in 1897, authorized the appointment of a committee to inquire into the
scope and method of the eleventh census, with a view of determining
what ought to be attempted in the twelfth. In order to make an
adequate review of the eleventh census this committee invited a
certain number of critical articles on particular portions of the
work; and further, in order to discover what might seem weak points in
the work and what inquiries it might seem desirable to elaborate in
the twelfth census, addressed a circular letter of questions to all
the members of the association. Only about sixty replies were received
to the questions, but a generous response was made to the invitations
to contribute reviews, the result of which is a series of papers by
independent authors upon specific topics which are regarded as
constituting a very valuable commentary on the Federal census and on
statistical methods in general. These criticisms are now embodied in a
book[59] of more than five hundred pages, containing twenty essays by
authors each of whom is specially interested in the particular topic
of which he treats. These articles include a general review of the
statistics of population, by Walter F. Wilcox, and special articles on
the negro population, by W. Z. Ripley; the North American Indians, by
Franz Boas; Age, Sex, Dwellings, and Families, and Urban Population,
by George K. Holmes; Illiteracy and Educational Statistics, by Davis
R. Dewey; Statistics of Occupation, by Richard Mayo-Smith; Various
Aspects of the Vital and Social Statistics, by Cressy L. Wilbur,
Irving Fisher, Roland P. Falkner, and Samuel M. Lindsay; of
Agriculture and Farms, by N. I. Stone and David Kelley;
Transportation, by Emery R. Johnson and Walter E. Weyl; Manufactures,
by S. N. D. North, William M. Stewart, Worthington C. Ford, and
Charles J. Bullock; Wealth, Debt, and Taxation, by Carl C. Plehn;
Municipal Finance, by Henry B. Gardner; and the Scope and Method of
the Twelfth Census, by William C. Hunt. A number of general
conclusions are pointed out by the committee as deducible from the
papers contributed by these writers. The criticism throughout touches
not so much the accuracy of the census as the treatment of the data
and the lack of continuity from census to census--both defects
believed to be largely due to the insufficient time allowed by law for
preparing plans and schedules. The work of the census is believed to
be seriously impeded by the number and variety of the investigations
ordered, in consequence of which fundamental inquiries can not receive
attention. A number of subordinate inquiries might advantageously be
transferred to established bureaus or departments under whose scope
they would properly fall, and some of which already publish annual
volumes of kindred statistics. Among classes of defects or weaknesses
in method pointed out in the criticisms are a lack of comparability
in data from census to census, lack of co-ordination, certain
specified faults in method, and faults in the textual analysis of the
figures. A summary of the answers received to the circular letter of
questions is appended, particularly of the answers to the request to
suggest what special information might be furnished by the twelfth
census which is not in the eleventh. Many of the writers point to the
desirability of a permanent census bureau. The committee has a right
to congratulate itself, as it does, "upon this noteworthy collection
of papers--the result of the scientific zeal and effort of so many
men."
[Footnote 59: The Federal Census. Critical Essays by Members of
the American Economic Association, collected and edited by a
Special Committee. Published for the American Economic
Association by the Macmillan Company, New York. Pp. 516. Price,
$1; cloth, $2.50.]
GENERAL NOTICES.
The qualification of Mr. _Frederick A. Ober_ to write a book about
_Puerto Rico and its Resources_[60] is indicated by the facts that he
visited every point of importance on the island in 1880, and revisited
it as West Indian Commissioner for the Columbian Exposition. To the
fruits of observations made during these two visits he has added
information gathered from the books that have been written about
Puerto Rico by Spanish and other officers. A plain, concise account of
the island is presented, without sensational exaggerations and free
from apparent padding. It begins with the consideration and estimation
of the commercial and strategic value of the island. Next its coastal
features, rivers--of which it seems to have a relatively good
supply--and harbors are described. Then the climate, which is "hot and
moist, yet in the main less injurious to the health of white people
than that of adjacent islands"; seasons, which are not very variable;
and hurricanes, which appear to be rather an important feature. As to
products, they are of course tropical, and grow, as in Mexico, in
three zones of climate and vegetation. Considering these more
specially a chapter is given to Sugar, Tobacco, Coffee, and Cacao;
another to Fruits, Spices, Cereals, and Food Plants; and a third to
Dyes, Drugs, Woods, and Minerals. The chapter on Natural History
includes accounts of game and insect pests. The topographic
description begins with San Juan, the capital, and takes in the cities
and towns of the coast and the inland towns and routes of travel. A
few words are devoted to the government as it has been, and the
general characteristics of the people are briefly sketched. Accounts
of their foods, drinks, diversions, etc., are given, after which the
author passes to the Indians of Puerto Rico. Two chapters relate to
the general and the recent history of the island respectively.
Considerable information of a statistical character is included in an
appendix.
[Footnote 60: Puerto Rico and its Resources. By Frederick A.
Ober. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 282, with Map.]
President _D. S. Jordan's Footnotes to Evolution_[61] is made up of
popular essays or addresses on the general subject of organic
evolution which were given originally as oral lectures before
University Extension Societies. Three of them have been also published
in this Monthly, and as many in another magazine. Besides the author's
own twelve essays, he has inserted in this volume three other papers
of special importance, setting forth the present state of knowledge
concerning the methods of evolution and of heredity. These are on the
Factors of Organic Evolution as displayed in the Process of
Development, by Prof. E. G. Conklin; the Physical Basis of Heredity,
by Prof. F. M. McFarland; on The Testimony from Paleontology, by Prof.
J. P. Smith. President Jordan's own essays begin with a discussion of
the kinship of life. This is followed by three articles on evolution,
relating to its nature, elements, and factors from the point of view
of embryology, and an application of the subject in the paper on The
Heredity of Richard Roe, in which the rise of race types from the
survival of the existing race with its best results modified and
preserved by the survival of the fittest is illustrated. In the
seventh essay certain facts of animal distribution as related to the
origin of species are considered; in the eighth (Latitude and
Vertebrata) the curious biological problem of the possession of more
numerous vertebræ by northern than by tropical fishes is considered--a
problem the solution of which on any other hypothesis than that of the
derivation of species would be impossible. The evolution of mind is
then taken up as the sum total of all psychic changes, actions, and
reactions, and this development is extended to nations the laws of
whose greatness "expand themselves from the laws which govern the
growth of the single cell." In the essay on Degeneration a lesson is
drawn in favor of individual initiative. Hereditary Inefficiency is
discussed in view of the danger from pauperism. Some of the aspects of
the woman question are considered in another of the essays. In the
paper on The Stability of Truth some recent enunciations of Lord
Salisbury, Mr. Balfour, and Haeckel respecting science are criticised.
The last essay is on The Struggle for Realities, and concerns the
relations of science and conservatism, the Church, etc.
[Footnote 61: Footnotes to Evolution. By David Starr Jordan. With
Supplementary Essays by Edwin Grant Conklin, Frank Mace
McFarland, and James Perrin Smith. New York: D. Appleton and
Company. Pp. 392. Price, $1.]
Mr. _Robert P. Porter's_ volume on _Industrial Cuba_[62] deals with
living questions of the island. It aims to give a description of Cuba
as it appeared to the author when he visited it in the fall of 1898 as
special commissioner of the United States to report on its industrial,
commercial, and financial condition. It is the result of nearly seven
months' inquiry and hard work, in which the island was visited three
times, more than five hundred witnesses were examined, and "numerous
statements" were studied and analyzed. Among the special subjects
treated of are the political and economical condition of Cuba, the
outlook for labor, the population, sanitary work, Colonel Waring's
report, municipal problems in Havana, banks and currency, the revenue
and tariffs, commerce, sugar, tobacco, mines and mining, agriculture
and stock, timber and fruit, transportation, navigation, education and
religion, and the outlook for the future.
[Footnote 62: Industrial Cuba. Being a Study of Present
Commercial and Industrial Conditions, with Suggestions as to the
Opportunities presented in the Island for American Capital,
Enterprise, and Labor. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 428.
Price, $3.50.]
Naturalists and bibliophiles have reason to be grateful to Mr. _Call_
for his verbatim reproduction of Rafinesque's _Ichthyologia
Ohioensis_.[63] The book is of importance as constituting, in the
language of the editor, the foundation of fresh-water ichthyology in
America. No book dealing specifically with the Ohio Valley area as a
region has since been published. The original description of many fish
forms which are now recognized by ichthyologists as good species were
first given in this book, and many have not since been reprinted.
Further, the book contains the first and most complete description, to
date, of the Ohio River from Pittsburg down, with notices of all its
tributaries. Its value as a book about fishes is not limited to the
Ohio River, for the species of that stream are found, to a greater or
less extent, throughout the Mississippi Valley, so that it is in
effect a necessity to all students of the fresh-water fishes of that
territory. The editor regrets that Rafinesque did not preserve in some
manner the types of his genera, instead of which, when the technical
description was completed and some common form, if one was known, was
referred to, the specimen was discarded or rejected. Hence his
descriptions can not be compared conveniently with prepared specimens
in cabinets or with descriptions made from them, but the student must
go to the river and look up the living fish. The original papers of
Rafinesque on fishes were published in The Western Review and
Miscellaneous Magazine, Lexington, Ky., in 1819, 1820, and 1821. The
matter was then arranged in book form from the same type. Two
different systems of pagination resulted. These have both been
indicated in the present edition by the insertion of the numbers at
their proper places. The reprint is an exact copy of the original,
including even typographical errors, excepting only the style of type.
Of the original edition only eight copies are known to exist, so that
the republication was desirable to preserve the book, as well as for
the facilitation of reference, and of this only two hundred and fifty
numbered copies are printed for the market.
[Footnote 63: Ichthyologia Ohioensis: or Natural History of the
Fishes inhabiting the River Ohio and its Tributary Streams. By C.
S. Rafinesque. A Verbatim and Literatim Reprint of the Original,
with a Sketch of the Life, the Ichthyologic Work, and the
Ichthyologic Bibliography of Rafinesque. By Richard Ellsworth
Call. Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers Company. Pp. 175. Price,
$4.]
Mr. _Douglas Houghton Campbell_ has endeavored, in his _Lectures on
the Evolution of Plants_,[64] to present in as untechnical a manner as
seemed feasible the more striking facts bearing upon the evolution of
plant forms, believing that it will fill an existing want among
English text-books. The substance of the work was given originally in
the form of lectures to classes in Leland Stanford Junior University.
After an introduction, in which a few fundamental principles are
presented, elementary structures are defined, and accepted
classification is mentioned, the conditions of plant life are treated
of as relating to food substances, water, life, division of labor, and
movements, of which all plants exhibit more or less marked ones, that
may be spontaneous. While in the simple unicellular plants all the
functions are performed by a single cell, a gradual division of labor
takes place as we go up, first in a separation of the vegetative and
reproductive cells, and later a further specialization of both
vegetative and reproductive functions, culminating in the seed plant.
This course is described as exemplified in the simplest forms of life,
algæ, fungi, mosses and liverworts, ferns, and seed plants of the
different classes. The study of the geological relations, fragmentary
as their teachings are, has yielded most important evidence for
tracing the succession of plant forms. Observation of geographical
distribution casts much light on the subject. The relations of animals
and plants have an important bearing. The influence of the environment
embraces many factors, and is often shown in conspicuous features of
form and structure adapting plants to certain sorts of conditions and
enabling them to resist others. Plants have thus succeeded in adapting
themselves to almost every environment.
[Footnote 64: Lectures on the Evolution of Plants. By Douglas
Houghton Campbell. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 319.
Price, $1.25.]
Prof. _Augustus de Morgan's_ book _On the Study and Difficulties of
Mathematics_,[65] though originally published more than sixty years
ago, is still fresh and suggestive and full of matter valuable alike
to students and teachers, and possesses qualities of clearness of
reasoning and intelligibility from which many mathematical treatises
are unfortunately free. Its purpose is to notice particularly several
important points in the principles of algebra and geometry which have
not obtained their due importance in elementary works in those
sciences. Metaphysical points are avoided, and the method of
explaining by reference to some particular problem, with hints as to
more general adaptation, is adopted. Among the points taken up and
classified are the nature and objects of mathematics, arithmetical and
algebraic notation, rules and principles, equations, the negative
sign, roots and logarithms, geometrical subjects, and application of
algebra to measurements. The editor of the present edition, Mr. Thomas
J. McCormack, has corrected the errata of the old edition and
incorporated such changes as the progress of time and mathematical
literature have made seem proper. An excellent portrait of De Morgan
is given.
[Footnote 65: On the Study and Difficulties of Mathematics. By
Augustus De Morgan. New edition. Chicago: The Open Court
Publishing Company. Pp. 288.]
The purpose of _Carpenter's Geographical Reader, North America_
(American Book Company), is to give its readers a living knowledge of
some of the wonders of the country and continent in which they live.
They are taken by the author, Mr. _Frank G. Carpenter_, on a
personally conducted tour through the most characteristic parts of the
American continent, studying the most interesting features of life and
work among the people, learning how they are governed, and how they
make their living. Much information is also given concerning the
natural resources and the physical features of the countries visited.
The _Japan-American Commercial Journal_ is a monthly periodical
started with the beginning of the year, with an especial view to the
opening of the empire of Japan to unrestricted foreign trade and
residence, for the advancement of the reciprocal interests of Japan
and the United States. It is printed in English and Japanese, and is
published at Tokio by the Japan-American Commercial and Industrial
Association, for $2.50 a year.
_The Anglo-Saxon_ is a monthly magazine, the first number of which is
dated November, 1898, "devoted to the identity of the Anglo-Saxon race
with the house of Israel." It is edited by _George E. Inglis_, and
published by the Anglo-Saxon Publishing Company, Chicago. The title of
the first paragraph--"Cui bono"--seems to us to suggest a very
appropriate question. The argument seems to be that the house of
Israel was appointed to universal dominion, and the Anglo-Saxon race,
between England and the United States, with its late war "as nearly a
Christian war as any war might be," is getting it.
Among the general papers in the second volume, containing Parts II and
III, of the _Report of the Commissioner of Education_ for 1896-'97 are
those on Federal and State Aid to Higher Education, the First Common
Schools of New England, the Learned Professions and Social Control,
and the Beginnings of the Common-School System in the South.
Statistics of foreign universities are given, with a paper on the
Teaching of Geography in certain foreign countries, and consular
reports on educational topics. Professor Boas's paper on the Growth of
Toronto Children is included. Educational matters of interest in
various States are reported upon. An Eskimo vocabulary is introduced.
A special report on education in Alaska appears. Part III is devoted
to statistical matter.
The _Occult Science Library_ is a course of seven essays on the
subject of practical occultism by _Ernest Loomis_. The author assumes
that the rules based on the occult principles of Nature would, if
fully applied, enable any person to invoke the assistance of occult
forces in every practical rule of life, and that they may with like
success be applied in matters of health, the acquisition of knowledge,
the formation of plans, and the solution of religious and ethical
enigmas. The publishers claim that the maxims of the book have proved
their efficiency to the satisfaction of thousands who have read them.
(Published by Ernest Loomis & Co., Chicago.)
Mr. _James G. Needham_ has furnished, in _Outdoor Studies_ (American
Book Company), one of the fullest and most systematic guides or
"reading books," as he calls this one, for Nature study that we have
seen. Recognizing that there is no lack, in numbers, of books offering
object lessons, etc., for children of the earlier years intervening
between the primary and the high school, he has prepared this book to
supply for the later years of that period "a few lessons of greater
continuity, calling for more persistence of observation and
introducing a few of the simpler of our modern conceptions of Nature
at large." The lessons presuppose some years of experience of life and
some previous training in observation; they are given simply for the
sake of the interest and educative value of the facts and phenomena of
Nature which they set forth; and they have been written more for the
boys and girls than for the teachers. The things described--birds,
insects, plants, etc.--are such as can be seen anywhere. Mr. Needham
tells how to study them and learn what they mean.
In _Commissioner Hume, a Story of New York Schools_, a sequel to
Roderick Hume, the Story of a New York Teacher, Mr. _C. W. Bardeen_
has undertaken to give a picture of rural New York schools, or rather
of the administration of school affairs by commissioners as they were
in 1875, and he declares it to be accurate. He represents, however,
that the general tone of the commissioners has vastly changed in the
period that has intervened since then, and the conditions described in
the volume no longer prevail. The book is offered, therefore, as a
contribution to educational history. (Published by C. W. Bardeen,
Syracuse, N. Y.)
The southern half of Missouri and the Black Hills of South Dakota
offer exceptionally delightful regions for the study of caves, or
speleology, as well as of geology and geography. Each of these regions
has its peculiar geological history and its own scenery, and
possesses a number of truly wonderful caves. Some of the more
important of these caves and the scenery amid which they lie are
described by Mrs. _Luella Agnes_ Owen in the book _Cave Regions of the
Black Hills_ (Cincinnati: the Editor Publishing Company), and we have
been much interested in reading the accounts. The descriptions are
introduced by summaries of the methods of the formation of caves and
of the results of the geological and topographical explorations of the
regions in which they are situated, as presented in official reports
and scientific memoirs. The descriptions are for the most part
relations of the author's personal explorations of the caves. The most
important of these caves are Marble Cave, "the finest yet explored in
Missouri," and Wind Cave, in South Dakota, said to be the largest
known after the Mammoth Cave. Others are Fairy, Powell, Stone County,
Oregon County Caves and the Grand Gulf in Missouri, and the Onyx and
Crystal Caves in South Dakota. Many illustrations are given. The
author has fine descriptive powers, but her literary style needs
discipline. She is the first American, and the only woman, so far,
elected to membership in the Société de Speleologie of Paris.
A valuable paper on _Sympathetic Strikes and Sympathetic Lockouts_ is
published by Mr. _Fred S. Hall_ as the first number of the eleventh
volume of the Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and
Public Law. In it, the author having fixed the definition of
sympathetic strikes and lockouts as distinguished from those not
sympathetic, and having found the difference between a strike and a
lockout, discusses the origin and development of the two sympathetic
movements, analyzes them, and forecasts the future as it is indicated
by the past. Illustrations are freely drawn from the important strikes
and lockouts that have occurred in the United States and abroad for a
number of years past.
_The Year Book of Colorists and Dyers_, in the opinion of the author,
Mr. _Harwood Huntington_, supplies a want, for, so far as he is aware,
there are no other portable works in the English language to which the
color-chemist can refer and find the information which he requires the
oftenest. The object of the present publication is to meet the demand
for a review of the advances made annually in the special field worked
in by dyers and colorists--in the bleaching, dyeing, printing, and
finishing of textiles--and it endeavors to do this with accuracy and
brevity. (Published by the author, New York.)
The first number of _The Socialist Almanac and Treasury of Facts_ has
been issued in accordance with a decision of the National Convention
of the Socialist Labor Party, held in New York in July, 1896. It has
been prepared by _Lucien Sanial_, to whom the task was assigned by the
National Executive Committee. A large proportion of it is historical,
and consists mainly of monographs presenting views of the movements
and condition of "militant socialism" in Germany, Austria, Italy,
Spain, and Belgium, from its beginning to the present day. Special
attention is invited by the author to the monographs on Italy and
Spain as tracing the struggle between socialism and anarchism to its
beginning. The second part of the book contains statistical matter and
comments on economical and social conditions, which, if the argument
on "Who owns the Savings?" is a specimen of its quality, must be
accepted with many reservations.