June 2, 1899.] 



SCIENCE, 



'79 



•question the officers ou any subject under the 

 sun as he is of liis right to shake liands with 

 the President. The list of specimens sent to the 

 Museum for identification during the year Alls 

 24 columns. About 10,000 letters seem to have 

 been received and replied to. The concholo- 

 gists alone had to identify over 3,000 species and 

 to write over 1,000 pages of correspondence. 

 Defensive measures have become necessary. 

 Circular 47, U. S. National Museum, stipulates 

 that the material must be sent free of expense 

 to the Bluseum, unless otherwise agreed upon, 

 and that the localities from which the specimens 

 . were obtained must be given. The Museum 

 reserves the right to retain, except under 

 special arrangement, specimens needed to com- 

 plete the national collection. 



There are mauj' other points in these Reports 

 one would like to discuss did one not feel the 

 information to be a little out of date. Attention 

 may, however, be directed to Dr. J. M. Flint's 

 account of methods for the public exhibition of 

 microscopic objects (Rep. U. S. N. M., pp. 96, 

 97, pis. i.-iv.). There are two forms of ap- 

 paratus ; in both an ordinary microscope is em- 

 ployed, but in one the objects are fixed on a 

 rotating disc, while in the other ordinary glass 

 slips are attached by brass clips to an endless 

 linen band passing over rollers. " Microscopes 

 copied from the original here described have 

 been in use for several years, and no irre- 

 mediable difficulties have been found in the way 

 of their perfectly successful operation." An ap- 

 paratus of this kind has been in use at the 

 Hamburg Natural History Bluseum for some 

 years ; but few, if any, other museums have 

 followed this example. Perhaps Dr. Flint's 

 account may induce them to adopt this method 

 of overcoming the difficulty of exhibiting very 

 minute objects. The foregoing is only one in- 

 stance of the improvements in museum tech- 

 nique that are constantly being introduced by 

 the energetic officers of the U. S. National 

 Museum. It is the detailed account of such 

 matters that makes the Report of permanent 

 value to other museum-curators, while it evinces 

 the hearty interest taken in their work by all 

 members of the staff. p_ p^ Bather. 



Natural History Museum, 

 London, S. W. 



Introductory Logic. By James Edwin Creigh- 



TON. The Macmillan Company. 



The aims of this book, as indicated in the 

 preface, are three. It is intended for an ele- 

 mentary college text-book ; it is founded on a 

 belief in the value of the traditional ' formal ' 

 logic, and hence on a desire to conserve, just so 

 far as may be, the forms and exercises of that 

 logic ; and the author hopes, before he has done, 

 to have presented likewise a genuinely modern 

 theory of thought. The first purpose, of course, 

 must be kept in mind in judging ultimately 

 both the omissions of the work and all the ad- 

 missions into it that occur in the way of obvious 

 reflection and simple enlarging comment. The 

 aim of saving the greater body of the old log- 

 ical teachings, is one which — provided only 

 writer or teacher knows how to breathe again 

 into the material some of the ancient Socratic 

 living practicality and fresh keenness — the ma- 

 jority among instructors of raw classes would 

 still approve of. Their most critical query, 

 therefore, touching this phase of Professor 

 Creighton's work, would be : How far is this en- 

 deavor reconciled with the author's third chief 

 aim, that of satisfying also, in his expositions, 

 the requirements of modern scientific truth and 

 orderly completeness ? And here, in this at- 

 tempt of combining and correlating, in a purely 

 elementary treatise, the methods, content and 

 advantages both of the old logic and a newer 

 one, is plainly intended to lie the special feature 

 of our book ; as here, indeed, would appear to be 

 afforded, to any writer, his most distinct oppor- 

 tunity for achieving a marked success, if not 

 even his most valid reason for writing at all. 

 For here — it would seem at least — is the largest 

 room for competition with a number of most 

 excellent text-books already outstanding. Thus, 

 on the one side, Minto's Logic is an al- 

 most ideally satisfactory beginner's-manual, 

 save in the important circumstance that it 

 hardly more than informs the student of the 

 existence of the modern profounder theory of 

 thought ; while, on the other hand, a work like 

 — say even Bosanquet's Essentials of Logic, with 

 all its incomplete expression and the tension in 

 its style — presents the broad outlines of the 

 organic view of thought with an admirable 

 philosophic ability, but too far ignores, to ful- 



