Macmillan Company. Pp. 339. $2.50.
Bullen, Frank T. Idylls of the Sea. With an Introduction by J. St. Loe
Strachey. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 286. $1.25.
Bulletins, Reports, Transactions, etc. American Society of Civil
Engineers: Proceedings. Vol. XXV. No. 4. Pp. 150.--British Columbia,
Province of: Annual Report of the Minister of Mines to December 31,
1898. Pp. 280, with maps.--Chicago Manual Training School (University
of Chicago): Catalogue, 1898-'99. Pp. 20.--City of Seattle, County of
King, State of Washington: Report of the Chamber of Commerce. Pp.
33.--City Library Association, Springfield, Mass.: Bibliography of
Geographical Instruction. By W. S. Monroe. Pp. 8.--Geographical
Society of Washington: Presidential Address of Arnold Hague, Minutes
for 1897 and 1898, etc. Pp. 48.--Massachusetts Institute of
Technology: Annual Report of the President and Treasurer for 1898. Pp.
96, with plates; Annual Catalogue, 1898-'99. Pp. 347.--Michigan
College of Mines: Catalogue, 1896 to 1898. Pp. 192.--New York Academy
of Natural Sciences: Annals. Vol. XI, Part III. December 1, 1898. Pp.
230.--Ohio State University, Department of Zoölogy and Entomology, No.
1: The Odonata of Ohio. By David S. Kellicott. Pp. 116.--United States
Department of Labor: No. 21. Pp. 188.--United States Life-Saving
Service: Annual Report of Operations to June 30, 1898. Pp. 448.--Utah,
State of: Second Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public
Instruction, to June 30, 1898. Pp. 317, with tables.--War Department
of the United States: Customs Tariff and Regulations for the
Philippine Islands. Pp. 40.
Burgess, O. O. A Question of Consciousness. San Francisco. Pp. 40.
Cumulative Index to a Selected List of Periodicals. Third Annual
Volume, 1898. Cleveland, Ohio: The Helman-Taylor Company. Pp. 792.
Coming Age, The. A Magazine of Constructive Thought. B. O. Flower and
Mrs. C. K. Reifsnider, Editors. Boston and St. Louis. Vol. I, No. 3.
March, 1899. Pp. 112. 20 cents.
Eidlitz, Leopold. On Light. An Analysis of the Emersions of Jupiter's
Satellite I. New York: The Knickerbocker Press. Pp. 12.
Elrod, M. J. The College, Past and Present. Bloomington, Ill.: The
University Press. Pp. 26.
Fay, Edward Allen. Marriages of the Deaf in America. Washington, D.
C.: The Volta Bureau. Pp. 527.
Gardiner, Charles A. Our Right to acquire and to hold Foreign
Territory. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 56.
International Express Company, New York. Chart of Express Routes over
the World. Sheet.
Interstate Commerce Commission. Statistics of Railways in the United
States to June 30, 1897. Pp. 687.
Jacoby, Johann. The Object of the Labor Movement. Translated by
Florence Kelley. New York: International Publishing Company
(International Monthly Library). Pp. 36. 5 cents.
Jackson, Frederick G. A Thousand Days in the Arctic. With Preface by
Admiral S. F. Leopold McClintock. New York: Harper & Brothers. Pp.
940.
Jordan, David Starr, with Official Associates and Special
Contributors. The Fur Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pacific
Ocean. In Two Parts. Washington: Government Printing Office. Pp. 606,
with plates.
Krüger, F. C. Theo. A Step Forward, A Treatise on Possible Social
Reform. New York: Isaac H. Blanchard & Co. Pp. 30.
Lucas, Fred Alexander. The Hermit Naturalist. Trenton, N. J.: William
Hibbert. Pp. 121.
McLaughin, Andrew C. A History of the American Nation. New York: D.
Appleton and Company. Pp. 587. $1.40.
Marsh, O. C. The Dinosaurs of North America. United States Geological
Survey. Pp. 112, with 84 plates.
Marshall, Percival. Small Accumulators, How Made and Used. New York:
Spon and Chamberlain. Pp. 78. 50 cents.
Michigan Ornithological Club, The. Bulletin of, Monthly. Vol. III, No.
1. January, 1899. Grand Rapids, Mich. 50 cents a year.
Moon, Clarence B. Certain Aboriginal Mounds on the Coast of South
Carolina. (Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of
Philadelphia.) Pp. 40, with plates.
Moses, Alfred J. The Characters of Crystals. An Introduction to
Practical Crystallography. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company. Pp. 211.
$2.
Munro, John. The Story of the British Race. (Library of Useful
Stories.) New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 228. 40 cents.
Palmer, Frederick. In the Klondyke. Including an Account of a Winter's
Journey to Dawson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 218. $1.50.
Porter, Robert P. Industrial Cuba, Being a Study of Present Commercial
and Industrial Conditions, etc. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.
428. $3.50.
Reprints. Bolin, Jacob. On Group Contests. Pp. 14.--Coulter, John M.
Notes on the Fertilization and Embryology of Conifers. Pp. 4, with
plates.--Grabau, Amadeus W. Moniloperidæ, A New Family of Palæozoic
Corals. Pp. 16, with 4 plates.--Hunter, S. J. The Coccidæ of Kansas.
II. Pp. 12, with 6 plates.--Oliver, Charles A. The Value of Repeated
and Differently Placed Exposures to the Roentgen Rays in determining
the Location of Foreign Bodies in and about the Eyeball. Pp.
4.--Tyson, James, M. D., Philadelphia. The Uric-Acid Diathesis from a
Clinical Standpoint. Pp. 15.--Washburn, F. L. Hermaphroditism in
Ostrea Lurida. Pp. 3.
The Sanitary Home. A Magazine devoted to Foods, Hygiene, and
University Extension Work. Monthly. Fargo, North Dakota. Pp. 24. 10
cents. $1 a year.
Schimmel & Co., Leipsic and New York. Semi-annual Report (Essential
Oils, etc.). April, 1899. Pp. 68.
Smith, D. T. Philosophy of Memory, and other Essays. Louisville, Ky.:
John P. Morton & Co. Pp. 203.
Smithsonian Institution. Crookes, William. Diamonds. Pp. 16.--Nutting,
J. C. Hydroida from Alaska and Puget Sound. Pp. 12, with plates.
Todd, David P. Stars and Telescopes. A Handy Book of Astronomy.
Boston: Little, Brown & Co. Pp. 419. $2.
Wetterstrand, Otto Georg. Hypnotism and its Application to Practical
Medicine. Authorized Translation. By Henrik G. Petersen. New York: G.
P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 166.
Wilkensen, H. E., Acting Secretary, and French, H. A., Acting
Secretary. An Earnest Word to Our Friends. Portland, Oregon. (Home
Making there.)
Woodhull, John F., and Van Arsdale, M. B. Chemical Experiments. New
York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 136.
Fragments of Science.
=The Gypsies and their Folk Tales.=--In the introduction to his
collection of Gypsy Folk Tales Mr. Francis H. Groome describes the
wide dispersion of the gypsy race as extending, in Europe, from
Finland to Sicily, and from the shores of the Bosporus to the Atlantic
seaboard; in Asia, from Siberia to India, and from Asia Minor
(possibly) to China; in Africa, from Egypt and Algeria to Darfúr and
Kordofan; and in America, from Pictou in Canada to Rio Janeiro.
Believing that the gypsies, originating in India, left that region at
an unknown date very long ago, he traces their migrations in the past
and shows that a part of the race is still very migratory, passing,
among other routes, between Scotland and North America, and between
Spain and Louisiana. Another migration not mentioned in his book is
the annual oscillation between north and south of the North American
gypsy colony, which is growing healthily. The author finds it at
present quite impossible to fix the arrival of the gypsies in
southeastern Europe at a thousand years before Christ or a thousand
years after. If the Komodromoi of the Byzantine writers were gypsies,
then these people must have been a recognized and familiar element of
the Balkan population about as early as the latter date. Gypsies pass
for a very cunning people, and such they are to outsiders, so that
Romany or gypsy guile is a very common expression. Centuries of
suspicion and repression have taught them to arm themselves proof
against confidence in strangers; but to those who become acquainted
with them, as Mr. Groome professes to have done and George Borrow did,
they present a character of simplicity and frankness. There is, as a
gypsy woman once said to a writer in The Athenæum, "somethin' in the
mind of a Gorgio that shuts the Romany's mouth and opens his eyes and
ears." Gypsies are active transmitters of folklore, and have rich
funds of stories; and many believe that the folklore stories of Europe
are traceable to Indian sources, whence they may have been transmitted
to Europe. Mr. Groome suggests how some of these stories may have
originated by telling of a gypsy girl he knew who dashed off "what was
almost a folk tale impromptu." She had been to a picnic in a
four-in-hand with "a lot of real tiptop gentry," and "Reia," she said
to me afterward, "I'll tell you the comicallest thing as ever was.
We'd pulled up to put the brake on, and there was a _puro
hotchiwitchi_ (old hedgehog) come and looked at us through the hedge,
looked at me hard. I could see he'd his eye upon me. And home he'd go,
that old hedgehog, to his wife, and 'Missus,' he'd say, 'what d'ye
think? I seen a little gypsy gal just now in a coach and four horses,'
and 'Dabla,' she'd say, 'bless us, every one now keeps a carriage.'"
=Educational Work of an Experiment Station.=--The survey of the year's
work of Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station in its
efforts to "help the farmer" by dealing with present-day problems
includes mention of its investigations, related in bulletins published
or to be published in reference to fruits, their insect and fungoid
enemies, vegetables, flowers, sugar beets, potatoes, fertilizers,
beans, the dairy, veterinary science, horticulture, and plant disease.
Much of the work of the station can not be published, consisting as it
does of correspondence, personal advice, attending meetings, making
records, or the performance of special illustrative experiments at
farmers' homes or in neighborhoods as object lessons. "It is a pity,"
the report says, "that every farmer in the State can not be personally
touched at least once in his life by the methods and the inspiration
of a good teacher." The itinerant schools which were held in the early
days of the extension work are regarded as being most beneficial when
the community has been awakened by simpler and more elementary means,
while the larger part of the work can be done more economically than
by them. Yet in particular places and cases they are of greatest
value, and they are still held when suitable conditions prevail.
Special dairy schools, largely of the nature of practical
demonstrations, were held at various places. The report lays much
stress on the importance of beginning the educational work with the
children and upon the value of Nature study. More than sixteen
thousand school children have requested and been supplied with
information on the making of gardens.
=Flies as Bearers of Disease.=--In estimating the relative importance
of flies and water supply in spreading disease, Dr. M. A. Veeder
distinguishes between intestinal and malarial disorders. In the former
the infection is a bacillus of some sort, the presence of which can be
traced to contamination by excretions from a diseased bowel. In the
latter the source of infection is peculiar to marshy or stagnant
water, and independent of contamination from human sources. It is the
author's belief that, with relatively unimportant exceptions,
intestinal diseases are spread almost exclusively by flies and
malarial diseases by water, and he supports it by citations from
recent army experiences. Likewise, during the recent British campaign
in Fashoda, which was most carefully planned and took place in a
climate that is exceptionally dry and hygienic, there was no abatement
of typhoid fever. In the case of an outbreak of malignant dysentery
described by the author in a previous paper, taken at its height, not
a new case occurred after measures were adopted that made conveyance
by flies impossible, although there had been fresh ones every day for
some time previously. Another more recent "lively epidemic" of typhoid
mentioned by the author was ended in a day by measures directed
against conveyance by water. "When flies are responsible, there are
little neighborhood epidemics, extending in short leaps from house to
house, without reference to water supply or anything else in common.
But when water is at fault the disease follows its use wherever it may
go.... Epidemics spread by flies tend to follow the direction of
prevailing warm winds, as though the fly, wandering outdoors after
contact with the source of infection, had drifted with the wind, but
nothing of the sort is perceptible in the case of water-borne
disease."
=Pottery Making and Lead Poisoning.=--The report of Professors Thorpe
and Oliver on the subject of the employment of compounds of lead in
the manufacture of pottery, especially in its relation to the health
of the work people, has just been issued as an English blue book. It
appears that of the total male workers in the year 1898, 4.9 per cent
became "leaded," while of the female workers the proportion was 12.4
per cent. It is stated that in the last six months many successful
attempts have been made by the manufacturers to substitute a leadless
glaze, and there seems no doubt that glazes of sufficient brilliancy,
covering power, and durability are now within the reach of the
manufacturer. The exclusion of women from certain parts of the work,
except where leadless glazes are used, is advocated, and also various
expedients for preventing the absorption of the lead by the skin, such
as rubber gloves or "dipping" tongs. Their general conclusions are as
follows: "That by far the greater amount of earthenware of the class
already specified can be glazed without the use of lead in any form.
It has been demonstrated, without the slightest doubt, that the ware
so made is in no respects inferior to that coated with lead glaze.
There seems no reason, therefore, why in the manufacture of this class
of goods the operatives should still continue to be exposed to the
evils which the use of lead glaze entails. There are, however, certain
branches of the pottery industry in which it would be more difficult
to dispense with the use of lead compounds. But there is no reason
why, in these cases, the lead so employed should not be in the form of
a fritted double silicate. Such a compound, if properly made, is but
slightly attacked by even strong hydrochloric, acetic, or lactic acid.
There can be little doubt that, if lead must be used, the employment
of such a compound silicate--if its use could be insured--would
greatly diminish the evil of lead poisoning. The use of raw lead as an
ingredient of glazing material, or as an ingredient of colors which
have to be subsequently fired, should be absolutely prohibited. As it
would be very difficult to insure that an innocuous lead glaze shall
be employed, we are of opinion that young persons and women should be
excluded from employment as dippers, dippers' assistants, ware
cleaners after dippers, and glost placers in factories where lead
glaze is used, and that the adult male dippers, dippers' assistants,
ware cleaners, and glost placers should be subjected to systematic
medical inspection. In the 1893 report the medical members of the
committee expressed the opinion that 'many old factories are wholly,
or in part, unfit in a sanitary point of view for occupation,' and
they suggested that 'there should be some authority to close them, or
whatever part of them is condemned, on the same principle as dwellings
are declared uninhabitable.' We share this opinion and we concur in
the suggestion. Certain of the factories we have inspected are in the
last stages of dilapidation, and it appears to us to be well-nigh
impossible to introduce into them such rearrangements or additions as
are required by the amended special rules."
=The Longevity of Animals.=--The following interesting table, showing
the periods of maturity and the full term of life of various animals,
was prepared by E. D. Bell and appeared in Nature for March 23d. The
table was made for the purpose of demonstrating a constant relation
(in length) between these two periods of life, which the author
expresses in the following formula, in which f. t. l. = full term of
life, and p. m. the time required to arrive at maturity:
f. t. l. = 10.5(p. m.) / [3root](p. m.), or 10.5 × (p. m.)^{2/3}
and which seems to be fairly well borne out by the table:
----------+-----------------------------------+----------
| OBSERVATIONS. | f. t. l.
ANIMAL. |-----------------+---------+-------| by
| Authority. | p. m. | f.t.l | formula.
----------+-----------------+---------+-------+----------
| |Mos. Yr. | Yrs. | Years.
Dormouse | Ainslie Hollis. | 3 .25 | 4-5 | 4.167
Guinea-pig| Flourens. | 7 .583 | 6-7 | 7.33
Loprabbit:| | | |
Buck | R. O. Edwards, | | |
| p. m. | 9 .75 | 8 | 8.67
Doe | R. O. Edwards, | | |
| p. m. | 8 .667 | 8 | 8.013
| | Years. | |
Cat | St. G. Mivart. | 1 | 12 | 10.5
Cat | J. Jennings. | 2 | 15 | 16.67
Goat | Pegler. | 1.25 | 12 | 12.18
Fox | St. G. Mivart. | 1.5 | 13-14 | 13.76
Cattle | Ainslie Hollis. | 2 | 18 | 16.67
Large dogs| Dalziel, p. m. | 2 | 15-20 | 16.67
Eng. thor-| | | |
oughbred | | | |
horse | Ainslie Hollis. | 4.5 | 30 | 28.62
Hog | James Long. | 5 | 30 | 30.7
Hippopot- | | | |
amus | Chambers's | | |
| Encyclopædia. | 5 | 30 | 30.7
Lion | St. G. Mivart. | 6 | 30-40 | 34.67
Eng. horse| | | |
--hunter | Blaine. | 6.25 | 35 | 35.63
Arab horse| Ainslie Hollis. | 8 | 40 | 42.00
Camel | Flourens. | 8 | 40 | 42.00
Man | Buffon, f. t. l.| 25 | 90-100| 89.77
Elephant | Darwin. | 30 | 100 |101.4
Elephant | C. F. Holder | | |
| and Indian | | |
| hunters. | 35 | 120 |112.35
----------+-----------------+---------+-------+----------
=The Manufacture of Firecrackers in China.=--There were exported from
China during the year ending June 30, 1897, 26,705,733 pounds of
firecrackers, all from the province of Kwantung. The exports, however,
represent only a small portion of the number manufactured, as the use
of the cracker is universal all over China. They are used at weddings,
births, funerals, at festivals, religious and civil, and in fact on
all occasions out of the ordinary routine. The United States consul
general at Shanghai gives the following account of the industry: There
are no large factories; the crackers are made in small houses and in
the shops where they are sold. In making them only the cheapest kind
of straw paper is used for the body of the cracker. A little finer
paper is used for the wrapper. A piece of straw paper, nine by thirty
inches, will make twenty-one crackers an inch and a half long and a
quarter inch in diameter. The powder is also of the cheapest grade,
and is made in the locality where used. It costs about six cents per
pound. For the fuse a paper (called "leather" in Shanghai) is used,
which is imported from Japan, and is made from the inner lining of the
bamboo. In other places a fine rice paper is used, generally stiffened
slightly with buckwheat-flour paste, which the Chinese say adds to its
inflammability. A strip of this paper one third of an inch wide by
fourteen inches (a Chinese foot) long is laid on a table, and a very
little powder put down the middle of it with a hollow bamboo stick. A
quick twist of the paper makes the fuse ready for use. The straw paper
is first rolled by hand around an iron rod, which varies in size
according to the size of cracker to be made. To complete the rolling a
rude machine is used. This consists of two uprights supporting an axis
from which is suspended, by two arms, a heavy piece of wood, slightly
convex on the lower side. There is just room between this swinging
block and top of the table to place the cracker. As each layer of
paper is put on by hand, the cracker is placed on the table and the
suspended weight is drawn over the roll, thus tightening it until no
more can be passed under the weight. For the smallest "whip" crackers,
the workman uses for compression, instead of this machine, a heavy
piece of wood fitted with a handle like that of a carpenter's plane.
In filling crackers, two hundred to three hundred are tightly tied
together in a bunch; red clay is spread over the end of the bunch, and
forced into the end of each cracker with a punch. While the clay is
being treated a little water is sprayed on it, which makes it pack
closer. The powder is poured in at the other end of the cracker. With
the aid of an awl the edge of the paper is turned in at the upper end
of the cracker, and the fuse is inserted through this. The long ends
of the fuses are braided together in such a way that the crackers lie
in two parallel rows. The braid is doubled on itself, and a large,
quick-firing fuse inserted, and the whole is bound with a fine thread.
The bundle is wrapped in paper and in this shape is sent to the
seacoast. A variety of cracker which is very popular in China is the
"twice-sounding" cracker; it has two chambers, separated by a plug of
clay, through which runs a connecting fuse. There is also a fuse
extending from the powder in the lower chamber through the side of the
cracker. When the cracker is to be fired, it is set on end and fire
applied to the fuse. The powder exploding in the chamber throws the
cracker high in the air, where the second charge is exploded by fire
from the fuse extending through the plug between the two chambers. In
the manufacture of these the clay is first packed in with a punch to
form the separating plug. The lower chamber is then loaded with powder
and closed by turning over the paper at the end. The upper chamber is
loaded and closed with clay. A hole is punched in the side of the
lower chamber with an awl, and the fuse inserted through this opening.
=An Enchanted Ravine.=--During his archæological researches in the
Uloa Valley, Honduras (Memoirs of Peabody Museum), Mr. George Byron
Gordon made an excursion to the wonderful enchanted ravine, _Quebrada
Encantada_, which was famous through all the country for its weather
wisdom. It was situated in a deep valley, and, Mr. Gordon says, "sends
forth a loud melodious sound which may be heard many miles away, and
is regarded by the people of the region as an infallible sign of rain.
In fact, it is a regular weather bureau, with this peculiarity, that
it is always reliable; for the sound is so modulated as to indicate by
its pitch whether the coming storm is to be heavy or light. The amount
of promised rain is in exact proportion to the volume of the sound,
and thus it proclaims to the accustomed ear with unerring precision
the approach of a passing shower or heralds the terrific thunderstorm
of the tropics; and this is no fiction, but a fact, which any one may
demonstrate for himself by going and listening to it." Tradition says
the ravine was the abode of a golden dragon, and that in former times
"it was lined with golden pebbles and the sands at its margin were
grains of gold, and it was the custom of the golden dragon to rise
occasionally to the margin of the pool and receive the offerings that
were made to him by the people. If they wanted rain, they would bring
their offerings and lay them on the golden sand behind the pool or
cast them on the water; then, while all the people chanted a prayer,
the dragon would rise from the cave where he dwelt in the depths of
the pool, and take the good things that were offered him, and there
was never a drought or a famine in the land. Then, when the Spaniards
came and the people were driven from their homes, the golden pebbles
and grains of gold disappeared, and the golden dragon, retiring into
the uttermost corner of his watery cavern, withdrew forever from the
upper world. There he still lives, and, as formerly, controls the
clouds and the winds that bring the rain. The spirits of the Indians,
too, still hold their meetings of an occasional evening by their
accustomed pool, now lost in the solitude of the forest, and it is the
sound of their chanting that makes the voice of the ravine." The pool
is formed by a cataract tumbling down the side of the mountain and
making a final fall of fifty feet, and the sound of the tumbling of
the waters forms the basis of the pretty legend.