426 



sciEJsrci]. 



[Vol. VI., No. 145. 



may be benefited by the reminder that other ob- 

 servers, including some of Mr. Muir's companions 

 on the trip in question, have been unaccountably 

 blind to the remarkable phenomena upon which 

 some of his far-reaching conclusions seem to rest. 

 Such records as this volume affords, in spite of 

 minor defects, are most creditable to the bureau 

 and its otficers; and it is to be hoped that the 

 series may be indefinitely continued. 



NEW BOOKS. 



*** For full titles see ' Publications received at editor'' s 

 office.^ 



' The perfect way in diet ' (Kingsf ord) is a trans- 

 lation of a thesis presented, in 1880, by the author, 

 for her degree of doctor of medicine, and is a plea 

 for a return to the natural and ancient food of our 

 race, which is better understood when one knows 

 that Miss Kingsf ord is a vegetarian. ' The Rus- 

 sian revolt ' (Noble) gives a history of the develop- 

 ment of the country, showing the effects of contact 

 with western civilization, and closes with an appeal 



for a constitutional government for Russia. 



' Wanderings of plants and animals ' (Hehn and 

 Stallybrass) is an attempt to trace the origin of 

 well-known plants and animals by historic and 

 philologic methods. The author holds that Europe 

 owes much more to Asia than the mere botanist 

 and mere zoologist are willing to admit ; that the 

 flora of southern Europe has been revolutionized 

 under the hand of man ; and that the evergreen 

 vegetation of Italy and Greece is not indigenous, 

 but is mainly due to the sacred groves planted 

 around the temples of oriental gods and god- 

 desses. He has much to say of Indo-Europeans, 

 or Aryans, at the time of their settling Europe, 

 and holds that the builders of the lake villages in 

 Switzerland were Aryans at a comparatively ad- 

 vanced period. In fact, the low condition of the 

 Aryans on entering Europe, and their subsequent 

 obligations to other Aryans in Asia, and, above all, 

 to the Semitic races in Palestine, form, perhaps, 

 the central idea of the book. ' Chemical con- 

 version tables ' (Battle and Dancey) are intended to 

 meet a long-felt want on the part of agricultural 

 analytical chemists for some relief from the time- 

 consuming calculations necessary to convert the 

 result of each separate determination into the 

 customary per cent. They embrace only what is 

 required in the analysis of commercial fertilizers 



and their derivative constituents. * Notes on 



the chemistry of iron ' (TroUius) gives a description 

 of such chemical methods of analysis in iron and 

 steel manufacture as have come under the au- 

 thor's personal observation. ' History of Japan ' 



(Thorpe) is a history of the country from the 

 earliest times, giving an account of the primitive 



rehgion, and of the different dynasties, and ends 

 with an account of the recent progress of the 



country. ' The principles of house-drainage ' 



(Putnam) contains lectures delivered before the 

 Suffolk district medical society, the Boston society 

 of architects, and the Massachusetts institute of 

 teclmology, on house-drainage, and the proper 

 construction of wash-basins, closets, soil and drain 

 pipes, with hints as to the size and general arrange- 

 ments of piping. ' First lessons in amateur 



photography ' (Spaulding) gives the beginner, in a 

 few pages, an account of the general method of 

 taking a negative, and obtaining from it a silver 

 print. The subject-matter is arranged in the form 

 of seven short lectures, which were originally de- 

 hvered before the senior class of a high school. 

 That portion of the book relating to the camera 

 and lens is treated very briefly, and the description 

 of the process of development of the negative is 

 not stated as fully as might be desired. The gen- 

 eral criticism on the book is that there is not quite 



enough of it. ' De I'effet artistique en pho- 



tographie ' (Robinson et H. Colard) begins where 

 most books on photography leave off, treating 

 photography wholly from the artistic side, and 

 doing so in a very thorough and satisfactory man- 

 ner. We can commend the book to all who wish 

 to study the principles of art in photography, 

 and to those who wish to obtain reaUy artistic 

 pictures, whether of landscapes, groups, or por- 

 traits. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



Apropos of our comments on the facilities for 

 navigation in Hudson Bay {Science, No. 142, p. 

 350), we learn that the company's annual vessel, 

 with a cargo valued at over a million, was recently 

 driven on the bar at the anchorage near Moose 

 Factory, the port of the region, and became a total 

 wreck. 



The ' whaling fleet in Alaskan waters this 

 summer numbered forty saihng-vessels and eight 

 steamers, with a total tonnage of 14,262 tons. No 

 further disasters had occurred up to the latest 

 advices, and the vessels embayed by ice near Point 

 Barrow had been safely extricated. One hundred 

 and twenty-six whales had been taken. 



The fishing fleet of the North Pacific has returned 

 to San Francisco. Fourteen trips were made by 

 twelve vessels, aggregating 2,550 tons. The fish 

 taken in Alaskan waters numbered 922,000, and 

 from the Okhotsk Sea 452,000. The value of the 

 catch is about $150,000. This industry has been 

 successfully prosecuted since 1864. 



The boundary between the territory of the Ar- 

 gentine Confederation and Brazil, forming the 



