66 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 312 



by a series of selected poems furnished with careful analyses and 

 copious critical comments. It is hoped that by thus unfolding, in 

 a few typical examples, the characteristics and merits of Browning, 

 the reader may at once be enabled to acquire a real knowledge of 

 his poetry, and be prepared for further unassisted study of his 

 work. The attention of those already familiar with Browning is 

 especially directed to the analysis of " Sordello," much fuller and 

 more exact, it is believed, than any heretofore published. 



— The Revtie Philosophique de la France et de I' stranger, 

 edited by Th. Ribot, professor at the College de France, has just 

 commenced its fourteenth year. This periodical is published 

 monthly, each number containing about one hundred pages. Special 

 attention is paid to psychology and its indispensable auxiliaries, 

 anatomy and physiology of the nervous system, pathology of the 

 mind, anthropology, and inductive and deductive logic. Reports 

 on the current philosophic literature enhance the value of the jour- 

 nal. 



— 'Y\\e. Revue Hisioriqtie lox 1889 continues to be of great in- 

 terest. It is published bi-monthly, and, besides original contribu- 

 tions, each number contains notes of general interest, unpublished 

 documents, and a useful bibliography. It is published by F. Alcan, 

 Paris. 



— Neumayr, the distinguished paleontologist of Vienna, has just 

 published through Tempsky a first stout imperial octavo volume of 

 a work upon which he has been engaged for many years, in which 

 he is to review the entire series of extinct animals in the light of the 

 derivative theory of organic life. Under the title " Die Stamme des 

 Thierreiches " he discusses the lower forms of life, leaving the mol- 

 lusks. arthropods, and vertebrates for future volumes. The purely 

 theoretical side of the subject and the purpose, with which he be- 

 gan his studies, to search in every quarter for proofs of the altera- 

 tion of forms, have gradually, in working out his scheme, given 

 place to a critical and scholarly investigation into the general mor- 

 phology of fossil animals ; and his work will thus prove of the 

 utmost value not to the paleontologist only, but equally to the 

 zoologist. No living naturalist is more competent than he to per- 

 form the task. In an introduction of over 1 50 pages he discusses 

 the general questions of the relations of the derivative theory to 

 paleontology in a masterly manner ; subsequent chapters take up 

 successively the protozoa, coelenterates, echinoderms, worms, and 

 molluscoids. The second volume, treating presumably of the re- 

 maining invertebrates, is, he tells us, nearly completed. The work 

 forms an excellent complement to Zittel's nearly completed " Hand- 

 book of Paleontology." 



— The American Naturalist for January (New York, Leonard 

 Scott Publishing Company) will contain an article on " Primitive 

 Architecture," by Mr. Barr Ferree, in which is traced the various 

 sociological causes that have influenced the form and construction 

 of the dwellings of primitive peoples. The same number will con- 

 tain an article on " The Food of the Owls," by Dr. W. S. Strode ; 

 on "The Ancient Glaciers of North Wales," by Professor Evans; 

 and on " Lichens," by Professor Williams. The departments of 

 the magazine will present their usual summary of the progress of 

 all branches of natural science within the past month. 



— A remarkably successful attempt at photographing the very 

 shy Big-horn, or Rocky Mountain sheep, will be described in the 

 February Scribner by Frederick H. Chapin, who succeeded in tak- 

 ing a group on Table Mountain, Colorado, in 1887. The photo- 

 graph has been engraved to accompany the article. In the same 

 number Austin Dobson will recall some memories of " Old Vaux- 

 hall Gardens " in its prime, — the days of Walpole, Fanny Bur- 

 ney's " Evelina," and Fielding's " Amelia." The article will be 

 fully illustrated from old prints. In his article on Sir Walter Scott, 

 Ex-President Andrew D. White of Cornell will say of him, " Never 

 was there a more healthful and health-ministering literature than 

 that which he gave to the world. To go back to it from Flaubert 

 and Daudet and Tolstoi is like listening to the song of the lark 

 after the shrieking passion of the midnight pianoforte ; nay, it is 

 like coming out of the glare and heat and reeking vapor of a palace 

 ball into a grove in the first light and music and breezes of the 

 morning." George Hitchcock, the artist whose contribution to 



Scribner's Christmas number on " Botticelli" will be recalled, will 

 appear in the February number, with a second article on " The 

 Picturesque Quality of Holland," this time describing " Interiors 

 and Bric-a-brac." Mr. Hitchcock has for many years lived in Hol- 

 land. The February instalment of Robert Louis Stevenson's ro- 

 mantic novel, " The Master of Ballantrae," will describe the pathet- 

 ic persecutions of j" Mr. Henry," and the unexpected return of the 

 " Master." Brander Matthews will have in the number an ingen- 

 ious and fanciful story, entitled " A Family Tree." 



— Charles A. Wenborne, Buffalo, N.Y., announces for immedi- 

 ate publication an " authorized " American edition of Laurence 

 Oliphant's "Scientific Religion; or. Higher Possibilities of Life and 

 Practice." This book, when first published in London eight 

 months ago, immediately became a subject of such wide-spread in- 

 terest that the author felt impelled to arrange, also, so says Mr. 

 Wenborne, " for its publication in the United States. He visited 

 this country last summer, and upon his return to England was 

 taken down with the fatal illness that terminated his eventful life 

 on Dec. 23. The author's intention to give a distinct introduction 

 to the American edition was carried out by his newly wedded wife, 

 an American lady, born Dale Owen, who had for some time been 

 a distinguished co-worker in that field of religio-philosophical sci- 

 ence of which Laurence Oliphant may be regarded as the most 

 brilliant, most profound, and most advanced explorer of modern 

 times." 



— The Green Bag, " a useless but mildly entertaining maga- 

 zine for lawyers," to be edited by Horace W. Fuller, is announced 

 by Charles C. Soule, Boston. It is to be a monthly, intended 

 to interest and entertain lawyers. It will cover legal history, 

 antiquities, biography, news, gossip, and facetiae, together with cor- 

 respondence and book notices. The first number, to be published 

 this month, will contain an excellent portrait of Chief Justice 

 Fuller in his robes of office. Each subsequent number will contain 

 the portrait of some distinguished judge or lawyer. There will also 

 be illustrated articles, among them a series of papers upon the 

 leading American law schools. 



— We have received two pamphlets by Charles H. Fitch of Den- 

 ver, Col., on " Womanhood Suffrage " and on " The Fallacy of Free 

 Land " (published by the author), but we find nothing new or 

 valuable in either of them. The first presents the usual arguments 

 in favor of woman suffrage, but in an obscure and rather grandilo- 

 quent style. The second is an argument for the Henry George 

 theory of rent, and the injustice of private property in land, but 

 contains nothing that has not been repeatedly said by others. The 

 subjects treated, like some other political and economic questions 

 of the present time, have been discussed so much, that unless one 

 can say something new on them, or can present the old arguments 

 in a superior form, there seems to be no good reason for his treat- 

 ing them at all. 



— One of the best known of the English journalists in America 

 to-day is Mr. W. T. Stead, the^ managing editor of the Pall Mall 

 Gazette. As a journalistic worker, Mr. Stead has seldom had an 

 equal ; and recently, when offered a vacation, he took it on the con- 

 dition that he might work. The vacation became a trip to Russia, 

 the result of which is to be published in a stout volume by Cassell 

 & Co. While the political situation is the burning question of the 

 book, he has time to visit Count Tolstoi, and to give the reader pic- 

 tures of Russian life painted with a realism that M. Verestchagin 

 might envy. 



— 'Y\i& American A}ithropologist for the first quarter of 1889 

 comes to us in a handsome brown cover and a generally improved 

 typography and appearance. It contains Washington Matthews's 

 article on the curious " Navajo Gambling Songs," and especially 

 the melodies which accompany the winter game of Kesitc^; Otis 

 T. Mason's examination of the beginnings of the carrying industry, 

 an illustrated article ; " On Alternating Sounds," by Franz Boas ; 

 " Folk-Lore of the Siletz Indians," by J. Owen Dorsey ; a summary 

 of current methods of voting, by James H. Blodgett ; and a variety 

 of original notes and news. The feature of this quarterly which will 

 excite most attention is the first instalment of a bibliography of an- 

 thropologic literature, by Robert Fletcher, who has undertaken the 



