io8 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 291 



pamphlet form 'The Presidential Campaign of 1896 — a Scrap- 

 Book of Chronicle,' by the author of ' The Battle of Bietigheim.' 

 The occasion is the presidential campaign of 1896, when the com- 

 bined forces of socialism, anarchy, and atheism meet their Water- 

 loo at the hands of an aroused, living, active American patriotism. 



D. Appleton & Co. publish 'A History of the United States 



and its People,' by Edward Eggleston. They have also just ready in 

 the International Scientific Series ' The Origin of Floral Structures 

 through Insect and Other Agencies,' by the Rev. George Henslow, 

 professor of botany. Queen's College ; and 'Seven Conventions,' by 

 A. W. Classon, which refers to the Federal convention, five of the 

 ratifying conventions, and the Charleston convention of i860, and 



is designed as an aid to the study of the Constitution. William 



Henry Hurlbert has just published in Edinburgh a book entitled 

 ' Ireland under Coercion — the Diary of an American.' Mr. Hurl- 

 bert concludes that landlords are good and alone deserving of sym- 

 pathy, and that the nationalist peasants are vicious, dishonest, and, 



as a rule, much too leniently treated. Sir Morell Mackenzie is 



at work on his reply to the recently published attack upon him by 

 the German physicians. His answer will be shortly published in 

 book form simultaneously in England and Germany. Messrs. 



Sampson Low, Marston, & Co. will be the English publishers. 



L. J. Veen, Amsterdam (Holland), has just published the first part 

 of a ' Dictionary of National Biography,' by J. G. Frederiksand F.Jos, 

 van den Branden, assisted by a number of prominent men of letters in 



the Netherlands. The work will be completed in fifteen parts. 



W. Drysdale & Co., Montreal, Canada, have just ready a new 

 Canadian work, entitled ' The Young Seigneur, or, Nation-Making,' 

 by Wilfrid Chateauclair. The chief aim of this book, the author 

 says, is to map out a future for the Canadian nation, which has been 

 hitherto drifting without a plan. A lesser purpose of it is to make 

 some of the atmosphere of French Canada understood by those 



who speak English. Ticknor 5: Co. announce among their 



September books, ' Western China,' a journey to the great Buddhist 

 centre of Mount Omei, by the Rev. Virgil C. Hart, B.D. ; and 'A 

 Short History of the Secession War,' by Rossiter Johnson, author 

 of 'The History of the War of 1812-15.' 



— Mr. Norman J. Fake, assistant to Professor Wiley, chemist of 

 the Agricultural Department, was accidentally drowned while bath- 

 ing in the Potomac on Saturday, Aug. 11. He was a young man 

 of great promise, already an analyst of much skill, enthusiastic in 

 his work. 



— Professor Wiley of the Agricultural Department will complete 

 his long investigation of the adulteration of lards in about six 

 weeks. He will then take up the subject of the adulteration of 

 sugars, molasses, and honey. 



— T/ie Edinburgh Scotsman of Aug. 16 states that on the day be- 

 fore, Mr. C. Piazzi Smyth, in consequence of advancing years, retired 

 from the offices of astronomer royal for Scotland, and professor of 

 practical astronomy in the University of Edinburgh, which he has filled 

 for the long period of forty-three years. These important positions 

 are in the gift of the Crown, and, although correspondence with 

 the secretary for Scotland on the subject of his retirement has not 

 yet been finally completed. Professor Smyth has, as already indi- 

 cated, ceased from active duty, having handed over the keys of the 

 Royal Observatory, in terms of an arrangement with Lord Lothian, 

 to the first assistant astronomer, Mr. Thomas Heath, B.A. A week 

 hence Professor Smyth, who is in his seventieth year and is still 

 hale and hearty, will leave the official residence, 15 Royal Terrace, 

 Edinburgh, and take up his abode ultimately in England. The 

 late astronomer royal was born of English parents in the city of 

 Naples, the roof under which he first saw the light being so close 

 to Vesuvius that every now and then both house and garden were 

 covered with showers of black sand. Prior to coming to Edin- 

 burgh he was for ten years at the Cape of Good Hope, in the 

 capacity of first assistant astronomer in the Royal Observatory 

 there, under Sir Thomas Maclear. During that time Professor 

 Smyth went through a large amount of rough work in measuring 

 an arc of the meridian along the mountains of the west coast of 

 Africa. Altogether, therefore, he has spent fifty-three years of his 

 life in observatory work. Professor Smyth, in a recent conversa- 

 tion, went into some detail as to his labors at the Royal Observa- 



tory, and his reasons for resigning. His reason for proposing re- 

 tirement to Lord Lothian, he remarked, was not only advancing 

 years, but despair of ever being able to do any thing good, or com- 

 pete with other observatories, when the government continued to 

 refuse to do what their own commission recommended. 



— Prof. E. J. Loomis of the Nautical Almanac Office is about to 

 visit the Rocky Mountains on a vacation trip. While there he will 

 assist his son-in-law, D. P. Todd, director of the Amherst College 

 Observatory, in making scientific observations, astronomical, spec- 

 troscopic, and photographic. The expedition starts from Boston, 

 and goes by the way of Montreal and the Canadian Pacific Railroad 

 to the most elevated point in the Rocky Mountains reached by that 

 railway. There the party will stop, and select the highest point 

 near at hand, and conveniently accessible for the erection of a tem- 

 porary observatory. Professor Todd goes out under the auspices 

 of the Harvard College Observatory. 



— C. N. Caspar of Milwaukee publishes the first instalment of 

 Part I. of his ' Mail Book Auction.' Two copies of this list, which 

 contains only the titles of books actually in stock, are sent to libra- 

 rians and private book-collectors. One of these lists may be used 

 to affix, after the respective titles of the works desired, the price the 

 bidder is willing to pay per volume for each work. The second 

 copy of the list, marked with the same bids, should be kept for 

 reference. The advantages of this strictly new arrangement are 

 conspicuous, and, above all, labor-saving. Old books in most cases 

 have no market-value, and are, as a rule, worth different prices to 

 different persons. Librarians and others may, through this oppor- 

 tunity, obtain books at their own prices. The books will be shipped 

 to the first bidder, if the offer proves acceptable; otherwise the bids 

 will be filed, and the books kept for four weeks for competition of 

 offers which may arrive during this period, after which time they 

 will be 'sent out without reserve to the highest bidder. All books 

 on this list are warranted to be perfect, complete, and in good con- 

 dition, and they are in their original cloth binding, if not otherwise 

 specified. They will be forwarded at the expense of the purchaser. 

 No charge is made for packing, cases, or cartage. 



— The New York Agricultural Experiment Station (Peter Col- 

 lier, director), Geneva, N.Y., proposes to carry out this next year 

 experiments on the influence of fertilizers on the chemical com- 

 position of plants, with analyses of the feeding-stuffs, and feeding 

 and digestion experiments. 



— Mr. EUery C. Huntington, A.B., of Amherst College, Massa- 

 chusetts, will form classes in physical culture at the beginning of 

 session, 18S8-89, at the University of Virginia. The work under 

 personal supervision of the instructor will consist of (i) class exer- 

 cise with light (wooden) dumb-bells, (2) class drill with chest 

 weights, (3) class exercise witt) Indian clubs. In addition, each 

 student is to be examined physically and measured at least once a 

 year. On the basis of this examination, a handbook of developing 

 exercise will be made out and given to him, with exercises marked 

 that are adapted to his individual need. 



— A despatch from London, Aug. 27, announces the death of 

 Philip Henry Gosse, F.R.S., the English naturalist, aged seventy- 

 eight years. Mr. Gosse was born at Poole, Eng., in 18 10, went to 

 Newfoundland when a boy of seventeen, eight years later removed 

 to lower Canada, and then travelled in this country, studying 

 zoology and entomology, and making a long stop in Alabama. He 

 was made an F.R.S. in 1856. He was the father of Edmund W. 

 Gosse, the critic and poet. 



— • The Agricultural Department is organizing five new experi- 

 mental stations for the study of sorghum and its manipulation, — 

 three in Kansas, one in New Jersey, and one in Louisiana. The 

 appropriation for this work this year is one hundred thousand dol- 

 lars, larger than it has ever been before. 



— Ohio and Michigan are better provided with public-school li- 

 braries than any other States. The former has 191 and the latter 

 1 54 volumes for every 100 pupils in average attendance. In the 

 Southern States no public-school libraries of any consequence are 

 reported. 



