LITERARY NOTICES. 



249 



eral plan of the work does not differ essen- 

 tially from that adopted by the earlier 

 writers on the subject ; but he has revised 

 definitions, simplified explanations, abbre- 

 viated demonstrations, and conformed the 

 limits of the treatment to the growing 

 wants of scientific education. 



Chronos: Mother Earth's Biography; a 

 Komance of the New School, by Wal- 

 lace Wood, M. D. London : Triibner 

 & Co., 1873, 334 pages. 



If a peripatetic scientific lecturer may 

 seek to draw listeners by proclaiming to 

 make science " as fascinating as fairy tales," 

 surely the author of this book is justified 

 in terming his work a "Romance of the 

 New School." 



In eleven chapters he pictures with a 

 flowing pen the birth, growth, maturity, 

 and decay of Mother Earth ; and to those 

 who have puzzled their brains over the 

 severe, concise -formulas of Herbert Spencer, 

 who have passed working hours on the 

 nebular hypothesis, and striven with the 

 problem of the precession of the equinoxes, 

 or the data and inductions of Biology and 

 Psychology, it is like sailing with a " wet 

 sheet and a flowing sea " on the lighest 

 waves of the imagination over the formi- 

 dable obstacles which those philosophical 

 problems present. 



The author professes to traverse the 

 field with seven-leagued boots, and surely 

 they are needed, for in this small volume is 

 crowded the result of prolonged and pro- 

 found speculations into the mystery of the 

 earth, its geology, its life, the periods of its 

 development, the evolution of its organ- 

 isms, its social history, and its final dissolu- 

 tion. 



With liberal quotations from the writings 

 of modern scientists, with here and there an 

 enlivenment of humor, and — to deal with 

 him gently — some considerable irrelevant 

 frivolity, he puts forward in a fresh and 

 brisk, if not altogether attractive presenta- 

 tion of the subject, the most advanced ideas 

 of the evolutionists, and those who shudder 

 at the definition of evolution as " a change 

 from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity, 

 to a definite coherent heterogeneity," may, 

 not unprofitably, follow their chatty and 

 lively guide, who certainly is never dull 

 while acting as cicerone. 



The first American contribution to the 

 International Scientific Series will be by 

 Josiah P. Cooke, Professor of Chemistry in 

 Harvard College, on the " New Chemistry." 

 It is well known that this science in recent 

 years has undergone a profound change in 

 its theory, with a corresponding change in 

 its nomenclature. The new view is firmly 

 established in the world of science, and 

 modern text-books are slowly adopting it, 

 while the mass of educated people still 

 think in the old chemical ways. A book 

 was needed to make this transition clear 

 and easy for the non-scientific, which should 

 explain the necessity and philosophy of the 

 change more fully than is possible in the reg- 

 ular manuals, and such a work Prof. Cooke 

 has now prepared. He has long taught 

 the modern views, and his College Text- 

 book of " Chemical Philosophy " embod- 

 ies them ; but, perceiving the public want, 

 he prepared a course of lectures familiarly 

 explaining the new doctrines, and delivered 

 them at the Lowell Institute in Boston (im- 

 mediately after the course of Prof. Tyndall), 

 with great satisfaction to those who heard 

 them. The volume containing these lectures, 

 carefully revised and illustrated, is now 

 going rapidly through the press, and will 

 be ready in a very short time. It will be 

 of interest to general readers who care to 

 note the progress of scientific thought ; but 

 will be invaluable at the present time to all 

 teachers of chemistry. 



PUBLICATIONS EECEIVED. 



Acrididae of North America, by Cyrus 

 Thomas, Ph. D. (Geological Survey of the 

 Territories.) Washington : Government 

 Printing-office, 1873. 



Essay on the Glacial Epoch. By Dr. 

 Philip Harvey. Burlington, Iowa, 1873, 

 pp. 24. 



New Vertebrata from Colorado Terri- 

 tory. By Prof. E. D. Cope. Government 

 Printing-Office. 



Law and Intelligence in Nature. By 

 A. B. Palmer, A. M., M. D. Lansing, Mich., 

 1873, pp. 31. 



Thysanura of Essex County, Mass., by 

 A. S. Packard, Jr., with two other papers 



