SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 323 



— The Quarterly Jourfial of Economics for April opens with an 

 article by F. W. Taussig, on " Some Aspects of the Tariff Ques- 

 tion," in which the writer considers what effect the protective tariff 

 has had in establishing, or helping to estabhsh, certain industries. 

 He shows that some branches of manufacture, such as that of silk 

 goods, for instance, have been strongly stimulated by it ; while 

 other industries, among which the culture of flax fibre is conspic- 

 uous, have utterly failed, notwithstanding the high duty on the im- 

 ported articles. Professor Taussig's conclusion is that internation- 

 al trade is really controlled, as the economists have always held, by 

 the comparative cost of different commodities. Mr. Philip H. 

 Wicksteed discusses " Certain Passages in Jevons's ' Theory of 

 Political Economy,' " criticising some of Jevons's views, while 

 agreeing with him as to the use of the mathematical method. 

 The next article is on " Co-operative Savings and Loan Associa- 

 tions," by Seymour Dexter, and is mainly a description of such 

 societies, which the author regards as one of the best forms of co- 

 operation. He points out, however, that they have nowhere had 

 very marked success except in Pennsylvania, — a fact which he 

 attributes to certain superiorities in the laws of that State. Mr. 

 James Bonar gives an abstract of a new theory of capital, recently 

 advanced by the Austrian economist, Bohm-Bawerk. The prob- 

 lem is to account for interest, and the Austrian professor holds 

 that it arises from the fact that future goods are not really so 

 valuable as present goods otherwise identical. A dollar that I am 

 to receive a year hence is not so valuable to me as a dollar in my 

 pocket now ; and therefore, if a man loans his capital, say for a 

 year, he will demand at the end of that time not only the full value 

 of his capital, but also an additional bonus, called interest. This 

 theory is put forward as a new one ; but we cannot see that it 

 differs essentially from that of the English economists. They have 

 always held that if a man loaned his wealth, or used it in produc- 

 tion, so that he had to wait for its value to be returned to him, he 

 would demand a recompense for waiting ; and Professor Bohm- 

 Bawerk's theory, as stated by Mr. Bonar, seems to be only a new 

 expression of the same principle. The journal closes with the 

 second part of Mr. A. B. Houghton's essay on " Italian Finances 

 from i860 to 1884," — a paper containing a great amount of his- 

 torical and statistical matter which will doubtless be useful to 

 special students. 



— A writer in the Fortnightly Review for March, speaking of 

 the character of the Boers, says that it is considered perfectly cor- 

 rect to " do " the Boers. In the first place, money was perfectly 

 useless to them, as they only keep it in gold in chests inside their 

 bedrooms, and are constantly uneasy about it ; second, the sons 

 were only led into drinking and bad habits by having ready cash ; 

 and, lastly, it was impossible sometimes to deal with them other- 

 wise. As an instance, there is a case where a Boer farmer asked 

 for his farm, upon which gold had been discovered, the exorbitant 

 sum of ^50,000. If the buyer had refused, the obstinate man would 

 never have abated the price ; so he said he must think it over. 

 Shortly afterwards he went to the bank and took out _^6,ooo in 

 half-sovereigns, in twelve bags of ^500 each. He drove up with 

 these to the farmer's house, and took out ten of the bags, and said. 

 " I have come to buy the farm." — " Have you brought £10,000 ? " 

 said the farmer. " Well," said the Jew, " I have brought a lot 

 of money ; I will put it on the table." He then poured out the 

 ^5,000 in half-sovereigns. The farmer and his vrow looked on, 

 and their eyes glistened as they looked at the table covered with 

 gold. " How much is there ? " said the vrow. " You had better 

 count it," said the Jew. Of course, that was impossible ; so the 

 vrow said, " Could you not give us some more bags ? " — " Well," 

 said the Jew, " I must see if I have any more." Then he told the 

 boy to bring one bag out, and he purchased the farm for_£5,5oo. 



— Messrs. Putnam have issued " Virgil's ^neid, the First Six 

 Books," translated into EngHsh rhyme by Henry Hamilton. The 

 narrative parts of the poem are in the ten-syllable couplet, and the 

 speeches in a great variety of verse, changing with each recurring 

 speaker. The object of this frequent change of form is to give 

 variety to the English work ; but as the original is all in one metre, 

 and that radically different from any employed by Mr. Hamilton, 

 there is nothing in the versification to remind us of Virgil. The 



author complains that Conington's translation " by no means re- 

 produces the sonorous effect of the Latin hexameter; but in what 

 respect his own does so, we are unable to see. With several 

 translations already in the field, we can see no good reason for a 

 new one, unless'it is fitted to supersede the others, which we fear 

 is not the case Vvith Mr. Hamilton's. 



— What is claimed to be Miss M. G. McClelland's strongest 

 story will be published by Cassell & Co. within a few days. It is 

 called " Burkett's Lock." It is a story of the home ; and as a 

 picture it is believed that " Burkett's Lock " will make a sensation 

 among the novel-reading public that they have not experienced in 

 a long time, for it has a story in it, and a story well told. The 

 scene is laid in Virginia, where Miss McClelland is so thoroughly 

 at home, and her characters are drawn from the people, who are 

 native to the soil. 



— According to statistics published in The Publishers' Weekly, 

 the following is an estimate of the new books published in Russia 

 in 1888: philosophy, 26; education, 86; philology, 420; fiction, 

 818 ; geographical works, 211 ; history, 413 ; political science, 368 ; 

 mathematics, 153; military, 202; natural sciences, 168; medical, 

 454; technological literature, 127; domestic economy, farming, 

 etc., 121 ; books for children, 115; books for the people, 217 ; fine 

 art, 139; miscellaneous, 448 ; total, 4,486. This does not include 

 the literature published under ecclesiastical censorship, which 

 naturally comprises theological books ; nor are the books accounted 

 for which did not circulate through trade mediums. It may there- 

 fore be assumed that the total number of books issued amounts in 

 round numbers to five thousand volumes. 



— The general outcome of a paper on " The Viscous Effect of 

 Strains Mechanically applied, as interpreted by Maxwell's Theory," 

 published by C. Barus V!\\!r\^ Philosophical MagazineioxY^oxv^zx^, 

 is this : that the effect of strain of whatever kind, applied in suffi- 

 cient intensity to homogeneous soft steel, is marked diminution of 

 viscosity. Again, inasmuch as the underlying cause of viscous de- 

 formation is the occurrence of unstable configurations, the number 

 of which is being reduced in the course of viscous motion, Max- 

 well's theory naturally suggests the applicability of exponential 

 equations for the description of the time relations of such motion. 

 From another point of view, it appears that the loss of viscosity 

 experienced by a given metal, under action of a given kind of strain, 

 may not inappropriately be used as a measure of its intensity. 

 Finally, the curious observation, that, in all the cases given, loss 

 of viscosity has taken place simultaneously with increase of hard- 

 ness, is one of the suggestive results of the experiments made. 



— W. J. Campbell, Philadelphia, will publish early in May a new 

 improved edition of " Grant's Pennsylvania Reports," in three 

 volumes. 



— The Rev. John George Wood, the well-known naturalist, died 

 recently in England. The deceased did perhaps more to popu- 

 larize the study of natural history than any writer of the present 

 age. He was the son of a surgeon who was at one time chemical 

 lecturer at the Middlesex Hospital, London. He was born in Lon- 

 don in 1827, and was educated at Oxford. His most important book 

 was his " Natural History," in three volumes. Mr. Wood edited 

 for some time the The Boys' Own Magazine, the pages of which 

 periodical constantly contained work from his hands. He left no 

 fortune, and a popular subscription in aid of his family has been 

 started. 



— " The Emperor of China," says the Athenceiim, " has just 

 issued orders for the preparation of a history of the Mohammedan 

 rebellions in Yunnan, Kansuh, Shensi, and Turkestan, and five 

 members of the Grand Council have been named as the committee 

 to whom the work is intrusted. Similar official histories have 

 already been written of the Taeping and Nienfei revolts." 



— The Liege Chamber of Commerce has recently set an ex- 

 ample, says the Journal de la Chambre de Commerce de Constan- 

 tinople, which might well be followed by other industrial centres. 

 It has established a commercial museum on an entirely new sys- 

 tem. This museum is divided into two sections. The first com- 

 prises the articles that Belgium is obliged to purchase from other 



