476 GEOGRAPHIC LITERATURE 



Rivers of North America : A Reading Lesson for Students of Geography 

 and Geology. By Israel C. Russell. 8vo, pp. xv + 237, with 17 full- 

 page illustrations and 23 cuts. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons; 

 London : John Murray. 1 898. 

 Professor Russell is one of the few scientific men who can put the re- 

 sults of science in popular form. He comes to this work well equipped 

 after a score of years devoted to travel and study. In the present book, 

 which forms one of a science series, he treats of the life and work of 

 rivers. It opens with a chapter on the disintegration and decay of rocks, 

 followed by the laws governing the erosion of streams, the influence of 

 inequalities in the hardness of rocks, the material carried by streams, 

 either in suspension or solution, the deposits of streams, stream terraces, 

 the development of streams, including the adjustment of their drainage 

 basins under stable and unstable conditions of surface and climate. 

 Finally he applies all these principles to the rivers of this country. It is 

 a book which should be read by all students of physiography. 



H. G. 



Man and His Work. By A. J. and F. D. Herbertson. Black's School 

 Geography Series. London : Adam and Charles Black. 

 This book is a symptom, if not an exponent, of a widespread and grati- 

 fying movement in modern geography teaching. It treats primarily of 

 man's work — chiefly as it is influenced by his physical environment. It 

 is intended to dwell on the relations between facts, and holds consistently 

 to its purpose; but the generalizations made are sometimes too sweep- 

 ing. American sky-scrapers have not yet been proven more durable than 

 the stone castles of mediaeval times ; not all the soils of temperate lands 

 are inferior. No attempt has been made to write a "pedagogic" book. 

 Concrete examples are used to illustrate principles previously stated, not 

 to lead to these principles by induction. The paragraph headings are 

 generally good topics, though in some places irrelevant matter is intro- 

 duced under them, as on page 3, where the effect of elevation on trade is 

 treated, under the heading, Elevation and climate. The use of original 

 narratives of travel has added much to the interest of the book, but the 

 authors are frequently beguiled into too much detail. An exhaustive 

 comparison of the agricultural methods of the Battaks and the Dyaks is 

 out of place in a text book of this kind. The work needs editing. Guid- 

 ing feathers were never, surely, discovered on arrows, and dead ancestors 

 cannot be commemorated among the living. But the book is interesting 

 from cover to cover, and no teacher who has read it will again be willing 

 to confine her work to drilling on dead facts. The authors have plainly 

 shown a better way. 



Two Women in the Klondike: The Story of a Journey to the Gold Fields 



of Alaska. By Mary E. Hitchcock. With a map of Alaska and over 



100 illustrations from photographs. 8vo, pp. 485. New York: G. P. 



Putnam's Sons. 1899. 



Tins minute personal journal of the experiences of two women who went 



to the Klondike with the rush of gold-hunters in the spring of 1898 is a 



long story of small discomforts, but not a tale of peril or adventures. The 



ladies are introduced and described, socially vouched for by Mrs Elisha 



