November 25, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



lob 



ner, after his introductory close of theory, 

 studies hydrogen on page 32, oxygen on page 

 46, but does not take vip the study of water 

 till he has studied all other common elements. 

 He then finds on page 114, among the hydrides, 

 the hydrides of oxygen and the customary ele- 

 mentary chapter on water. If the authors 

 had preferred to regard water as an oxide of 

 hydrogen it would have been found 33 pages 

 farther on. Another example : Sulphur is dis- 

 cussed on page 50, hydrogen sulphide on page 

 120, sulphuric acid on page 220, nearly at the 

 end of the book ! 



The present reviewer belongs to that number 

 of chemists to whom the authors might refer in 

 the words of their preface, as ' clinging to the 

 remnants of past systems while introducing the 

 law partially ;' the reviewer made daily and 

 constant reference to the law in lecture and 

 laboratory at a time when the only text-book 

 extant in which it received more than brief 

 mention was Lothar Meyer's 'Moderne Theorien 

 der Chemie.' The reviewer ventures to men- 

 tion this to show that he does not underrate the 

 value of the periodic system as a help in ele- 

 mentary instruction ; yet it seems to him that 

 the authors have followed the system so slavishly 

 that their book is most unsatisfactory. The 

 authors claim in their preface that they have 

 obtained excellent results. Doubtless skilled 

 teachers obtain good results by any method ap- 

 plied with personal enthusiasm and backed by 

 thorough knowledge. In this case the reviewer 

 believes that the good results were due to the 

 ability of the authors as teachers, not to the 

 method used. 



E. R. 



The Philippine Islands and Their People. By 

 Peofessor D. C. Woecester. New York, 

 The Macmillan Company. 1898. 8vo. Pp. 

 xix + 529. 2 maps and 60 illustrations. 

 Price, $4.00. 



This volume is the outcome of two trips to 

 the Philippine Islands. The first journey was 

 made with Dr. Steere, in 1887-8, and work was 

 prosecuted at that time for eleven months upon 

 fifteen of the islands. In spite of many un- 

 pleasant experiences, the author and Dr. 

 Bourns, who had been one of his companions 



upon the first trip, decided in 1890 to make a 

 much longer stay in the group of islands. Upon 

 this latter occasion they were occupied for two 

 years and eight mouths with the careful study 

 of the birds and mammals of the more im- 

 portant islands of the group. The volume com- 

 bines the story of the two expeditions and is 

 rich in the experiences of the author, while, as 

 he says himself, he avoids ' talking shop,' from 

 the biological standpoint, and in this fact con- 

 sists one of the charms of the book, as a great 

 deal of scientific information is imparted at the 

 same time that the story of the trip is told in a 

 very pleasant style. It is not often that the ca- 

 pacity for accurate description and pleasant 

 narrative are combined as they are in this case. 



The first chapter is devoted to a brief his- 

 torical summary of the events between Ma- 

 gellan's eventful voyage and the fall of Manila 

 last August. 



The author's experiences in the city of Manila 

 are given in Chapter II., which is largely de- 

 voted to a description of that quaint city. His 

 diplomatic struggles with Spanish red-tape will 

 remind any one who has happened to visit the 

 Island of Cuba of the similarity of conditions 

 existing in this other colony of Spain, where 

 only the power of royal authority invoked by 

 an order from some superior source is the 

 means of overcoming the complaint known as 

 the ' itching palm' so common in all that coun- 

 try's colonies. The author speaks quite 

 pointedly of the tendency to provoke nervous 

 prostration, which is induced by the inevitable 

 delays, and closes a brilliant attack upon the 

 whole system with the remark of a Spanish of- 

 ficial : "In your country, time is gold ; here it 

 is boiled rice." A good illustration of the old 

 story of Spanish official plundering is given in 

 the case of an officer who succeeded in making 

 a fortune of fifty or sixty thousand dollars upon 

 an annual salary of five hundred and forty dol- 

 lars. 



The total land area of the group is estimated 

 by the author at 114,000 square miles, of which 

 the Islands of Luzon and Mindanao make up 

 more than one-half. The author gives a very 

 good idea of the character of the natives of each 

 island as he takes it up in the course of the vol- 

 ume. Probably the most interesting, because 



