26 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 310 



matology, and supplements these works in a field in which a compre^ 

 hensive and exhaustive guide to the student was most sorely needed. 

 The plan of the book may be learned from the following passage 

 of the preface : " A uniform thought has guided the arrangement 

 of the chapters on the different instruments : namely, there is first 

 given a general description of the object to be attained ; second, a 

 development of the formute for correcting the errors of the appa- 

 ratus ; and, finally, an indication of the refined methods of making 

 standard determinations, to which all ordinary practical methods 

 are to be considered as approximations." The volume treats of the 

 measurements of atmospheric temperature and pressure, of the 

 motion of the air, the measurement of aqueous vapor and of pre- 

 cipitation, while the subjects of optics, electricity, and actinometry 

 remain to be presented in a subsequent volume. 



— The lively discussion of the question of the influence of forests 

 as regulators of rainfall and river-fiow cannot fail to have a bene- 

 ficial effect. Since the interesting discussion between Professor 

 Fernow and Mr. Gannett which was published in a recent number 

 of Science (xii. p. 242), Professor George F. Swain has given a 

 comprehensive review of the subject in the American Meteorologi- 

 cal Journal. The principal advance made in this investigation is 

 the clearer understanding of the complexity of the phenomenon, 

 and of the fact that the influence of forests cannot be the same in 

 different climates, on plains, and on mountains, and that it depends 

 on the genera and species composing the forest and on the covering 

 of the ground in forests. While most American scientists hold that 

 forests do not increase evaporation, Ebermayer and Woeikof claim 

 the reverse. The latter even believes that this increase of evapo- 

 ration is sufficient to effect an increase of cloudiness, and a conse- 

 quent lowering of the temperature of summer. The only result 

 that has so far been generally accepted is, that forests are regu- 

 lators of the flow of rivers, on plains as well as in mountainous 

 regions. This effect alone, setting aside the value of the wood, 

 makes their protection of great economic importance. 



— The number of the Americatt Joicrnal of Psychology just 

 issued begins its second volume. The original articles that the 

 first volume has contained demonstrate the profit of working the 

 American psychological field, while the copious abstracts of current 

 literature show both the activity of investigation elsewhere and the 

 need of such a review as this department of the journal furnishes. 

 The first article in the present number is on " Personal Equation," by 

 E. C. Sanford, Ph.D. Astronomical methods early brought to light 

 the vagaries of the human factor in observation, and since Bessel's 

 discovery of personal equation the subject has received, at one time 

 and another, the attention of many of the most distinguished as- 

 tronomers. Their studies gave the impulse to the time-measure- 

 ments in psychology that have been carried on with so much suc- 

 cess by Wundt and others. Activity has also continued among the 

 astronomers, and this paper is an attempt to turn to psychological 

 account the results of their analysis and experimentation, and to 

 bring together the results reached by both sorts of investigators. 

 The history of personal equation (beginning with the notice of a 

 •difference in the observations of Maskelyne and Kinnebrook), and 

 of the methods from time to time applied for measuring or avoiding 

 it, makes an interesting episode in the history of science. In a sec- 

 ond article the author proposes to treat the variations of personal 

 •equation, and discuss the theories of its origin. The second paper 

 is the first section of an historical and experimental study of mem- 

 ory, by W. H. Burnham, Ph.D. The growth of the psychology of 

 memory is traced from the earliest Greeks to Kant. In Plato are 

 found the beginnings of that transcendental view of memory that 

 make it a function of the soul independent of the body. The Neo- 

 Platonists St. Augustine and Leibnitz, neglecting individual varia- 

 tions, are of this party. Aristotle, on the other hand, who wrote a 

 monograph on memory and developed the doctrine of association, 

 is the father of Aquinas, Hobbes, Condillac, Bonnet, Hartley, and 

 all those that see in memory only the traces of former sensations 

 whose basis is in the end physiological. The special views of these 

 and other philosophers, and their contributions to the theory of 

 memory, are briefly stated by the author, as a basis, we suppose, 

 for the presentation of modern views and the experimental treat- 

 ment. It is true, that, while physiology and biology can now de- 



clare that memory is in their field as well as in that of psychology, 

 the germs of modern theories are to be found among the writings 

 considered by Dr. Burnham. The practical side of memory re- 

 ceives attention in a short section on mnemonic systems. Dr. 

 Mary Putnam-Jacobi contributes a paper on " The Place for the 

 Study of Language in a Curriculum of Education." The first sec- 

 tion attacks this much-debated question from a new standpoint ; 

 namely, that of cerebral physiology. The relations of language and 

 cortical excitation are expounded at length, and the conclusion 

 reached " that speech implies a more extensive excitation of the 

 brain than does any action performed without speech." The ac- 

 quisition of language in general has a distinct educating effect : it 

 cultivates abstraction, and generally prepares the mind for its 

 work. The acquisition of foreign languages in addition to the 

 mother-tongue further complicates, extends, and refines the cere- 

 bro-mental processes. A comparison of mathematics and language 

 shows the former to be valuable for constructing the syllogism, the 

 latter for establishing the premises ; in other words, for the details 

 of every-day life. Between the study of things (that is, physical 

 science) and language there is no antagonism. Language, properly 

 studied, is rather a propaedeutic to science. Between the time 

 when the child is busy in collecting the sense-images of common 

 things, and the time when he can return to them prepared for a 

 genuine scientific study of them, is the period in which he should 

 devote himself to language ; not in the rote fashion, of course, but 

 by a graded study, in which the scientific faculties of observation 

 and induction are exercised on materials more accessible and more 

 comprehensible than those of the distinctive sciences. By the age 

 of sixteen the most of this work should be completed and out of 

 the way ; and, though language-study is not then to be entirely 

 given up, the field will be free for other disciplines. The last part 

 of the paper is devoted to practical suggestions for this kind of 

 language-teaching. The reviews of psychological literature are, as 

 before, one of the most important features of the journal. No- 

 where else in English is it possible to secure such a conspectus of 

 what is doing in the fields from which the new psychology draws its 

 materials. 



— On and after Jan. i, 1889, the publication office of the Leon- 

 ard Scott Publication Company will be transferred from Philadel- 

 phia to New York City, and the Nineteenth Century, the Contem- 

 porary Review, the Fortnightly Review, the West7ninster Review, 

 the Edinburgh Review, the Quarterly Review, the Scottish Review, 

 Blackwood' s Magazi}ie, American Naturalist, and Shakespeari- 

 ana will hereafter be issued from New York City. This change 

 has been made to insure an earlier issue of these periodicals by the 

 greater facilities thus secured for the importation of original sheets. 



— The opening essay in the Quarterly Journal of Economics 

 is by E. B. Andrews, on the^subject of " Trusts according to Offi- 

 cial Investigation." The facts presented are taken from reports of 

 legislative committees and other governmental authorities, the ob- 

 ject of the writer being to show what these organizations really are. 

 Some difficulty was found by the investigating committees in get- 

 ting at the exact truth on certain points, owing to the unwillingness 

 of the witnesses to reveal it ; but in the main the organization and 

 working of trusts have been pretty clearly made known, and the 

 leading facts relating to them are here set forth. The principal 

 organizations dealt with are the Standard Oil Trust, the Sugar 

 Trust, the Cottonseed-Oil Trust, and the Whiskey Trust ; and on 

 all of these Mr. Andrews's paper conveys a large amount of inter- 

 esting information. With regard to the economic influence of 

 trusts, the writer expresses himself guardedly ; but he evidently 

 thinks that they need watching. Professor Hadley discusses the 

 subject of " Railroad Business under the Interstate Commerce 

 Act," and shows that since the act went into operation the value 

 of railroad property has depreciated twenty per cent. This he at- 

 tributes to the prohibition of pooling, which prevents the mainte- 

 nance of paying rates by the agreement between the companies ; 

 and he believes that a change in this provision of the law will 

 eventually have to be made. Besides these two leading papers, the 

 journal contains one by F. Y. Edgeworth on the question of whether 

 gold has risen in value in recent years, on which, however, he 

 reaches no definite conclusion. Mr. Simon N. Patten also has a 



