of perusing some of the narrative and observations which Professor
_Heilprin_ has embodied in his _Alaska and the Klondike_.[29] In it he
has attempted to portray that remarkable region in its true aspects.
Professor Heilprin is well able to do so, for he is a keen observer
and looks with a scientific eye, and his literary style is free and
graphic. He made a summer journey to the region last year (1898),
between the end of July and the middle of October, with the object of
being "able to determine between fact and fancy, and to obtain a
personal knowledge of the region and its varied conditions." What he
saw and heard is here presented. While by no means pretending to that
degree of accuracy and of proper insight which can only come with more
protracted and intimate knowledge, the author believes that he has
given a careful and unprejudiced account. Persons whose ideas of the
regions about Dawson are associated with visions of arctic severity
and sterility may be a little surprised at reading of one's looking
from the heights about the town northwestward "over a most lovely
stretch of river, with hillsides closely besetting it, and with a
vegetation of most striking brilliancy and vigor," and of the eye
turned southward, losing, in consequence of the different
configuration of the ground, "all but the beautiful verdant slopes
which still mark out the valley"; of the beholder being able for hours
at a time to sit watching the beauty of the landscape; and of the
difficulty of recommending to one endowed with a proper appreciation
for the works of quiet Nature "a more enjoyable exercise than to take
in a bit of this wonderful land of the North, and with it a mellow
sunshine that is not to be found elsewhere." These pretty landscape
pictures of the arctic summer are followed by accounts of society at
the Klondike as the author found it, of the trail, steamboat travel,
and the routes to the region; a description of the placers, their
occurrence, and the methods of mining; observations on the physical
history and geology of the gold fields; and a summary of the laws
regulating mining. In the summary of his geological discussion the
author expresses the opinion that it seems probable that "the Klondike
gold region is merely a fractional part of a discontinuously
continuous auriferous tract that extends in a westerly course into the
heart of Alaska, and southward into British Columbia."
[Footnote 29: Alaska and the Klondike. A Journey to the New
Eldorado. With Hints to the Traveler and Observations on the
Physical History and Geology of the Gold Regions, the Conditions
and Methods of working the Klondike Placers, and the Laws
governing and regulating Mining in the Northwest Territory of
Canada. By Angelo Heilprin. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp.
315. Price, $1.75.]
_Mr. Bullen's Idylls of the Sea_[30] comprises three groups of essays,
each group being marked by distinct characteristics. The sketches in
the first group, the designation of which gives the name to the book,
answer approximately well to Mr. Strachey's estimation of the whole as
"some of the most vivid things ever written about the sea," such as
only a man who really knows the sea in all its humors, and "has heard
all those multitudinous voices that echo along the waste spaces of the
deep," could write. There is something weird about them, and they have
the air of mystery and superstitious awe with which, according to
tradition, the sailor regards the imperfectly understood features of
the sea. They are short stories of curious or striking incidents of
sea life. The essays of the second group are real natural-history
sketches--accounts of some oceanic birds, the kraken, sharks, the
devilfish, etc., by a man who is well and scientifically acquainted
with them. The third group includes longer sketches of sea-farers'
life, rather more actual ones than those of the first group, and
papers having a critical bearing on the present conditions of British
seamanship.
[Footnote 30: Idylls of the Sea. By Frank T. Bullen. With an
Introduction by J. St. Loe Strachey. New York: D. Appleton and
Company. Price, $1.25.]
The constant advance in the knowledge of dietetics makes it desirable
that its results should be put in an accessible form, and this is
particularly the case in regard to food for those in ill health, to
whom it may be the means of restoring the normal condition. In her
book on _Diet in Illness and Convalescence_[31] the author has
endeavored to present the substance of Diet for the Sick, now out of
print, together with recent thought on the subject, especially in the
treatment of typhoid and malarial fevers, which we owe in such variety
to the present war. An outline is given for suitable food in the more
common forms of disease, suggestions for serving meals tastefully to
an invalid, and numerous recipes for beverages, soups, dishes of
meats, vegetables, and desserts. Some of these are taken from English
and French treatises; others are contributions of American cooks, and
include many novel and excellent ideas. From the preparation of
koumiss and May wine to the manipulation of Dixie biscuit there is no
want of explicitness, and one is tempted to covet the state of
convalescence in which he could fare upon such attractive compounds as
rose, violet, or amethyst jelly. A word of caution is inserted now and
then. We are told "a fritter of any kind should never be mentioned in
an invalid's book." Macaroni croquettes and soufflé of shad roe are,
however, admissible. The beginning of the volume is devoted by the
author to a brief consideration of the constituents of food and
processes of digestion, with directions for the use of the pancreatic
ferments. There are unfortunately many disputed points concerning a
fit dietary in illness; not only idiosyncrasies of constitution but
incomplete knowledge of physiological chemistry still render the
problem difficult. New foods are constantly introduced which
subsequent experiment proves to be harmful. The last dictum, we
believe, in regard to saccharin is that it is not wholly innocuous, so
that it might be as well for the diabetic patient to learn to do
without sweets in the beginning, while as for the digestive ferments,
they are at the least hazardous concoctions. We can not be too wary of
artificial substitutes and laboratory products which claim the virtues
of organic material or living protoplasm.
[Footnote 31: Diet in Illness and Convalescence. By Alice
Worthington Winthrop. New York: Harper & Brothers. Pp. 286.]
The reason for the being of _John Munro's The Story of the British
Race_[32] is briefly indicated in the preface as to be found in the
fact that the current ideas on the subject are derived from the views
of historians representing the doctrines of an earlier and less
critical generation, while the fact is overlooked that the new science
of anthropology, using careful observations and exact methods, has put
the real nature of the British people in a light in which it was never
seen so clearly before. The result is that the old ideas on the
subject have been greatly modified. Mr. Munro believes that his little
book is the first attempt to bring these important results and views
of modern anthropologists before the general public in familiar
language, whereby the oversights of historians and teachers may be
redeemed. An important error to be controverted, in the author's view,
lies in the fine-drawn distinctions and sharply defined demarcations
that have been made between Celts and Saxons. It is inferred from
anthropology that the population of the British Isles is a mixture of
all the races of western Europe, in which the Teutonic and
Mediterranean elements--"the aborigines of Europe"--predominate, while
"the intrusive Celtic race from Asia," still represented by the
Bretons, passed into the British Isles in comparatively small numbers.
Scotland is perhaps more Teutonic and less Mediterranean than England,
Wales, or Ireland. Wales is the least Teutonic and the most
Mediterranean, if not Celtic, of the three. England has more of the
Dutch and Low Country elements than of the Scandinavian, with
apparently not far short of an equal share of the Mediterranean and
Teutonic elements. Ireland is perhaps as Teutonic as England, though
the better fusion of the elements may disguise the fact. The author
thinks that the first chapters of English history will have to be
written over again by the light of anthropology.
[Footnote 32: The Story of the British Race. (Library of Useful
Stories.) By John Munro. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp.
228. Price, 40 cents.]
The _Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological
Survey_[33] mentions, as an important change in the field work that
made necessary by the legislation providing for the establishment of
levels and permanent monuments and bench marks, of which 10,840 miles
of levels were run and 1,820 bench marks were established. The
topographic surveys to date covered an aggregate area of 759,525
square miles, of which 240,000 square miles were on a scale of four
miles to the inch. The topographic work has progressed very
satisfactorily under the present organization of the survey,
including, in the year covered by the report, surveys in the Indian
Territory and of the northern part of the boundary line between Idaho
and Montana--the first work of the kind assigned to the Geological
Survey--and the beginning of the survey of the forest reserves. The
work on the educational series of rocks has been completed. It
includes two hundred and fifty larger and smaller sets, which will be
distributed to institutions where geology is taught. In his general
report the director mentions the work of more than thirty geological
parties in all parts of the United States, of six paleontological
parties, hydrographic and topographic surveys by States, and the work
of the division of mineral resources, the full account of which will
constitute Part V of the report. The theoretic and other papers in
Part II relate to the Triassic Formation of Connecticut (W. M.
Davis), Geology of the Edwards Plateau, etc., Texas (R. T. Hill and J.
W. Vaughan), North American Tertiary Horizons (W. H. Dall), Glaciers
of Mount Rainier (I. C. Russell) and Rocks of Mount Rainier (G. O.
Smith), The Franklin White Limestone of New Jersey (J. E. Wolfe and A.
H. Brooks), the Geology of San Clemente Island (W. S. T. Smith),
Geology of the Cape Cod District (N. H. Shaler), and Recent Earth
Movement in the Great Lakes Region (G. K. Gilbert). Part III contains
papers on the gold districts of Alaska, by G. F. Becker, J. E. Spurr,
and H. B. Goodrich; Coal Fields of Puget Sound (B. Willis), the Judith
Mountains of Montana (W. H. Weed and L. V. Pirsson), Certain Mining
Districts in Idaho (W. Lindgren and F. H. Knowlton), and the Mining
Districts of the Telluride Quadrangle, Colorado (C. W. Purington). The
four papers in Part IV are a Report of Progress of Stream Measurements
during 1896, by A. P. Davis; the Water Resources of Indiana and Ohio,
by Frank Leverett; New Developments in Well-boring in South Dakota, by
N. H. Darton; and Water Storage and the Construction of Dams, by J. D.
Schuyler.
[Footnote 33: Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States
Geological Survey to the Secretary of the Interior, 1896-'97.
Charles D. Walcott, Director. In Five Parts. Director's Report,
including Triangulation and Spirit Leveling. Pp. 450, with 4
plates. Part II; Papers chiefly of a Theoretic Nature. Pp. 653,
with 105 plates. Part III; Economic Geology. Pp. 861, with 118
plates. Part IV; Hydrography. Pp. 756, with 102 plates.]
The purpose of _Belle S. Cragin's Our Insect Friends and Foes_[34] is
illustrated from a passage in the author's own life, cited in the
preface: "In my younger days, when Nature study was unknown in schools
and my problems had to be solved by my own investigations or remain
unsolved, I used to long for somebody to write a book that would tell
me the things I wished to know, or show me how to find them out for
myself; and that is what I have tried to do for you." The beginning of
the book is a chapter on the collection, preservation, and care of
insects for specimens, giving explicit directions for collecting them
perfect, for putting them to death, for mounting and placing them in
the cabinet, and for protecting them against vermin, dust, and mold,
with descriptions of the instruments, cases, etc., that are used. In
the descriptions of insects no attempt is made to mention any except
the commonest species, and not all of those. The habitat, in most
cases, is included in the description. As a rule, most of the species
are those found in the States east of the Rocky Mountains and north of
the Gulf States. Scientific names are attached to the illustrations
and a list of popular names, with their scientific equivalents. The
descriptions are brief and well adapted to the purpose indicated in
the quotation with which our notice begins.
[Footnote 34: Our Insect Friends and Foes. How to Collect,
Preserve, and Study them. By Belle S. Cragin. New York: G. P.
Putnam's Sons. Pp. 377. Price, $1.75.]
In presenting a revision of their _Plane and Solid Geometry_[35]
Messrs. _Beman_ and _Smith_ express their belief as being, that amid
all the schemes for breaking away from the formal proofs of Euclid and
Legendre and leading the student to independent discovery, the best
results are secured by setting forth a minimum of formal proofs as
models, and a maximum of unsolved or unproved propositions as
exercises. They likewise share in the belief that such of the notions
of modern geometry as materially simplify the ancient should find
place in our elementary text-books. Accordingly, they have introduced
various ideas, such as those of one-to-one correspondence,
anti-parallels, negative magnitudes, general figures, prismatic space,
similarity of point systems, etc., which are of real use in the early
study of the science. In general, whatever is found to be usable in
elementary work has been inserted where it will prove of most value.
[Footnote 35: New Plane and Solid Geometry. By W. W. Beman and D.
E. Smith. Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp. 382.]
The plan of the investigation undertaken by Mr. _Walter Smith_ in his
_Methods of Knowledge_[36] is, first, to give a definition of
knowledge. The methods are then considered by which men have thought
it possible to attain knowledge of the self on the one hand, and the
not-self on the other. The common view of philosophers and men of
science that truth is given in general concepts, or universals, or
categories, is taken up, and the special form of the doctrine given in
empiricism is considered and found to be a doctrine wanting in all its
forms. Yet it is pointed out that the concept has its uses in the
mental economy. The method is then expounded of knowing the not-self
as being gained by sympathetic imitation. It is then determined
wherein self-knowledge consists, and the bearing of this theory on the
philosophical problem and on certain practical questions is indicated.
[Footnote 36: Methods of Knowledge. An Essay in Epistemology. New
York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 340. Price, $1.25.]
In _The Philosophy of Memory and Other Essays_[37] Dr. _D. T. Smith_
develops a theory of mental action, the basis of which is the setting
up in the cells of the gray matter of the brain, and possibly of the
spinal cord, of orderly grouping of waves or vibrations among certain
atoms or molecules by whatever may affect any of the senses; that
these undulations are realized first as sensations, and then group
themselves so as to form perceptions, ideas, emotions, etc. They rise
in succession into the scope of consciousness. After a time the effect
of these vibrations in consciousness is weakened, without perhaps
utterly passing away, and retains the possibility of being re-enforced
by kindred vibrations in harmony with it. This is memory.
[Footnote 37: The Philosophy of Memory and Other Essays. By D. T.
Smith. Louisville, Ky.: John P. Morton & Co. Pp. 203.]
In _The Psychology of Reasoning_[38] M. _Alfred Binet_ makes reasoning
a process of the formation of mental images. He finds no decided
difference between perception--the cognizance of sensations and
assignment of them to their source--and logical reasoning. "The two
operations are both reasonings, transitions from the known to the
unknown"; "the two extremes of a long series of phenomena." A premise
is "a judgment, an association of images," and a conclusion that
follows from the premises is "an association of images produced by
other associations." The theory of three images--the two premises and
the conclusion--"is applicable to reasonings of every kind, and
therefore constitutes a general theory of reasoning.... If it be
recollected that images are fragments, residues of former sensations;
that they spring from the place where former sensations have been
received, in the sensory centers of the cerebral surface layers, it
will be understood that the purpose of these images in grouping
themselves in reasonings, according to the laws of their affinity, is
to replace the absent sensations. Such is therefore the function of
reasoning; it enlarges the sphere of our sensibility, and extends it
to all objects which our senses can not know directly. Thus
understood, reasoning is a _supplementary sense_, which has the
advantage of being free from those strict conditions of time and
space--the two enemies of human knowledge." In memory, "the suggested
image is projected and localized in the panorama of the past, of which
it appears to be a fragment." Imagination is "a faculty of creating
assemblages of images which do not correspond to any external
reality."
[Footnote 38: The Psychology of Reasoning. Based on Experimental
Researches in Hypnotism. By Alfred Binet. Chicago: The Open Court
Publishing Company. Pp. 191.]
The idea of preparing _Who's Who in America_[39] was suggested by the
success of the English book, Who's Who? now in its fifty-second year,
and the work has been prepared on similar lines. Its purpose is to
supply information concerning living American men and women who have
achieved distinction, who hold recognized public positions, and who
have contributed so as to have it talked about to the growth,
development, knowledge, and civilization of the country. Eight
thousand six hundred and two such persons are represented in this
book, including, _ex-officio_, all members of the Fifty-sixth
Congress, Governors of States and Territories now in office, United
States, State, and territorial judges of courts of high jurisdiction,
persons of other prominent official classification, national
academicians, members of the National Academy of Sciences, heads of
the larger universities and colleges, and a few others chosen on
similar arbitrary lines. Special effort has been made to include all
living American authors of books of more than ephemeral value. The
data for the book have been obtained from first hands, except in a
very few cases, where the modesty of the subjects made it necessary
to supply the material from other sources, when the articles were
submitted to the subjects for revision.
[Footnote 39: Who's Who in America. A Biographical Dictionary of
Living Men and Women in the United States, 1899-1900. Edited by
John W. Leonard. Chicago: A. N. Marquis & Co. Pp. 822.]
In _The Dawn of Reason_[40] Dr. _Weir_ has provided a most interesting
book for the unscientific reader as well as for the comparative
psychologist. He traces the gradual unfolding of conscious mind in
animal life from the actinophryans which discriminates between the
grains of starch and sand, and the Stentor which changes its position
to catch a ripened spore, to the higher forms that decorate their
homes, exhibit parental affection, exercise mathematical faculty, and
extricate themselves from unforeseen dangers. As the field of
observation of the senses of touch, taste, and smell has been so
thoroughly worked by Lubbock and other naturalists, special attention
is paid by the author to the senses of sight and hearing, in regard to
which he furnishes new and valuable data. In addition to these he
claims to establish the fact that tinctumutations and "homing" are
auxiliary senses--not instincts. He located the center of color
changing in the frog exactly below the optic, and by artificial
stimulation produced the alteration in tint, and by excision, or
treatment with atropine, destroyed the chromatophoric function. By
experimentation upon snails he found the center of the sense of
locality at the base of the cephalic ganglion, and, removing it,
rendered them unable to return to their homes. Many anecdotes are
given showing that the lower orders of animal life exercise conscious
determination, and that among those with more complex nervous systems
there is a mind akin to that of man. Not only do animals remember
friends, strangers, and events, but they love, hate, and fear. They
evince æsthetic feeling also when the spider ornaments its web with
logwood flakes, the dog howls in harmonic accord with the church bell,
and salamanders assemble at the sound of a piccolo. Still higher
psychical attributes are those of animals that show parental affection
or ability to count, like the mason wasp, which provides invariably
five spiders for the male larva and eight for the female; or the
harvester ants that plant their grain, weed and winnow it. Examples
are cited of the capacity of the elephant to form abstract ideas and
of the dog to indulge in brown studies. The author scouts at the
theory that "specialized instinct," or "intelligent accident," prompts
actions in animals which in man would be ascribed to reason.
"Instinct," he writes, "is the bugbear of psychologists," and
thereupon he differentiates sharply the two sadly confused functions.
[Footnote 40: The Dawn of Reason. By James Weir, Jr., M. D. New
York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 234. Price, $1.25.]
In the thesis entitled _A Step Forward_, _F. Theodor Kruger_ proposes,
as a measure of possible social reform, placing the medical and legal
professions wholly under the direct control of the civil authorities,
to be exercised through duly constituted boards or departments of the
several communities.
In his study of _Centralized Administration of Liquor Laws in the
American Commonwealths_ (Columbia University Studies in History,
Economics, and Public Law) _Clement M. L. Sites_ finds that widely
variant policies are followed by the several States in the regulation
of the liquor traffic, all based upon the broad powers of taxation and
police. While we hear much of characteristic plans of regulation,
little is said about characteristic systems of administration. This is
because the liquor laws are administered incoherently. There is no
consensus, even within the Commonwealth, in standards of
administration. Each community practically determines for itself how
the law shall be enforced, and we have all degrees of enforcement,
from rigid severity to none. The various plans of regulation are
classified by the author according to the dominant aspect in which
they regard the liquor traffic. It has been treated as an open
traffic, subject simply to taxation and reasonable safeguards; as a
necessary but dangerous business, to be limited to approved persons
and places and surrounded by special safeguards; as a criminal
enterprise, to be suppressed, like highway robbery; and as a subject
of legal monopoly. It is the purpose of Mr. Sites's essay to follow
the developments of centralized administration that have taken place
in recent years in each of these spheres, and in that of the
institution and maintenance of judicial proceedings. The phases of
current development that seem to merit special note are the
substitution of the liquor-tax system for the license system, the
extension and elaboration of local option, the contingent central
control of city police administration, and the recognition of the
general province of administration. The author's study shows that
these developments accord in general with the laws of evolution, each
representing some special aspect of the differentiation. In
considering the "dispensary" plan, illustrated in South Carolina, a
significant contribution to current thought is remarked in the
approval it gives to the use of liquors as a beverage, while their
abuse is disapproved in an equally marked degree, a distinction being
attempted here, with correspondingly different methods of treatment
between those who can be trusted with liquors and those who can not.
_The Report of the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries_
for the year ending June 30, 1898, represents that the operations of
the division of fish culture were in some respects more important
during that than in any preceding year. This was owing in part to the
natural growth of the work, and in part to greater efficiency in
dealing with the various questions and problems that came up for
consideration. The propagation and distribution of food fishes
exceeded by about forty per cent the work accomplished in any other
twelve months. The steady increase in the catch of shad is cited as
being conclusive evidence of the value of artificial propagation. The
constant decline in the lobster fishery accentuates the necessity for
increased work in that line. The efforts to acclimatize food fishes in
waters to which they are not indigenous have been continued. The
special papers published in connection with the report relate to
mackerel investigations, the alewife fisheries, the oyster beds of
Louisiana, the shad fisheries of the Atlantic coast, reports of fishes
obtained in sea explorations, a list of publications, and a report of
the exhibit at the Tennessee Centennial.