 



A pamphlet entitled The Story of the 

 Rise of the Oral Method in America (of 

 Instructing the Deaf and Dumb) as told 

 in the Writings of the late Hon. Gardner 

 G. Hubbard, compiled by Mrs. M. Gard- 

 ner Bell, reveals a seeming indolence in 

 the early instructors of the old meth- 

 od that is hardly creditable to their 

 energy in investigation. When deaf- 

 mute instruction was first projected here, 

 a teacher was sent over to Europe to 

 learn the best methods. Denied access 

 to schools in London and Edinburgh, 

 where articulation systems were taught, 

 he went to Paris, found the Abb de 

 l'Ep6e's sign language there and brought 

 it over. This and the finger language 

 held sway in our schools for many years, 

 while the possibility of teaching articu- 

 lation to the deaf was denied. It re- 

 quired long-persistent effort on the part 

 of a few men who refused to have their 

 deaf children taught these systems and 

 consequently isolated from their fellow- 

 men to secure a recognized place for oral 

 schools. The story of the struggle is told 

 in Mrs. Bell's pamphlet. 



The widespread ignorance and super- 

 stition with which even to-day the prac- 

 ticing physician has to contend are hard- 

 ly conceivable by an outsider. The con- 

 ditions under which a doctor knows his 

 patients are just those calculated to 

 bring out the weak spots in their mental 

 organization, and the absurd notions 

 which still have a foothold in many 

 minds are a constant source of wonder 

 to the speculative doctor. These super- 

 stitions are so widespread and so fre- 

 quently dangerous to the whole com- 

 munity, as well as the individual him- 

 self, that anything which is calculated 

 to improve matters, however so little, 

 should be welcomed with open arms. Dr. 

 Theme, by H. Rider Haggard, is aimed 

 at the antivaccinators, and by means of 

 a not uninteresting story points out the 

 serious consequences which a general be- 



