408 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IV., No. 90. 



considerations are, in his opinion, the key to 

 the character of the manual. 



Practice and theory are treated in separate 

 chapters, beginning, for stated reasons, with a 

 description of the most successful method of 

 butter-making, and closing with an exposition 

 of the philosophy of the various modes of 

 operation. The discussion opens quite deser- 

 vedly 03^ dwelling on the importance of cleanli- 

 ness as the first and indispensable requirement 

 for success in the dairy industry. The first 

 chapter treats of the best indorsed rules for 

 milking, and for setting milk for cream. The 

 setting of milk in open and closed A r essels, as 

 well as the proper conditions of the cream for 

 churning, and the management of churning, 

 are carefully discussed. The author very fre- 

 quently cites well-known authorities in the 

 dahy business — Professors Arnold and Lewis 

 — in support of his statements. A detailed 

 description of the best rules for collecting, 

 washing, pressing, salting, packing, and mar- 

 keting the butter, closes the first chapter on 

 the scientific method or process. 



The succeeding chapter explains the philos- 

 ophy of the rules of treatment during the vari- 

 ous stages of the process, which have been 

 previously enumerated and critically discussed. 

 The different points involved are here stated 

 in an equally instructive manner. More promi- 

 nence might have been given to a considera- 

 tion of the chemical character of the various 

 glycerides constituting the fat of milk, and 

 consequently of the butter, as compared with 

 those which constitute other animal fats. The 

 serious influence of exceptionally large quanti- 

 ties of the glycerides of four volatile fatty acids 

 on the successful manufacture and on the keep- 

 ing of butter is quite manifest, and deserves 

 more than a passing notice. The first part 

 of the book closes with remarks on milk-pro- 

 duction, on the natural functions of the cow, 

 on breeding and feeding, on dairy utensils and 

 supplies, on water and its uses in the dairy, 

 and on salt and its proper application in 

 butter-making. The discourse on these sub- 

 jects occupies about forty pages of the manual. 



It is unfortunate that 03- far the larger part 

 of the pamphlet (the appendix) should be 

 taken up with quotations from agricultural 

 newspapers, and that in the closing paragraphs 

 it should be stated that Mr. Lynch is the owner 

 of the patents on the forms of butter-making 

 appliances which he advocates. The work, 

 with its numerous newspaper extracts and 

 poor printing, has not the appetizing appear- 

 ance so essential to a new book, and is calcu- 

 lated to repel one at the first glance. 



MAN'S FUTURE. 



The destiny of man, viewed in the light of his origin. 

 By John Fiske. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin, 8c 

 Co , 1884. 10+121 p 16°. 



" The question of a future life is generally 

 regarded as lying outside the range of scien- 

 tific discussion," says the writer; but yet he 

 thinks it is one upon which an opinion may be 

 legitimately entertained, and he proceeds to 

 say, that opinion " must necessarily be affected 

 by the total mass of our opinions on the ques- 

 tions which -[do] lie within the scope of scien- 

 tific inquiry." His essay is to let us know 

 what the teachings of the doctrine of evolution 

 as to the origin of man seem to indicate as to 

 his final destiny. His conclusion is, that " the 

 more thoroughly we comprehend that process 

 of evolution by which things have come to be 

 what they are, the more we are likely to feel 

 that to deny the everlasting persistence of the 

 spiritual element in man is to rob the whole 

 process of its meaning," and that it goes far 

 toward putting us to ' permanent intellectual 

 confusion ; ' which, as a well-known authority 

 assures us, is a scientific reductio ad absurdum. 

 So, finding wt no sufficient reason for our accept- 

 ing so dire an alternative," our author declares, 

 wt For my own part, therefore, I believe in the 

 immortality of the soul, not in the sense in 

 which I accept the demonstrable truths of sci- 

 ence, but as a supreme act of faith in the rea- 

 sonableness of God's work. . . . The belief 

 can be most quickly defined by its negation, 

 as the refusal to believe that this world is all." 

 We must refer to the little book itself for the 

 line of argument which leads up to this credo. 

 And if the argument, however scientifically 

 based, is philosophical and even theological 

 in form, it needs only to be understood that 

 this essay is, in fact, an address to the Con- 

 cord school of philosophy last summer, at the 

 time when the subject of immortalit}^ was under 

 discussion. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The following is the full list of papers read at 

 the Newport meeting of the National academy of 

 sciences, Oct. 14-17: On the Columella auris of the 

 Pelycosauria, E. D. Cope; The brain of Asellus, and 

 the eyeless form of Cecidotaea, A. S. Packard; On 

 the theory of atomic volumes, Wolcott Gibbs ; On the 

 complex inorganic acids, Wolcott Gibbs; Notice of 

 Muy bridge's experiments on the motions of animals 

 by instantaneous photography, Fairman Rogers ; No- 

 tice of Grant's difference-engine, Fairman Rogers; 

 On the thinolite of Lake Lahontan, E. S. Dana; On 

 the mesozoic coals of the north-west, R. Pumpelly; 



