436 



soiiijjsrcu. 



[Vol. IX., No. 



and other papers,' a volume of essays by Edwin 

 P. Whipple, in the introduction to which John 

 O. Whittier says of the author that he was the 

 ablest critical essayist of his time, and the place 

 he has left will not be readily filled. Scarcely in- 

 ferior to Macaulay in brilliance of diction and 

 graphic portraiture, he was freer from prejudice 

 and passion, and more loyal to the truth of fact 

 and history. He was a thoroughly honest man. 

 He wrote with conscience always at his elbow, 

 and never sacrificed his real convictions for the 

 sake of epigram and antithesis. He instinctively 

 took the right side of the questions that came be- 

 fore him for decision, even when by so doing he 

 ranked himself with the unpopular minority. He 

 had the manliest hatred of hypocrisy and mean- 

 ness ; but if his language had at times the severity 

 of justice, it was never merciless. He ' set down 

 naught in malice.' 



— The w^ell-known researches of Warington 

 liave done much to elucidate the process of nitri- 

 fication as it takes place in the soil. His latest 

 paper (Journ. chem. soc, Feb. 1887, p. 118) deals 

 with the distribution of the nitrifying organism 

 in the soil. Evidences of its presence were found 

 to the depth of six feet, btit it was neither abun- 

 dant nor vigorous. The author concludes that 

 nitrification is practically confined to the surface 

 soil. 



— The lactocrite, a new apparatus for testing 

 milk, particularly with regard to its value for but- 

 ter, is the invention of de Laval, also the inventor 

 of the well-known centrifugal separator, which 

 bears his name, and is designed to be used with 

 the latter. The milk is first heated with its own 

 bulk of strong acetic acid to which five per cent 

 of strong sulphuric acid has been added. This 

 treatment, continued for seven or eight minutes, 

 suffices to set free the fat of the milk from its 

 emulsionized state. A glass tube with a narrow 

 neck, properly graduated, is then filled with the 

 milk, placed in a suitable holder in a disk which 

 is attached to the centrifugal separator, and the 

 latter set in operation. A complete separation of 

 the fat is then effected in the narrow neck of the 

 tube, where the amount is read off. The instru- 

 ment is designed to enable creameries using the 

 centrifugal to test the quality of each patron's 

 milk ; and it appears to be well adapted to this 

 purpose. Several tests of its accuracy have been 

 made of late. Sexhlet, in the Milch Zeitung (xvi. 

 14), reports that he obtained by it results agreeing 

 within 0.1 per cent with those of his aerometric 

 method. Sebelien {Landw. Vers. Stat., xxxiii. 

 405) finds, that, if all the directions are strictly 

 observed, the results do not vary at most more 



than 0.1 per cent, and usually not over 0.05 per 

 cent, from those of gravimetric analysis, but 

 notes that these directions must be carefully fol- 

 lowed. Faber {Analyst, xii. 6) obtained about the 

 same results. Blythe (Ibid., xii. 34) found in 

 eleven trials a maximum error of 0.14 per cent, 

 and an average error of 0.05 per cent. 



— Ginn & Co. have ready this week ' Little 

 flow^er people,' by Gertrude Elizabeth Hale, an in- 

 teresting elementary work on flowers, designed to 

 awaken an interest in plant-life among the youn- 

 gest readers ; also ' Outlines of logic,' by Herman 

 Lotze, translated and edited by Prof. George T. 

 Ladd of Yale college. 



— Mr. William Gushing has been obliged to give 

 up the publication of his proposed ' Anonyms' as 

 a companion to his ' Pseudonyms.' This is to be re- 

 gretted as a loss to American bibliography. There 

 ought to be enough public-spirited institutions 

 and individuals — booksellers and librarians — to 

 whom such a work is an almost daily necessity, 

 to offer Mr. Gushing and his publishers a guaranty 

 against loss in couipleting a work so admirably 

 begun. 



— With the publication of the third volume of 

 the history of Central America, now about ready 

 to place in the hands of subscribers, but fourteen 

 of the thirty -nine volumes of Hubert Howe Ban- 

 croft's works remain unpublished. The History 

 company are gratified with the success that has 

 attended the enterprise thus far ; the growing 

 favor in which each successive volume is held by 

 the public, and the especially kind notices and re- 

 views of the press, generally prove a very great 

 encouragement. 



— G. P. Putnam's Sons announce that when 

 they have completed the publication of their edi- 

 tion of Franklin's works, of which the third vol- 

 ume is about to be delivered to subscribers, they 

 will follow this with an edition of the ' Writings 

 of Washington,' printed in similar style. The set, 

 which will probably be comprised in twelve vol- 

 umes, wiU contain the diaries, the addresses, and 

 the correspondence, and will include a number of 

 papers not before printed. Arrangements for the 

 editing have been in train for some months, and 

 the name of the editor will be announced shortly. 

 The limited edition printed of the ' Franklin's 

 works ' is now all subscribed for, and the price of 

 sets has already appreciated, as was the case with 

 the ' Hamilton.' 



— Messrs. Macmillan are going to issue this 

 month the second volume of the ' Course of prac- 

 tical physics,' by Prof. Balfour Stewart and Mr. 

 W. Hfjldane Gee, 'dealing with electricity and 

 magnetism. 



