9 50 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 316 



ters " for a long- time to come. The new volume in the Book- 

 Lovers' Library is " Foreign Visitors in England, and What They 

 '.have thought of Us," which makes the ninth in this series. 



— The new Atlantic index is rapidly approaching completion. 



— Houghton, MifHin, & Co. have just issued Henry S. Dana's 

 ^' History of Woodstock, Vermont." 



— Lee & Shepard have just published " Essays, Religious, Social, 

 Political," by David Atwood Wasson. The book includes an auto- 

 biographic sketch, and a biography of Mr. Wasson, by his friend 

 and contemporary, O. B. Frothingham. 



— "Franklin's Works," published by subscription at five dollars 

 a volume, are now quoted at ten dollars each, or one hundred dollars 

 for the set. Remarking on this, the Critic says, " What a pity it 

 is, by the way, that the Putnams issued so small an edition ! To 

 think that only 600 out of 60.000,000 of free-born antimonopoly 

 Americans can own a copy of Franklin's complete works ! " We 

 ■trust some day Messrs. Putnam will see their way clear to publish 

 ^n abridged edition. 



— G. P. Putnam's Sons have in preparation a translation, by Miss 

 .Huth Putnam and Mr. Alexander Arbuthnot, of the " Histoire de la 



Longmans^ Green^ Gj' Co. 

 SIS). 



Participation de la France a I'Etablissement des Etats-Unis 

 ■d'Amerique," by Henri Doniol. The edition will probably be a 

 limited one. They have also in press a work by Theodore Roose- 

 •velt, on the early history of our Western territory, entitled " The 

 Winning of the West and South-west, from the AUeghenies to the 

 Mississippi." This is expected to be complete in two volumes, the 

 ^first of which will cover the period 1769-83 ; that is, to the close of 

 the Revolution. 



— William Wood & Co. have recently inaugurated a new and 

 original plan for furnishing the most recent, the most advanced, 

 and the most authoritative writings of prominent instructors and 

 ■practitioners of medical science throughout the world. They have 

 •issued the first of Wood's Medical and Surgical Monographs, con- 

 taining three articles, — "The Pedigree of Disease," by Jonathan 

 Hutchison ; " Common Diseases of the Skin," by Robert M. Simon ; 

 and "Varieties and Treatment of Bronchitis," by Dr. Ferrand. 

 They propose to issue one of these monographs per month, cover- 

 ing the details of experiments and methods which have led to the 

 latest discoveries and newest practice. The translations from for- 

 eign languages will be intrusted to experts on the subject as well as 

 igood linguists. All that is being learned and done throughout the 

 world will thus month by month be reported in the best manner. 

 The first issue is one of 259 pages, and this will be the average size. 



— Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. will soon publish " Home Gymnastics 

 ior the Well and the Sick," containing directions how to preserve 

 and increase health, also how to overcome conditions of ill health 

 ■by simple movements of the body, adapted to all ages and both 

 -sexes, edited by Dr. E. Angerstein, superintendent of the gymna- 

 ■siums of the city of Berlin, and G. Eckler, head teacher of the Royal 

 Institution for Educating Teachers of Gymnastics, translated from 

 the eighth German edition by Mr. Berthold Schlesinger, a well- 

 known business-man of Boston, and amply furnished with illustra- 

 tions. 



— The supplement has become an important feature of Harper's 

 Weekly. " American Men-of-War," by Lieut. J. D. Jerrold Kelley, 

 U.S.N., with twenty-seven illustrations, forms the supplement to 

 the issue of Feb. 9: that to the Feb. 16 number is devoted to an 

 illustrated description of Omaha, Neb. 



— All teachers of modern languages feel the need of varying the 

 reading-matter used in their elementary classes. Not only do they 

 themselves tire of going over familiar ground, but their pupils are 

 apt to conceive a certain contempt for a language which they see 

 represented year after year by the same two or three time-honored 

 productions. D. C. Heath & Co. are issuing a series of texts, se- 

 lected from the best writers, in inexpensive editions. To the twenty 

 German and French texts of their list, they have just added, by 

 purchase of C. H. Kilborn, " The Story of All Baba and the Forty 

 Thieves ; " " Der Zwerg Nase : Marchen von Wilhelm Hauff ; " 

 " Chamisso's Peter Schlemihl ; " " Heine's Die Harzreise ; " " Choix 

 D'extraits de Daudet ; " " Souvestre's Confessions d'un Guvrier." 

 They will add to the above this v^'eek "Jeanne D'Arc," edited by 

 Barrere. 



— Thomas L. James, postmaster-general in Garfield's cabinet, will 

 contribute his first magazine article to the March Scribner, entitled 

 " The Railway Mail Service." Thomas A. Janvier (" Ivory Black") 

 will tell a bunch of Mexican folk-tales and superstitions collected 

 by him during his many trips in that country. Gilberto Cano, " the 

 best waiter at the Cafe Anglais," in the City of Mexico, told him 

 many of these strange stories. The city of Treves, in Germany, 

 founded 2004 years before Christ, and later for a century capital of 

 the Roman Empire, will be described by Professor W. B. Scott of 

 Princeton, who has recently made a careful study of its antiquities. 

 Henry James will contribute the end paper, " An Animated Con- 

 versation " on international topics between Americans and Eng- 

 lishmen who meet in a London hotel. The paper is in dialogue 

 form. 



— In The Home Joitrnal of Feb. 6 is given a selection of the 

 poems of the late George Perry, who for many years was literary 

 editor of that journal. 



nicaiion will he /urnished 

 tant with the character o_f 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



* ^* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. Th 

 in all cases required as proof of good faith. 

 Twenty copies of the number containing t 

 free to any correspondent 07i request. 



The editor will be glad to picbtish any queries 

 the journal. 



O'Reilly's " Greenland." 



Mr. PiLLiNG's "Bibliography of the Eskimo Language" has 

 received a bit of undeserved criticism, which I am very glad to be 

 able to correct. An unsigned review in the Athenceum (Aug. 4, 

 1888), which is, on the whole, quite fair, and even complimentary, 

 finds fault with Mr. Pilling for including in his bibliography 

 O'Reilly's " Greenland," " though that work is now generally under- 

 stood to have been a literary mystification." This interested me, 

 as I had consulted the work in question, which purports to be an 

 account of the writer's visit to Greenland in 1817, and had inserted 

 the title in some bibliographical work of my own, not yet pub- 

 lished. 



The fact of its being a " literary mystification " did not appear 

 to be " generally understood " in America, whatever might be the 

 case in England. On the other hand, there appear to me to be 

 strong internal evidence that the writer had made a visit to Green- 

 land, and that the undoubted rubbish with which the book is filled 

 was merely due to the ignorance and conceit of the author. 



I accordingly put myself in communication with the editor of the 

 Athenceum, and after a while received, in reply to my inquiries as 

 to the history of the book, a memorandum from the reviewer, — 

 who, however, declined to reveal his name, — as follows : — 



" The person who wrote ' O'Reilly's ' work on Greenland is not 

 known. The author had probably made a voyage on board a 

 whaler, but the greater part of the volume is simply imagination. 

 In the Quarterly Review for 1818, p. 209, it is eviscerated, and the 

 small portion which is ' not absolute nonsense ' pronounced ' either 

 fiction or downright falsehood.' " 



