BOOK NOTICES. ' 205 



The month included in this report has been warm and moist. While the 

 rain-fall has not much exceeded the average at this season the previous saturated 

 condition of the soil has made it seem unusually wet. To this humid condition 

 the high temperature has added a feature which has made the air quite oppressive 

 and the warm, still nights have not given the usual chance for refreshing sleep. 

 As regard the storms most of them have occurred at night in the latter part (i. e. 

 from 12:00 to 3:00 o'clock A. M.), and at this station they have come from the 

 north and northeast. There have been abundant electric disturbances, and the 

 wind has been strong but not reaching the tornado violence. 



Lightning struck in many places, doing some damage. These conditions 

 have favored the growth of corn and no one has ever seen it grow more rapidly, 

 even in Kansas. 



BOOK NOTICES. 



History of the Thirty Years' War : By Anton Gindely. Two volumes ; 

 Octavo, pp. 912; Illustrated. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1884. For 

 sale by M. H. Dickinson, $4.00. 



This work, notwithstanding its dimensions, is a condensed history of the war 

 carried on between the Roman Catholics and Protestants in the first half of the 

 17th century, commencing in 161 8, with the insurrection of the Bohemians, and 

 ending with the peace of Westphaha in 1648. It is divided into three parts: 

 The first describes those events whidi gave immediate occasion to the out-break 

 of the war; proceeds thence to relate the history of the Bohemian insurrection, 

 the judicial proceedings and confiscations which follow, and the consequent re- 

 actionary measures of religious reformation. It is doubtless the most reliable 

 and at the same time interesting account of this celebrated struggle that has ever 

 been written ; for aside from the mere facts of history the author devotes many 

 pages to accounts of prominent individual actors in the drama, such as Gustavus 

 Adolphus, Ferdinand II, Cardinal Khlesl, the Palsgrave Frederic, Maximilian of 

 Bavaria, Prince Waldstein, and Cardinal Richelieu. These portrayals of life are 

 especially valuable as showing the peculiarities of the intercourse between the 

 people of the time. 



The discussion of the subject is full and free, and enables the reader to rightly 

 judge such opposing characters as the Romanist Ferdinand II of Bohemia, and 

 the stern and unrelenting protestant, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who devoted 

 his whole life to carrying forward the principles of his church and faith. 



The whole war seems to have been, with the exceptional ambitions of various 

 sovereigns, a contest for the control of the religious doctrines and worship of the 

 people without regard to the feelings and wishes of the people themselves. Both 



