426 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 359 



— The fourth volume of Baron Haussman's memoirs, which is 

 shortly to be published in Paris, will describe in detail the inner life 

 of the Second Empire. Among many other matters, according to 

 The Publishers' Weekly, the narrative promises to throw a new 

 light on the discussions with Prince Bismarck, at Biarritz and else- 

 where, as to the conclusion of an alliance between France and 

 Prussia, and the formation of a German Empire at the expense of 

 Austria. There will also be some unrevealed particulars in con- 

 nection with the negotiations for peace after the war of 1870, af- 

 fording much information about the part which Napoleon III. took 

 dn them. 



— D. Appleton cS: Co. announce as ready this month " Exercises 

 in Wood- Working : A Text-Book for Manual Training Classes in 

 Schools and Colleges," by Ivin Sickles, M.S., M.D. This book 

 ■consists of two parts. The first, a treatise on wood, includes the 

 growth, structure, properties, and kinds, cause of decay, destruc- 

 tive insects, and means of preserving wood. The second part con- 

 tains a description of tools, methods in drawing used to illustrate 

 the exercises, and methods of sharpening tools. These are followed 

 by thirty-nine progressive exercises, arranged as follows : i. Prac- 

 tice with the ordinary wood-working tools ; 2. Construction of 

 simple joints ; 3. Construction of complex objects ; 4. Elements 

 of house-carpentry ; 5. Directions for finishing work. The exer- 

 cises are illustrated by full-page plates, and are accompanied by 

 numerous applications. Directions for each exercise are printed 

 on the page opposite its diagrams, and particular attention has 

 been paid to marking or laying out the work preparatory to cut- 

 ting. 



— Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls (New York) announce a new bio- 

 graphical series, " American Reformers," edited by Carlos Martyn, 

 D.D., — a man of whom Wendell Phillips said, " If I were looking 

 for a biographer, I would lay hands on Mr. Martyn. His arrange- 

 ment is unique and effective. His grasp is both wide and strong. 

 His historical scent is keen as that of an Indian on a trail." There 

 are to be twelve volumes in the series, to be published one each 

 two months, beginning in January, to be issued in uniform size and 

 style (i2mo, of about 300 pages each, in cloth) at $1.25 per volume, 

 Here are the subjects and the writers : " Wendell Phillips, the 

 Agitator," by Carlos Martyn, D.D. ; " Horace Greeley, the Editor," 

 by Francis NicoU Zabriskie, D.D. ; " Horace Mann, the Educator," 

 by Hon. Frank B. Sanborn ; " William E. Dodge, the Christian 

 Merchant," by Carlos Martyn, D.D. ; " Abraham Lincoln, the 

 Emancipator," by Professor C. W. French ; " Frederick Douglass, 

 the Colored Orator," by Frederic May Holland ; " John G. Whit- 

 tier, the Poet of Freedom," by Sloane Kennedy ; " William Lloyd 

 ■Garrison, the Abolitionist," by Hon. George W.Williams, LL.D ; 

 " John B. Gough, the Apostle of Cold Water," by Carlos Martyn ; 

 "Charles Sumner, the Scholar in Politics;" and "Henry Ward 

 Beecher, the Pulpit Orator." 



— We have received the first and second numbers of " Haver- 

 -ford College Studies," published by the college faculty. They are 

 all either historical or mathematico-astronomical. No. i opens 

 with an article on " The Library of the Convent of the Holy Sepul- 

 chre at Jerusalem," by J. Rendel Harris, giving an account of the 

 formation of the library by the union of three smaller ones, with 

 notes on some of its treasures. Then follow a series of " Micro- 

 metrical Measurements of Double Stars," and other observations 

 made at the college observatory. They are quite elaborate and 

 ■extensive, filling nearly sixty pages of the pamphlet. There is 

 another astronomical paper, " On the Period of Rotation of the 

 Sun," by Henry Crew, who gives as the result of his observations 

 the period of 26.23 days. Frank Morley has a paper, " On the 

 ■Geometry of a Nodal Circular Cubic," which has been published 

 before in the American Jour7ial of Mathematics ; and the num- 

 ber closes with an elaborate essay by Francis B. Gummere, " On 

 the Symbolic Use of the Colors Black and White in Germanic 

 Tradition." This last paper is perhaps the most interesting in the 

 collection, and contains much curious lore. Pamphlet No. 2 con- 

 sists mainly of an essay on " The Rest of the Words of Baruch," 

 by J. R. Harris, with several pages of the Greek original ; and this 

 is followed by facsimiles of " Two Esarhaddon Texts," by R. W. 

 Rogers, from the originals in the British Museum. On the whole. 



these studies are more elaborate than most publications of Ameri- 

 can colleges, and represent a great deal of work. 



— Henry C. Frink (234 Broadway, New York) announces a 

 calendar for 1890 (" Perles de la Litterature Frangaise "), with one 

 quotation each from 365 different French authors ; also a calendar 

 for 1890 (" Perlen der Deut.schen Litteratur "), with one quotation 

 for every day in the year, selected from eminent German authors. 

 The above calendars are engraved and hand-painted. The 

 quotations are selected by A. N. Van Daell, professor of modern 

 languages in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 



— Mr. Clarence M. Weed, M.Sc, has published, in a recent 

 bulletin of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History, an 

 article entitled " A Partial Bibliography of the Phalangiinas of North 

 America." In it he states that he has included most of the refer- 

 ences to this group in our American literature, and mentions the 

 genus of several species of Phalangium of which he has seen no 

 specimens, but which probably do not belong to that genus as now 

 restricted. He has also published in the same bulletin an article 

 entitled " A Descriptive Catalogue of the Phalangiinse of Illinois." 

 The great majority of the American species of those familiar crea- 

 tures commonly known as " harvest-men," or " daddy-long-legs," 

 belong to the subfamily Phalangiin(2 of the family Phalaiigidce of 

 the sub-order Opilonea and order Arthrogastra. Though abun- 

 dant and widely distributed, these arachnids have as yet received 

 comparatively little attention in this country. The laboratory col- 

 lections on which this article is based have largely been made with- 

 in the last two years. 



— The following is the title of a book just published by the C- 

 R. Barns Publishing Company, St. Louis, Mo. : " New Light from 

 Old Eclipses ; or. Chronology corrected and the Four Gospels 

 harmonized by the Rectification of Errors in the Received Astro- 

 nomical Tables," by William M. Page, with an introduction by Rev- 

 James H. Brookes, D.D. The book is illustrated by several strik- 

 ing engravings of eclipses, and the author's arguments are sup- 

 ported by astronomical calculations ; which calculations are verified 

 by making with them all the eclipses known to the ancients, in 

 time and quantity as described by those who witnessed them. It 

 has also a new arrangement of the four New Testament narratives 

 in one combined narrative, giving all the occurrences of our Lord's 

 life in chronological order. 



— Mr. Townsend Mac Coun of this city has published " An His- 

 torical Geography of the United States," written by himself. It is 

 a small quarto volume, containing more than forty maps illustrating 

 the history of the country from its discovery to the present time. 

 It opens with facsimiles of some of the maps made by European 

 geographers during the sixteenth century and earlier, which show 

 very clearly how difficult it was for them to get a correct idea of 

 the form and size of this continent. Then follow maps illustrating 

 the colonization of the United States and the early wars and na- 

 tional rivalries, and, last of all, a series in which the growth of the 

 national domain from the close of the Revolution to the present 

 time is clearly and strikingly shown. The maps are well engraved, 

 and unencumbered with detail. A descriptive and historical text 

 follows the maps, and adds to the usefulness of the book for study 

 and for reference. 



— It is now just two years since the Acadetny announced that 

 Lord Carnarvon had found — among the papers which passed into 

 his possession on the death of his mother-in-law, the late dowager 

 countess of Chesterfield, widow of the sixth earl — a second series 

 of " Chesterfield Letters," and that he proposed to edit them for 

 publication. These letters, which number 236, are in an excellent 

 state of preservation. They were addressed by the famous Lord 

 Chesterfield, the fourth earl, to Philip Stanhope, his godson and 

 successor in title, and may be regarded as a revised version of the 

 celebrated letters to his natural son, who died after he had disap- 

 pointed his expectations. The subjects are to a great extent the 

 same : the language is often all but identical. But much of the 

 cynicism of the earlier series has evaporated ; the morality is on a 

 higher level ; the writer appeals to loftier principles than we are 

 wont to associate with his name. The correspondence extends 

 over nine years, beginning in 1761, when Philip Stanhope was in 

 the sixth year of his age. 



