LITERARY NOTICES. 



419 



gypsum quarries, statistics of the annual 

 production of gypsum, and an account of the 

 uses of gypsum. 



In The Cosmic Ether and its Problems 

 that mysterious substance or agent is pre- 

 sented by Mr. B. B. Lewis as the invisible 

 actuator of the world of matter and life. 

 Accepting the current theories of the ether 

 the author elaborates them and applies them 

 to the accounting for various cosmic and 

 terrestrial phenomena more positively, per- 

 haps, in some instances, than sober science 

 is yet ready to assert, though we have not 

 noticed that he transcends the bounds of 

 some scientific speculations. The field of 

 knowledge outlined in the essay seems to 

 find a definite limit, the author says, only on 

 the one hand in the direction of inquiry as 

 to the nature and origin of the material 

 molecule, and, on the other hand, " as to the 

 separate entity and perpetuity of that ether 

 inspiration constituting the sentient, intelli- 

 gent personality actuating the physical life 

 organism" which will doubtless remain 

 "permanently unanswerable to scientific 

 methods of investigation." (Published by 

 the author at Bridgeport, Conn.) 



The same subject is treated in a very differ- 

 ent manner by Terence Duffy, author and pub- 

 lisher, of San Francisco, in a book entitled 

 From Darkness to Light, which is further 

 defined as Duffy's Compendiums of Nature's 

 Laws, Forces, and Mind combined in one ; 

 conformable to this, his great discovery that 

 the sun and earth are the poles of the mag- 

 net. " Explains the motion of the earth, how 

 maintained, what space is, what force is," 

 etc. The author has intended, he says, to 

 write as he understands, and to be as con- 

 cise as possible, in plain words without any 

 elaboration. We can not tell whether he 

 keeps within science or flies away beyond it. 

 His statements, as they read, have an air of 

 absurdity; yet when we take a passage, 

 analyze it, and translate it into usual lan- 

 guage, it appears that the author may mean 

 well, after all. The book's only value is as 

 a curiosity. 



A study of The Deadly and Minor Poi- 

 sons of Toadstools is published by Charles 

 Mcllvaine, of Haddonfield, N. J. By toad- 

 stools the author means visible fungi as 

 distinguished from microscopic. To the 

 alkaloid, or poisonous principle, he gives 



the name of amanitine, preferring it, as de- 

 rived from the name of a family of plants, 

 to muscarine, the usual name, which relates 

 to a species. Its most certain and powerful 

 antidote he finds to be atropine. 



The Eleventh Annual Report of the 

 United States Geological Survey contains the 

 usual account by the director of the opera- 

 tions of the year, in which the value and 

 efficiency of the several divisions are care- 

 fully pointed out, followed by administrative 

 reports of the heads of divisions. Two pa- 

 pers are appended to the report of opera- 

 tions : the first is on The Pleistocene History 

 of Northeastern Iowa, by W J M'Gee; and 

 the second on the Natural Gas Field of Indi- 

 ana, by Arthur John Phinney. Mr. M' Gee's 

 paper is illustrated with forty plates and one 

 hundred and twenty cuts and Mr. Phinney's 

 with five plates. A second volume contains the 

 second annual report of the director upon the 

 Irrigation Survey. This embraces the re- 

 sults of the work of the divisions of hydrog- 

 raphy, topography, and engineering for the 

 year ending June 30, 1890, together with 

 a detailed statement made by the director 

 before a committee of the House of Repre- 

 sentatives, discussing the problems of irriga- 

 tion in the arid lands of the United States. 

 It appears from the report that a great deal 

 of work has been done in locating agricul- 

 tural lands that are accessible to water, in 

 gauging rivers and rainfall, and in survey- 

 ing reservoir sites. The text is accompanied 

 by sixty maps and views and four cuts of 

 apparatus. 



In A Select Bibliography of Chemistry, 

 an attempt is made by H. Carrington Bolton 

 to collect the titles of the principal books on 

 chemistry published in Europe and America 

 from the rise of the literature (1492) to the 

 close of the year 1892. The term chemistry 

 is taken in its fullest significance, and the 

 bibliography contains books in every depart- 

 ment of chemical literature, pure and ap- 

 plied. It is confined, however, to independ- 

 ent works and their translations, and does 

 not include academic dissertations nor " re- 

 prints " and " separates," and no attempt has 

 been made to index the voluminous chemical 

 literature, except hi the section of Biography. 

 Full bibliographical details have beea given 

 where possible. A considerable number of 

 the books have been personally examined, 



