28 
SCIENCE. 
[Vol. XXIII. No. 571 
SOME OF THE NEW BOOKS AT LOW PRICES. 
FAmous VOYAGERS AND EXPLORERS.—$1.50. 
Mrs. Botton has added to her Famous series of books 
another and an unusually interesting volume, ‘‘Famous 
Voyagers and Explorers.” It is hardly comprehensive, 
as it gives the biographies of only a few typical ex- 
plorers—Marco Polo, Columbus, Magellan, Raleigh, 
and the more prominent of our modern American ex- 
plorers. Doubtless such names as the Cabots, Sir 
Humphrey Gilbert, De Soto, Cartier, Nansen and 
others are reserved for a second volume. Mrs. Bolton 
has a gift for this sort of writing, and she has here 
brought together a large amount of deeply interesting 
matter which otherwise could only be obtained by read- 
ing through a dozen or more separate volumes. The 
book is illustrated with several portraits.—Boston Trans- 
cript. 
Our GREAT WEST.—$2.50. 
Tue contents of the volume appeared serially in 
Harper’s Magazine and Harper’s Weekly, in which periodi- 
cals they attracted wide attention and favorable com- 
ment. ~-Their importance fully justified their republica- 
tion in a more permanent form. The book affords a 
more minute insight into the present condition of the 
West than can be found elsewhere. What it tells is the 
result of personal experience, fortified by information 
obtained from the best-informed and most reliable men 
in the localities under discussion, and set forth with 
admirable clearness and impartiality. It is a work to 
be read and pondered by those interested in the growth 
of the nation westward, and is of permanent standard 
value.— Boston Gazette. 
STATESMEN.—$2.00. 
In the preparation of this work Noah Brooks has 
aimed to present a series of character sketches of the 
eminent persons selected for portraiture. The object is 
to place before the present generation of Americans 
salient points in the careers of public men whose at- 
tainments in statesmanship were the result of their 
own individual exertions and force of character rather 
than of fortunate circumstances. Therefore these brief 
studies are not biographies. Mr. Brooks had the good 
fortune of personal acquaintance with most of the 
statesmen of the latter part of the period illustrated by 
his pen, and he considers it an advantage to his readers 
that they may thus receive from him some of the im- 
pressions which these conspicuous personages made 
upon the mental vision of those who heard and saw 
them while they were living examples of nobility of 
aim and success of achievement in American states- 
manship. 
MEN OF BusiNEss.—$2.00. 
W. O. Sropparp, who has just written a book pub- 
lished by the Scribners, on ‘‘Men of Business,’ tells 
how the late Senator Stanford chopped his way to the 
law. ‘‘He had grown tall and strong,” says Mr. Stod 
dard, ‘‘and was a capital hand in a hay-field, behind a- 
plough, or with an axe in the timber; but how could 
this help him into his chosen profession? Nevertheless 
it was a feat of wood-chopping which raised him to the 
bar. When he was eighteen years of age his father 
purchased a tract of woodland; wished to clear it, but 
had not the means to do so. At the same time he was 
anxious to give his son alift. He told Leand, there- 
fore, that he could have all he could make from the 
timber, if he would leave the land clelar of trees. 
Leland took the offer, for a new market had latteily 
been created for cord-wood. He had saved money 
enough to hire other choppers to help him, and he 
chopped for the law and his future career. Over 2,000 
cords of wood were cut and sold to the Mohawk and 
Hudson River Railroad, and the net profit to the young 
contractor was $2,600. It had been earned by severe 
toil, in cold and heat, and it stood for something more 
than dollars.—Brooklyn Times. then ‘ 
ORTHOMETRY.—$2.00. 
In ‘‘Orthometry” Mr. R. F. Brewer has attempted a 
fuller treatment of the art of versification than is to be 
found in the popular treatises on that subject. While 
the preface shows a tendency to encourage verse-mak- 
ing, as unnecessary as it is undesirable, the work may 
be regarded as useful so far_as it tends to cultivate an 
intelligent taste for good y. Therhyming diction- 
ary at the end is anew fegi&e, which will undoubtedly 
commend itself to those h a use for such aids. A 
specially interesting chapter on ‘‘Poetic Trifles,” 
in which are included the various imitations of foreign 
verse in English. The discussion of the sonnet, too, 
though failing to bring out fully the spiritual nature of 
this difficult verse form, is more accurate than might be 
expected from the following sentence: ‘‘The form of 
the sonnet is of Italian origin, and came into use in the 
fifteenth [sic] century, towards the end of which its 
construction was perfected, and its utmost melodious 
sweetness attained in the verse of Petrarch and Dante.” 
In the chapter on Alliteration there are several mislead- 
ing statements, such as calling ‘‘Piers the Plowman” 
an ‘“‘Old English” poem. In the bibliography one is 
surprised not to find Mr. F. B. Gummere’s admirable 
“‘Handbook of Poetics,” now in its third edition. In 
spite of these and other shortcomings, which can be 
readily corrected in a later issue, this work may be 
recommended as a satisfactory treatment of the 
mechanics of verse. A careful reading will improve 
the critical faculties.— The Dial. 
Any of the above books will be sent prepaid on receipt of the publisher’s price, less ten 
per cent.The same discount will be allowed on any new book, not a text-book. 
N. D. C. HODGES, 
874 Broadway, New York. 
