336 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXII. No. 567 



SOME OF THE NEW BOOKS AT LOW PRICES. 



Famous Voyagers and Explorers.— $1.50. 

 Mrs. Bolton has added to her Famous series of books 

 another and an unusually interesting volume, "Famous 

 Voyagers and Explorers." It is hardly comprehensive, 

 as it gives the biographies of only a few typical ex- 

 plorers — Marco Polo, Columbus, Magellan, Raleigh, 

 and the more prominent of our modern American ex- 

 plorers. Doubtless such names as the Cabots, Sir 

 Humphrey Gilbert, De Soto, Cartier, Nansen and 

 others are reserved for a second volume. Mrs. Bolton 

 has a gift for this sort of writing, and she has here 

 brought together a large amount of deeply interesting 

 matter which otherwise could only be obtained by read- 

 ing through a dozen or more separate volumes. The 

 book is illustrated with several portraits. — Boston Trans- 

 cript. 



Our Great West.— $2.50. 

 The contents of the volume appeared serially in 

 Harper's Magazine and Harper's Weekly, in which periodi- 

 cals they attracted wide attention and favorable com- 

 ment. Their importance fully justified their republica- 

 tion in a more permanent form. The book affords a 

 more minute insight into the present condition of the 

 West than can be found elsewhere. What it tells is the 

 result of personal experience, fortified by information 

 obtained from the best-informed and most reliable men 

 in the localities under discussion, and set forth with 

 admirable clearness and impartiality. It is a work to 

 be read and pondered by those interested in the growth 

 of the nation westward, and is of permanent standard 

 value. — Boston Gazette. 



how the late Senator Stanford chopped his way to the 

 law. "He had grown tall and strong," says Mr. Stod 

 dard, "and was a capital hand in a hay-field, behind a- 

 plough, or with an axe in the timber; but how could 

 this help him into his chosen profession? Nevertheless 

 it was a feat of wood-chopping which raised him to the 

 bar. When he was eighteen years of age his father 

 purchased a tract of woodland ; wished to clear it, but 

 had not the means to do so. At the same time he was 

 anxious to give his son a lift. He^told Leand, there- 

 fore, that he could have all he could make from the 

 timber, if he would leave the land clelar of trees. 

 Leland took the offer, for a new market had latteiiy 

 been created for cord-wood. He had saved money 

 enough to hire other choppers to help him, and he 

 chopped for the law and his future career. Over 2,000 

 cords of wood were cut and sold to the Mohawk and 

 Hudson River Railroad, and the net profit to the young 

 contractor was $2,600. It had been earned by severe 

 toil, in cold and heat, and it stood for something more 

 than dollars. — Brooklyn Times. 



Statesmen.— $2.00. 

 In the preparation of this work Noah Brooks has 

 aimed to present a series of character sketches of the 

 eminent persons selected for portraiture. The object is 

 to place before the present generation of Americans 

 salient points in the careers of public men whose at- 

 tainments in statesmanship were the result of their 

 own individual exertions and force of character rather 

 than of fortunate circumstances. Therefore these brief 

 studies are not biographies. Mr. Brooks had the good 

 fortune of personal acquaintance with most of the 

 statesmen of the latter part of the period illustrated by 

 his pen, and he considers it an advantage to his readers 

 that they may thus receive from him some of the im- 

 pressions which these conspicuous personages made 

 upon the mental vision of those who heard and saw 

 them while they were living examples of nobility of 

 aim and success of achievement in American states- 

 manship. 



Men of Business.— $2.00. 

 W. O. Stoddard, who has just written a book pub- 

 lished by the Scribners, on "Men of Business," tells 



Orthometry.— $2.00. 



In "Orthometry" Mr. R. F. Brewer has attempted a 

 fuller treatment of the art of versification than is to be 

 found in the popular treatises on that subject. While 

 the preface shows a tendency to encourage verse-mak- 

 ing, as unnecessary as it is undesirable, the work may 

 be regarded as useful so far as it tends to cultivate an 

 intelligent taste for good poetry. The rhyming diction- 

 ary at the end is a new feature, which will undoubtedly 

 commend itself to those having a use for such aids. A 

 specially interesting chapter is that on "Poetic Trifles," 

 in which are included the various imitations of foreign 

 verse in English. The discussion of the sonnet, too, 

 though failing to bring out fully the spiritual nature of 

 this difficult verse form, is more accurate than might be 

 expected from the following sentence: "The form of 

 the sonnet is of Italian origin, and came into use in the 

 fifteenth [sic] century, towards the end of which its 

 construction was perfected, and its utmost melodious 

 sweetness attained in the verse of Petrarch and Dante." 

 In the chapter on Alliteration there are several mislead- 

 ing statements, such as calling "Piers the Plowman" 

 an "Old English" poem. In the bibliography one is 

 surprised not to find Mr. F. B. Gummere's admirable 

 "Handbook of Poetics," now in its third edition. In 

 spite of these and other shortcomings, which can be 

 readily corrected in a later issue, this work may be 

 recommended as a satisfactory treatment of the 

 mechanics of verse. A careful reading will improve 

 the critical faculties. — The Dial. 



Any of the above books will be sent prepaid on receipt of the publisher's price, less ten 

 per cent.The same discount will be allowed on any new book, not a text-book. 



N. D. C HODGES, 



874 Broadway, New York. 



