338 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 354 



frequent use in English conversation calls for an appreciation, on 

 the part of Enghsh speakers, of the sounds peculiar to these im- 

 ported words. There are also the helps and suggestions as to the 

 way of using the book. But the suggestion to use the book will 

 be willingiy accepted by all to whom it may be available, it is so 

 well suited to its purpose. 



The State. Elements of Historical and Practical Politics. By 

 WooDROw Wilson. Boston, Heath. 12°. 



This is one of the most ambitious books that we remember to 

 have met with, but we are sorry to say that the execution is by no 

 means adequate to the design. The work is mainly descriptive 

 and historical, and attempts to give an account of all the more im- 

 portant constitutional governments on record, including those of 

 Athens, Sparta, Rome, France, Germany, Switzerland, England, 

 the United States, and several others. In the case of the United 

 States, not only is the Federal Government described, but also those 

 of the States, of the Colonies before the Revolution, and even of 

 the counties, cities, and towns. But this is by no means all. The 

 author has undertaken not only to describe these various govern- 

 ments as they now are or as they were at some particular epoch, 

 but also to give a history of them all from the days of Homer to 

 the present time. He has, besides, several chapters on the origin 

 of government and on its nature and functions, on the nature and 

 development of law, and so forth ; and all this is crowded into one 

 duodecimo volume. The necessary result is that the work is so 

 condensed and so crammed with facts that it is almost impossible 

 to read it through ; and the broad outlines of the subjects treated 

 are obscured by the mass of insignificant detail. 



We are obliged to add that the author's conception of politics 

 and political history seems to us defective. He confines his atten- 

 tion mainly to the mere machinery of government, the details of 

 organization and administration, and has little or nothing to say on 

 the all-important subject of the relations between the government 

 and the people. The main question about any government is as 

 to what rights it guarantees to the people, and how these rights 

 are secured ; but on these points Professor Wilson gives scarcely 

 any information. His remarks, too, on the nature and functions of 

 government are slight and superficial, and the philosophy of the 

 book generally is very thin. 



After finding so much fault, we are glad to add that the facts 

 recorded seem to have been carefully and conscientiously collected ; 

 and, though we have not undertaken to verify them, we have no 

 doubt they are trustworthy, and they also are pretty well arranged. 

 The book has an elaborate table of contents, as well as an index ; 

 and it will, no doubt, be of considerable value as a book of refer- 

 •ence, but it can hardly be used for any other purpose. 



AMONG THE PUBLISHERS. 



The J. B. Lippincott Company have published a new edition, 

 revised, of Professor Joseph P. Remington's text-book on the 

 " Practice of Pharmacy." 



— Sidney S. Rider, Providence, R.I., has in preparation for the 

 series of Rhode Island Historical Tracts a " History of Privateer- 

 ing," as connected with Rhode Island during the Revolution 

 (1776-83). 



— D. Appleton & Co. have published a volume on the land ques- 

 tion, entitled " The Land and the Community," by the Rev. S. W. 

 Thackeray, with an introduction by Henry George ; and a new edi- 

 tion of Bellamy's "Dr. Heidenhoff's Process." 



— Beginning with the coming year, the North American Review 

 will be printed on a larger page. Among the attractions of the 

 year is announced a " Duel between Free Trade and Protection : a 

 Great Discussion between Two Prime-Ministers, the Right Hon. 

 W. E. Gladstone and the Hon. James G. Blaine." 



— In view of the unceasing efforts for the suppression of the 

 African slave-trade, interest will be taken in the announcement 

 that Longmans, Green, & Co. are about to publish an authorized 

 life of Cardinal Lavigerie, the primate of Africa, which will contain 

 a full statement of the means by which he proposes to check this 

 infamous traffic. 



— " The Descendants of Paleolithic Man in America " is the 

 subject of an article, by Dr. Charles C. Abbott, which will open the 

 December Popular Science Monthly. It describes the surround- 

 ings and occupations of the men who made the rough pottery and 

 the implements of slaty rock which Dr. Abbott has, found so abun- 

 dantly in the Delaware valley. Another of Professor C. H. Hen- 

 derson's illustrated articles on " Glass-making " will appear in the 

 same number. In this one the evolution of a glass bottle is pic- 

 turesquely described. Some new phases in the Chinese problem 

 will also be presented by Willard B. Farwell. The writer asks, in 

 view of the wretchedness of millions of the Chinese at home, 

 whether exclusion will exclude, and invites more thoughtful consid- 

 eration of the Chinese problem, which is made especially serious by 

 the peculiar constitution of the Chinese mind. Col. Garrick Mal- 

 lery's American Association address on " Israelite and Indian " will 

 be concluded in this number. This portion of the essay deals es- 

 pecially with the similarity in the myths and social institutions of 

 the two peoples. 



— One of the most accurate pictures ever given of the slums of 

 New York will appear in Scribner's for December under the title 

 " How the Other Half Lives." The author is Jacob A. Riis, for 

 many years police reporter of the Associated Press, who has had 

 every facility during his very active career to collect definite infor- 

 mation on the subject. The illustrations are from flash-light, pho- 

 tographs taken by the author. Edward J. Phelps, ex-minister to 

 England, in his article in the same number, says, " Never since the 

 creation has there come upon the earth such a deluge of talk as 

 the latter half of the nineteenth century has heard. The orator is 

 everywhere, and has all subjects for his own. The writer stayeth 

 not his hand by day or by night. Every successive day brings 

 forth in the English tongue more discourse than all the great 

 speakers of the past have left behind them, and more printed mat- 

 ter, such as it is, than the contents of an ordinary library. . . . We 

 certainly seem to be approaching the time when hardly any thing 

 will be left to be said on any subject that has not been said before 

 — perhaps many times over; when all known topics will begin to 



- be exhausted." 



— Professor Paul Haupt of the Johns Hopkins University is edit- 

 ing, in connection with Professor Friedrich Delitzsch of the Uni- 

 versity of Leipzig, a new periodical, Beitrdge zur Assyriologie und 

 vergleichenden semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (" Contributions 

 to Assyriology and Comparative Semitic Philology"). The plan 

 of such a series was conceived by Professor Haupt as early as 1878, 

 but various circumstances prevented its realization. This new 

 series will form z. pendant to the quarto volumes of the Assyrio- 

 logical Library, edited by Frfedrich Delitzsch and Paul Haupt, 

 which now includes Haupt's " Akkadian and Sumerian Texts " 

 and his " Babylonian Nimrod Epic," Bezold's " Achaemenian In- 

 scriptions, with the Cuneiform Text of the Smaller Achaemenian 

 Inscriptions," autographed by Professor Haupt, Strassniaier's 

 " Alphabetical List of Assyrian and Akkadian Words," Lyon's 

 " Sargon," Zimmern's " Babylonian Penitential Psalms," Delitzsch's 

 " Assyrian Dictionary," Lehmann's " Samassumukin," Weisbach's 

 " Second Species of the Achaemenian Inscriptions," and Bang's 

 '■ Old Persian Texts." Due regard will be given to the principles 

 of comparative philology, and this will be a distinctive feature of 

 the contributions published in Xhe^Beitrdge. Naturally the Bei- 

 trdge will chiefly contain the work of the German Semitic School ; 

 though articles in other languages, especially in English, French, 

 or Latin, will not be excluded. The editors do not propose to issue 

 the journal at fixed intervals, but from time to time, as sufficient 

 satisfactory material is at hand. Part I. of Vol. I. is now ready. 

 Subscription and orders may be addressed to the Publication 

 Agency of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 



— G. P. Putnam's Sons announce a new edition (the nineteenth) 

 of " Haydn's Dictionary of Dates," brought down to the fall of 

 1889; a revised edition of Edward L. Anderson's treatise on 

 " Modern Horsemanship ; " the first volume of Charles Booth's 

 " Labor and Life of the People," describing East London ; " A 

 History of Austro-Hungary from the Earliest Time to the Year 

 1889," by Louis Leger, translated from the French by Mrs. Birk- 

 beck Hill, with a preface by Edward A. Freeman ; " The First In- 



