LITERARY NOTICES. 



reasoning for and against it, and its results, 

 taking up the steps which led to its institu- 

 tion and showing the phases attending its 

 beginning and the experience under it after 

 it was established. The report shows that 

 the system aims at securing all that has been 

 aimed at under various systems of charity, 

 and that its ethical side was most potent in 

 securing its establishment. It also appears 

 that the compulsory insurance laws were not, 

 as has been supposed, the result of a sudden 

 conviction of an emergency to be met, but 

 came directly through evolutionary processes 

 covering long periods of time. 



Besides the regular accounts of proceed- 

 ings and progress, and the Report of the 

 Secretary, the Annual Reports of the Board 

 of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 



1891 and 1892 contain in the general appen- 

 dixes brief accounts of scientific discoveries 

 in particular directions ; occasional reports 

 of the investigations made by collaborators 

 of the institution ; memoirs of a general 

 character or on special topics, both original 

 and selected ; and other papers, as space per- 

 mitted, supposed to be of use or value to the 

 correspondence of the institution. The at- 

 tention of the Board of Regents was largely 

 given, during the two years covered by these 

 reports, to the establishment of an Astro- 

 physical Observatory. An accession of 

 $200,000 to the endowment of the institu- 

 tion has been obtained through the bequest 

 of Mr. Thomas G. Hodgkins, of Setauket, 

 Long Island. 



A map and tables of the Average Eleva- 

 tion of the United States, published by Henry 

 Gannett in connection with the United States 

 Geological Survey, give, in the map, by gra- 

 dations of color, the elevations, at intervals 

 rising from five hundred to three thousand 

 feet, of the country and mountains, from the 

 few spots below sea level up to " above ten 

 thousand feet " ; and, hi the tables, the num- 

 ber of square miles, in each State and in the 

 whole Union, at each grade of level, and the 

 mean elevations of the several States. 



The report of Barton W. J?vermann and 

 William C. Kendall on The Fishes of Texas 

 and the Rio Grande Basin (United States 

 Fish Commission) is designed to complete 

 the studies published in a report made in 



1892 preliminary to establishing a fish-cul- 

 tural station in Texas. It is intended to in- 



clude all the species, both salt and fresh 

 water, which have been reported from the 

 region named, so far as the authors have 

 been able to learn. Geographically the 

 paper is made to include, besides the State 

 of Texas, all those parts of Colorado, New 

 Mexico, and Mexico that belong to the hy- 

 drographic basin of the Rio Grande. The 

 geographical distribution of the fishes is 

 prominently considered. The report is illus- 

 trated by forty plates. 



The Living Method for Learning how to 

 Think in German proceeds on the assump- 

 tion that if one tries to speak German while 

 thinking in English, his conversation will 

 consist largely of pauses, in efforts to recall 

 the German expressions and to arrange them 

 idiomatically ; and that the only way to speak 

 German is remembering what Germans say 

 under the same or similar circumstances ; 

 not that one should live in Germany, but 

 that he should live hi German. The process 

 is to associate the foreign phrases we have 

 learned so perfectly with our actions that they 

 will mentally suggest each other. The book 

 furnishes the phrases for usual acts ; then, 

 whenever we do any of the acts, we should 

 say, or think in German what we are 

 doing. From this we go on, expanding our 

 knowledge and practice, and making and 

 learning new combinations. (Charles F. 

 Kroeh, author and publisher, Hoboken, N. J.) 



The Mechanics of Hoisting Machinery 

 (Macmillan & Co., $3.75) is a translation 

 made by Karl P. Dahlstrom from Prof. 

 Herrmann's revised edition of Weisbach's 

 great work on Engineering Mechanics a 

 work of which several volumes, treating of 

 special subjects, are already familiar through 

 translations. The present volume, however, 

 has never heretofore appeared in English, 

 although its value is generally recognized. 

 The edition is intended as a text-book for 

 technical schools and a guide for practical 

 engineers. Within its purview are included 

 levers and jacks; tackle and differential 

 blocks ; windlasses, winches, and lifts ; hy- 

 draulic hoists, accumulators, and pneumatic 

 hoists ; hoisting machinery for mines ; cranes 

 and shears ; excavators and dredges ; and 

 pile drivers. 



The Peerless Cook ook, embracing more 

 than one thousand recipes and practical 

 suggestions to housekeepers, by Mrs. T. J. 



