140 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. V., No. 106. 



are given, and these few are not all that could 

 be desired. This ' manual of manipulation ' 

 is mostl}' given up to the discussion of such 

 topics as ' units of mass and force,' ' inertia,' 

 ' corpuscular theon T of heat,' ' what is elec- 

 tricity?' etc., closing with several pages of 

 'odds and ends.' In short, this part is any 

 thing but a manual of manipulation : it is 

 rather a dumping-ground for the disconnected 

 contents of one of the author's note-books. 

 The test-questions and solutions to problems 

 in the author's ' Elements of physics ' fill the 

 remainder of the little volume, and will, with- 

 out doubt, be of value to those teachers who 

 use his earlier book. 



The book will prove a disappointment to 

 most teachers. It is really a supplement to 

 Mr. Gage's ' Plrysics,' but the matter which it 

 contains should have been reserved for use in 

 the preparation of a second edition of that 

 work. 



The ' Problemes de physique ' of Jacquier 

 is too meagre for a text-book, too full for a 

 mere collection of problems. It is probably 

 intended to supplement a course of lectures. 

 The reader who is familiar with the ordinary 

 elemental*}' text-books of plrysics will find 

 little really new or inspiring here, but rather 

 the old, more or less satisfactory demonstra- 

 tions, without the calculus, of the laws of cen- 

 trifugal force, the simple pendulum, the flow of 

 liquids from an orifice, the foci of lenses, etc., 

 presented as the solutions of problems. The 

 ordinary student would find this very tedious. 

 The part devoted to heat, with its uncompro- 

 mising applications of ' binomes cle dilatation,' 

 etc., would be salutary exercise, perhaps ; but it 

 reminds one of the ' school of the soldier. ' We 

 can imagine no one but an enlisted man going 

 through it. Of course, it would be unfair to 

 imply that the author has in no point improved 

 upon the work of other makers of elementary 

 books. His second proof of the law of centrif- 

 ugal force almost avoids the familiar assump- 

 tion that unequal things are equal ; and his 

 page devoted to showing how the one fluid 

 theory accounts for electric attractions and re- 

 pulsions would be new and interesting to many 

 readers. 



The book concludes with a collection of a 

 hundred and seventy-one ' problems for solu- 

 tion,' given without answers. These, with 

 the exception of seventeen which deal with 

 chemical equivalents, are of about the same 

 character as the problems in the last edition 

 of Everett's -Deschanel,' and will possibly be 

 welcomed by the weary makers of examina- 

 tion-papers. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Mr. Alexander Agassiz's resignation of his po- 

 sition as a fellow of Harvard college was naturally ac- 

 cepted by the corporation with great reluctance. The 

 Bulletin of the university just published contains the 

 formal votes taken at the meeting of Oct. 24, which 

 state " that the wide range of his sympathies and 

 interests, the confidence and affection which he in- 

 spired, and the varied information which he possessed 

 both as a man of business and as a man of science, 

 made his services as a fellow of singular value to the 

 university ; that his great gifts within the past thirteen 

 years to the scientific departments, and especially to 

 the Museum of comparative zoology, which amount 

 to more than half a million of dollars, make him one 

 of the chief benefactors of the university, and entitle 

 him to its profound gratitude." 



— The Harvard university bulletin for January con- 

 tains a further instalment of Mr. Winsor's collation 

 of the Kohl collection of early American maps, and 

 the beginning (267 numbers) of another of Mr. 

 Bliss's valuable indexes to map literature, in which 

 the various publications of the London geographical 

 society, together with the two principal London geo- 

 graphical journals, — Ocean highways and the Geo- 

 graphical magazine, — are treated in the same manner 

 as he formerly indexed Petermann's mittheilungen. It 

 will prove exceedingly convenient. 



— The Ottawa field-naturalists' club makes a rather 

 remarkable showing for so young a society. It has 

 a membership of about a hundred and fifty, and an 

 annual fee of a dollar. It has just published the fifth 

 number of its Transactions, a pamphlet of a hun- 

 dred and fifty pages, and yet has no debt. The 

 pamphlet contains some matter of a general interest, 

 particularly an article by Mr. W*. P. Lett on the deer 

 of the Ottawa valley, — the moose, caribou, wapiti, 

 and Virginia deer, — and one on phosphates by Dr. 

 G. M. Dawson. 



— A course of twelve lectures on geology will be 

 given on Thursday afternoons during February, 

 March, and April, beginning Feb. 12, by Prof. Daniel 

 S. Martin, at No. 58 West Fifty-fifth Street, New 

 York. These lectures are designed especially, though 

 not exclusively, for ladies, and are held in the build- 

 ing occupied by Rutgers female college. 



— The Saturday lectures during February and 

 March, under the auspices of the anthropological 

 and biological societies of Washington, will consist 

 of the following: Professor John Fiske, Results in 

 England of the surrender of Cornwallis; Dr. George 

 M. Sternberg, U.S.A., Germs and germicides; the 

 Hon. Eugene Schuyler, The machinery of our 

 foreign service ; Mr. William T. Hornaday, Natural 

 history and people of Borneo; Mr. Charles D. Wal- 

 cott, Searching for the first forms of life; President 

 E. M. Gallaudet, The language of signs, and the 

 combined method of instructing deaf-mutes. 



— The Records of the Geological survey of India, 

 vol. xvii. part iv., contains a paper on Mr. H. B. 

 Foote's work at the Bilba Surgam caves, in which the 



