278 



SCIENCE, 



[Vol. XVIII. No. 45S 



anything could, the mode of treatment of the subject; and, as to 

 the scope of the book, it may be said that all the usual phenomena 

 of light are described, and something of the theory given, though 

 we do not find any reference to the recent investigations of Hertz 

 and others showing experimentally the relation between light 

 phenomena and those of electricity. Macmillan & Co. are the 

 New York publishers. 



— The Rev. Alfred J. Church, the well-known author of "Stories 

 from Homer," etc., has written a novel of the time of Nero, which 

 Macmillan & Co. will publish under the title of "The Burning of 

 Rome." The book, which contains a number of illustrations, is 

 just ready. 



— "Principles and Practice of Plumbing," by S. Stevens 

 Hellyer has just been issued by D. Van Nostrand Co., New York. 

 It would .«eem that it might be difficult to find a person with 

 sufficient knowledge of plumbing and having the habit of writing 

 sufficiently developed who could produce a book on the subject. 

 These two qualities are united in Mr. Hellyer, who is known for 

 his earlier books, " The Plumber and Sanitary Houses," and "Lec- 

 tures on the Science and Art of Sanitary Plumbing," The pres- 

 ent volume is one of the series of "Technological Handbooks " 

 edited by Sir H. Trueman Wood, Secretary of the London Society 

 of Arts, to which Prof. William Crookes, for instance, contributed 

 the initial number, on "Dyeing and Tissue-printing." The 



opening chapters are devoted to lead and its many uses in build- 

 ing operations, but the reH of the book contains much on wha,t is^ 

 known as sanitary engineering, at least in so far as this may be 

 limited to the house. 



— Houghton, Mifflin & Co. have published a small volume en- 

 title! " Land of the Lingering Snow," by Frank Bolles, being an 

 account of outdoor walks in New England in spring time. It is, 

 therefore, somewhat in the style of Thoreau's works, though Mr, 

 Bolles is hardly equal to his prototype. His work is almost en- 

 tirely descriptive, with hardly any ot those moral reflections such 

 as often light up the pages of Thoreau. Moreover, it is too full of 

 petty detail, as the following specimen passage will show : "Leav- 

 ing the railway, I wound my way back towards Stony Brook, 

 passing through groves of small oaks, meadows full of treacherous 

 pools covered with brittle ice, belts of whispering white-pines, 

 apple orchards.and wood-roads leading up hill and down, ending- 

 nowhere. Four miles of this, wandering brought me to Kendal 

 Green station in Weston, with a record of twenty crows, eighteen 

 chickadees, sixteen tree-sparrows and three blue jays " (p. 40-41). 

 For lovers of nature, however, the book will have an interest, and 

 it is written in a simple and refined style. 



— The November number of the Annals of the Americnn 

 Academy of Political and Social Science is interesting on account 

 of the number of articles it contains which discuss new ideas 



HEO-DARWIKISffl AKD NEO-LAMARCKISM. 



By LESTE-i F. WARD. 



Annual address of the President of the Biological 

 Society of Washington delivered Jan. 24, 1891. A 

 historical and critical review of modern scientiflc 

 thought relative to heredity, and especially to the 

 problem of the transmission of acquired characters. 

 The following are the several heads involved in the 

 discussion Status of the Problem, Lamarckism, 

 Darwinism, Acquired Characters, Theories of He- 

 redity, Views of Mr. Galton, Teachings of Profes'or 

 Weismann. A Critique of "Weismann, ,Neo-Darwin- 

 ism, Neo-Lamarcbism, the American "School," Ap- 

 plication to the Human Race. In so far as views 

 are expressed they are in the main >n lino with the 

 general current of American thought, and opposed 

 to the extreme doctrine of the non-transmissibility 

 of acquired characters. 



Price, postpaid, 25 cents. 



N. D. C. HODGES, 874 Broadway, New York. 



HANDBOOK OF METEOROLOGICAL TABLES. 



By Asst. Prof. H. A. Hazen. 

 127 pp. 8°. 



Professor Waldo says : "I heartily recom- 

 mend them to all workers in meteorology, 

 and do not see how any of our American 

 meteorologists can afford to be without a 

 copy." 



Professor Symons of London says : ' ' They 

 are unquestionably valuable helps, which 

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2. A Fragment of the Babylonian '• Dibbarra" Epic. 

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3. a. IIpos with the Accusative, b. Note on a Pas,. 

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4. The Grambling Games of the Chinese in America., 

 F5,n t4n and P^k kdp piu. By Stewart Culin, 

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In preparation . 

 The Terrace at Persepolis. By Morton W. Easton,. 



Ph.D.. Professor of Comparative Philology. 

 An Aztec Manuscript. By Daniel G. Brinton, M.D., 



Professor of American Archaeology and Linguis- 

 tics. 

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Purness, Ph.D., LL.D. 

 Recent ArchtEological Explorations in New Jersey. 



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 Archasolo^cal Notes in Northern Morocco. By Tal- 



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of Egyptian Aotiquities. 

 a. On the Aristotelian Dative, b. On a Passage in 



Aristotle's Rhetoric. By William A. Lamt)erton, 



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 A Hebrew Bowl Inscription. By Morris Jastrow, 



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