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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 873 



neglect which, however fully disproved, in- 

 variably damages his practise. 



The foregoing is a faithful account of the 

 present drawbacks to private practise, and it 

 must be repeated that the insurance legisla- 

 tion in view will not improve matters. Med- 

 ical men who have gone in for contract prac- 

 tise at all have been able to afford to do so 

 thanks to their possession also of ordinary 

 practise among the same class of persons. 

 But under the National Insurance Bill the 

 whole of the working class will be swept into 

 the contract practise net, and a smaller in- 

 come will almost certainly result from the 

 same amount of work despite the absence of 

 bad debts. There may also be an extension 

 upwards of the contract system, and a great 

 deal even of the best class of private practise 

 may thus be abolished. Another disadvantage 

 which can not be ignored is that it will be- 

 come impossible to build up a practise which 

 can be sold in part or altogether. Indeed the 

 mere introduction of the bill has already less- 

 ened the value of many practises as faculta- 

 tive assets. — British Medical Journal. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Puhlications of the United States Naval Oh- 

 servatory. Second Series. Volume VI., 

 with ten plates. Volume VII. Washing- 

 ton, Government Printing Office. 1911. 

 In accordance with the new policy of the 

 Naval Observatory by which volumes are is- 

 sued from time to time as material suitable in 

 nature and quantity for simultaneous publica- 

 tion becomes available, we find volume VI. of 

 the present two volumes made up as follows : 

 (1) the data and results of all the observations 

 made with the two equatorial telescopes, the 

 26-inch and the 12-inch, since the removal to 

 the new site, or for the years 1894^1907; (2) 

 Appendix I., a series of thirty-six astronom- 

 ical papers by various members of the staff, 

 embracing a determination of the mass of 

 Titan, of the Solar Parallax from observa- 

 tions of Eros, and determinations of the orbits 

 of a number of satellites, minor planets and 

 comets; (3) Appendix II., a presentation of 

 the observations of the transit of Mercury in 



1894 made by more than twenty-three pro- 

 fessional and amateur astronomers at as many 

 stations in the United States from the At- 

 lantic to the Pacific coast; (4) Appendix III., 

 a complete and minutely described list of the 

 publications of the observatory, from the be- 

 ginning in 1845 till 1908. 



This volume is of special interest to a wider 

 public inasmuch as it contains, we believe, the 

 first series of plates that have been generally 

 distributed in illustration of the buildings 

 and equipment of the new observatory. The 

 frontispiece exhibits the dome and the at- 

 tached, low, office building of the great equa- 

 torial telescope, making one harmonious struc- 

 ture, with white marble walls, standing apart 

 on the spacious grounds. Probably this is the 

 most gracefully formed astronomical dome in 

 the country, if not in the world. Similar 

 praise is to be given when we regard the plate 

 which gives a view of the front of the main 

 building. Here, again are fitness and beauty 

 of proportion, a simplicty of outline and de- 

 tail, which are an honor to the architect, the 

 late Richard Morris Hunt. Besides these 

 there are six plates which exhibit the con- 

 struction and equipment of the 26-inch tele- 

 scope and one which gives a general view of 

 the 12-inch telescope. 



This volume contains the work of a number 

 of observers who have succeeded one another 

 at the instruments in kaleidoscopic change. 

 Indeed, one who has followed the annual 

 pamphlet reports of the superintendent for 

 several years past, is likely to have his head 

 full of visions of a chain of observers march- 

 ing and counter-marching around a circle 

 of instruments, and to get the conviction 

 that our National Observatory properly be- 

 longs in Alice's Wonderland. But here is a 

 great mass of original astronomical data 

 which appear to have been carefully derived, 

 and the full value of which can only come out 

 upon comparison with similar results from 

 the different observatories of the world. If 

 certain astronomers, of a type not unrepre- 

 sented in this volume, would confine them- 

 selves to careful observation and leave the 

 theorizing in newspaper and magazine articles 



