30 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XV. No. 362 



the trade supplement will be given the department of " Industrial 

 Progress," which they purpose making a useful feature of future 

 issues. Recognizing that architecture, however artistic, is not pure 

 art, and that its practitioners cannot draw solely upon their innSr 

 consciousness for the development of their designs, but must re- 

 gard the demands of their clients for the latest improvements both 

 in structure and fittings, they propose in this department to place 

 before their readers new and valuable inventions, materials, and 

 -appliances as they are placed on the market, together with ap- 

 propriate notices of those valuable reference books, the trade 

 catalogues, as they appear. The " building news " will also ap- 

 pear in a regular department, and two new departments, " Archi- 

 tectural Engineering " and " Sanitary Engineering," will be given 

 careful attention. 



— The first number of the third volume of The American Jour- 

 nal of Psychology (published ijow by Clark University at Worces- 

 ter, Mass.) is now in press, and will appear in January, 1890, and 

 succeeding numbers thereafter quarterly. The typography of the 

 journal has been changed and improved. A new department of 

 minor contributions has been added for briefer records of original 

 observation and research in laboratories and elsewhere, and for 

 historical chapters upon various phases of psychological science. 

 The digests and critical reviews of European literature, which have 

 before formed so important a feature of the journal, will be con- 

 tinued, and made as complete as possible. Their scope will also 

 be enlarged so as to include, besides the fields already represented, 

 the psychological parts of criminology and anthropology. The 

 ■editorial staff will be increased, and articles of unusual value and 

 interest are promised. The price remains five dollars per year. 

 The first and second volumes will also be furnished unbound at 

 'five dollars per volume till further notice. 



— D. Appleton & Co. will publish immediately, " Around and 

 About South America," by Frank Vincent, who relates his experi- 

 ences of twenty months, made useful with maps and plans and 

 "fifty-four full-page illustrations ; " An Epitome of Herbert Spencer's 

 Synthetic Philosophy," by F. Howard Collins, with preface by 

 Herbert Spencer; "James G. Birney and His Times," the genesis 

 of the Republican party, with some account of Abolition move- 

 ments in the South before 1828; and " The Religion of the Sem- 

 ites," in which the fundamental institutions are treated by Prof. 

 Robertson Smith, and the International Scientific Series will re- 

 ceive a new volume on " The Physiology of Bodily Exercise," by 

 Fernand Lagrange. 



— Ginn & Company have just issued " An Elementary Treatise 

 on the Method of Least Squares," by George C. Comstock, pro- 

 fessor of astronomy in the University of Wisconsin and director of 

 the Washburn Observatory. This treatise has grown out of at- 

 tempts by the author to so present the subject to students that a 

 ■working knowledge based upon an appreciation of its principles 

 might be acquired with a moderate expenditure of time and labor. 

 Believing that the ultimate warrant for the legitimacy of the method 

 is to be found in the agreement between the observed distribution 

 •of residuals and the distribution represented by the error curve. 

 Professor Comstock has abandoned altogether the analytical 

 •demonstrations of the equation of that curve, and presents it as 

 -an empirical formula, representing the generalized experience of 

 -observers. The evidence in support of a formula of this kind is 

 cumulative, the few curves presented in illustration being con- 

 sidered as samples of the kind of evidence existing. Prominence 

 IS given to the distinction between accidental and systematic 

 errors, and the limitations which result from the difference between 

 these two classes of errors is insisted upon. 



— The Ophthalmic Review begins its new volume with an 

 American editor. Dr. Edward Jackson of Philadelphia, who suc- 

 ceeds Dr. James Anderson of London. It will hereafter contain 

 original articles from American as well as English ophthalmic 

 surgeons ; with notices of all ophthalmological papers published 

 here or abroad, and full reviews of the more important of them. 

 The Review is now edited by J. B. Lawford, M.D., London ; Karl 

 •Grossman, Liverpool ; Priestley Smith. Birmingham ; John B. 

 Story, M.D., Dublin, and Edward Jackson, M.D., 215 South Seven- 

 teenth Street, Philadelphia, to whom all American communications 



concerning editorial matters, copies of papers, books for review, 

 etc., should be addressed. The Review has hitherto devoted its 

 space almost entirely to English and foreign contributions. Its 

 success in this field has led the editors and publishers to increase 

 its scope by including an index of American articles on ophthal- 

 mological subjects, reviews of the most important papers, original 

 articles by well-known men, and reports of the meetings of the 

 American Ophthalmological Society, and the section on ophthal- 

 mology of the American Medical Association. 



— Gebbie & Co., Philadelphia, have just published a book on 

 the drama, entitled " Players and Playwrights I Have Known : a 

 record of the English stage from 1840 to 1880," by John Coleman. 



— Funk & Wagnalls, have published " The Patience of Hope 

 and Other Sermons, by the late Rev. Joseph H. Wright, with a 

 brief Sketch of his Life," edited by Oliver J. Thatcher, Professor 

 in the United Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Allegheny, Pa. 



— The first number of Kate Field's Washington has made its 

 appearance. It is a " national independent review," will be pub- 

 lished every Wednesday, at Washington, and partakes largely of 

 the individuality of its talented editor. Four dollars per year, ten 

 cents per copy. 



— The Belford Co. have in preparation " A New Encyclop£edia 

 of American Biography," intended to not merely cover the ground 

 usually occupied by such publications, but to make special men- 

 tion of the men and women who are doing the work and forming 

 the thought of our own time. Mr. James R. Gilmore (" Edmund 

 Kirke ") is the editor. 



— Mr. Justin Winsor is engaged upon a biographical and his- 

 torical work to be entitled " Christopher Columbus : an examina- 

 tion of the historical and geographical conditions under which the 

 Western Continent was disclosed to Europe, with an inquiry into 

 the personal history of Cristoval Colon." Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

 will be the publishers. 



— Dr. J. E. Oliver, of Boston, well known as a careful and in- 

 telligent student of American history, has edfted, says the Boston 

 Transcript, " the diary of William Pynchon, of Salem, and his 

 book will be published at an early day. This diary was written 

 during the middle and later years of the eighteenth century, and 

 gives an accurate picture of Salem's social and political life in that 

 interesting period. It will be issued by the Riverside Press." 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*,* Correspondents are requested io be as brie/ as possible. The writer's name is 

 in all cases required asproo/oy^ood faith. 



The editor ■mill be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of 

 the journal. 



On request, twenty copies of the nu7nber containing his communication will be 

 furnished free to any correspondent. 



What Dr. Flint has to Say about the Nicaragua Footprints.' 



In replying to Dr. D. G. Brinton's article of Nov. 18, 1887, 

 issued by the American Philosophical Society, and republished in 

 1888 (No. 86) by the Philosophical Society of London, I entirely 

 overlooked Dr. Brinton's quotations of Pablo Levy as authoritative 

 for geological reference. I desire to correct the erroneous impres- 

 sions caused by Levy's geological idiosyncrasies. 



The volcanic convulsions that modelled the existing features of 

 Nicaragua were acting in remote times only, in its south-western 

 part. The lakes occupying the old craters give no indications of 

 disturbance, while those of historical times have not changed the 

 contour of their surface, except in small effusions of lava. The 

 largest volcanoes are between Nindiri and Managua. The ash- 

 eruptions of Cosequina, on the north-western confines of Nicaragua, 

 have diminished in volume, and may be considered as extinct. 

 Monotombo, on the north-western shore of Lake Managua, has 

 had -various ash-eruptions, but its contour remains about the same 

 as when visited by the early Spaniards. Omotepe still keeps its 

 cone-like contour. The last eruption in 1883 was not accompanied 

 by trembling. Lava was thrown out near the old crater on the 



' Extracts from a letter of Dr. Earl Flint of Revas, Nicaragua, to Hilbome T. 

 Cresson of Philadelphia. 



