_On the South African Frontier_[H] is a narrative of the experiences
and observations of the author, Mr. _William Harvey Brown_, partly as
naturalist of the United States Government Eclipse-observing
Expedition of 1889 to the west coast of Africa, and partly as a
resident in various occupations for seven years in Rhodesia. The
principal object in composing it was to give American readers a
clearer idea of English operations in conquest and colonization on the
South African frontier than it is possible to glean from current
fragmentary accounts. The author served his apprenticeship at natural
history collecting under Prof. L. L. Dyche, of the University of
Kansas, and Mr. W. T. Hornady, of the New York Zoölogical Gardens, and
was recommended by Mr. Hornady to the Government for the Eclipse
Expedition. He sailed first to Freetown, then to St. Paul de Loanda,
where he spent a few weeks collecting, establishing his headquarters
at Bishop Taylor's American Methodist Self-supporting Mission. Thence,
after a short attack of African fever, he proceeded to Cape Town,
where he was attacked by the other sort of African fever--"an
irresistible longing to penetrate the Dark Continent for purposes of
exploration and of observing both man and Nature." He made the journey
overland to Mafeting and to the Mashona country, in the region of
which he spent seven years as "game-hunter, gold-seeker, landowner,
citizen, and soldier," observing and participating in the settlement
and early development of the new state of Rhodesia. The larger part of
the book is devoted to his adventures and observations, "travel,
collecting, hunting, prospecting, farming, scouting, fighting," and
seeing pioneer life. Two chapters are devoted to ethnology. The race
problems which arise during the stage of transition from barbarism,
the agricultural and mineral resources of Rhodesia, and its prospects
and possibilities, are discussed.
[Footnote H: On the South African Frontier. The Adventures and
Observations of an American in Mashonaland and Matabeleland. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 430, with map. Price, $3.]
A very handsome book, in what to many are the most graceful and
interesting forms of vegetable life, is Mrs. _Parsons's How to Know
the Ferns_.[I] The name of the author is new, but the author herself
is a familiar friend to all lovers of American field and wild-wood
life, for she is none other than Mrs. William Starr Dana, who had
already given us How to Know the Wild Flowers and According to Season.
In this book she does as she did with regard to the wild
flowers--takes her readers to the haunts of the ferns and into their
company, introduces us to them, and before she is done makes us well
acquainted with them. "It seems strange," she says, "that the
abundance of ferns everywhere has not aroused more curiosity as to
their names, haunts, and habits." Possibly it is because they are so
common that we are not at pains to seek greater intimacy with them.
Then, they depend on the beauty of graceful proportion, which is less
obvious to careless eyes than that of color. First, Mrs. Parsons
discourses of Ferns as a Hobby, and the pleasure we may derive from
them; then she tells when and where to find them, defines the terms
used in speaking of them, explains their fertilization, development,
and fructification, gives a list of notable fern families and
descriptions of the American ferns classified into eight groups
according to the arrangement of their spores, and completes the work
with indexes of Latin and of English names and of technical terms.
[Footnote I: How to Know the Ferns. A Guide to the Names, Haunts,
and Habits of our Common Ferns. By Prances Theodora Parsons. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 215. Price, $1.50.]
_The Microscopy of Drinking Water_[J] is intended by Mr. _Whipple_
primarily to serve as a guide to the water analyst and the water-works
engineer by describing the methods of microscopic examination,
assisting in the identification of the common microscopic organisms
found in drinking water, and interpreting the results in the light of
environmental studies. A second purpose is to stimulate a greater
interest in the study of microscopic aquatic life and general
limnology (the lessons of lakes and ponds) from the practical and
economic point of view. The work is elementary in character.
Principles are stated and illustrated, but the last ten years'
accumulations of data are not otherwise attacked. The illustrations
have been largely drawn from Massachusetts cases, from which there may
be differences elsewhere, but not very great as to microscopic
organisms. The latter half of the book is devoted to descriptions of a
limited number of organisms, chosen for the most part from those
commonest to the water supplies of New England, and those that have
best illustrated the more important groups of microscopic animals and
plants. Most of the illustrations have been drawn from living
specimens or photomicrographs of such, but some are reproduced from
other sources.
[Footnote J: The Microscopy of Drinking Water. By George Chandler
Whipple. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 300, with nineteen
plates.]
It is evidence of appreciation of Dr. _Wetterstrand's Hypnotism and
its Application to Medicine_[K] that, written in Swedish, it has been
translated into German and Russian, and now into English. The German
work, from which the present translation is made, was enlarged from
the original, and embodied the results of additional experience. The
author disavows the intention of writing a manual or text-book, and
modestly assumes only to have given "unpretentious notes by a
physician who, under the pressure of a fatiguing and engrossing
practice, has not been able to develop his rich material into a more
complete form." The book is characterized by the translator as more
practical than theoretical, and as offering the results of
conscientious and able observation. Hypnosis is defined by Dr.
Wetterstrand as embracing a number of various conditions of the
nervous system, which can be produced in different ways. "We recognize
phases of the greatest variety, from a slight heaviness in the limbs,
the most superficial somnolence enabling the hypnotized subject to
hear and perceive the least noise, to the deepest sleep, from which
the greatest disturbance can not awake him, and wherein every
sensation disappears and permits the most serious surgical operation
without pain." The author believes that the majority of people can be
brought into any of these conditions, but the methods and degrees of
difficulty of the process are various. "Liébeault distinguishes five
degrees in hypnotic sleep, Bernheim nine; but Wetterstrand thinks they
may all be grouped under three. Suggestive therapeutics is regarded as
by no means a panacea, but it succeeds in cases where other methods
have failed," and, as Bernheim says, "often it produces miracles."
After an outline of the general principles of the subject the author
passes on to describe some diseases and morbid conditions in which he
has employed hypnotism with the greatest results, culling from his
notes, as impartially as possible, both successful attempts and
failures. The cases include insomnia, the list of nervous diseases,
drug diseases, consumption, rheumatic, heart, and other organic
diseases, and functional affections; with the use of suggestive
therapeutics in operations, obstetrics, and on some other occasions.
Dr. Petersen's medical letters on hypno-suggestion, etc., added to Dr.
Wetterstrand's work, are intended to give a succinct idea of the
present status of practical psychic therapeutics, as based on the
observation of clinical facts. They relate to suggestive treatment in
reform work, post-hypnotic responsibility, and music in hospitals.
[Footnote K: Hypnotism and its Application to Medicine. By Otto
Georg Wetterstrand, M. D. Authorized translation (from the German
edition), by Henrik G. Petersen, M. D. Together with Medical
Letters on Hypno-Suggestion, etc. By Henrik G. Petersen, M. D.
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 166.]
The original object of Mr. _Henry Rutgers Marshall's_ essay on
_Instinct and Reason_[L] was to present a conception of religion. In
attempting to make his argument convincing he found it necessary to
deal with questions which did not at first appear to relate to this
subject, whereby the study of religion, though still the most
important and interesting matter considered, is made to appear
subsidiary to the treatment of instinct and reason. Believing that
activities so universal in man as those which express his religious
life must be significant in relation to his biological development,
the author has attempted to outline a theory that will account for
their existence and explain their biological import. In order to
present this clearly he has made a special study of instinct and the
relation of its activities with religious activities in general. This
has naturally led to the study of impulse, and thus to a consideration
of moral standards. The study of reason, too, has been found
appropriate in connection with the consideration of the nature of
religion. The genesis of religious customs and beliefs is touched upon
only so far as seems necessary for the elucidation of other parts of
the treatise. Concerning the relation of religion and morals, the
author finds that religion teaches us to listen to the past, and gives
enthusiasm to do the work commended by the "voice" of that past; it
gives us the basis for the perfection of our moral code, but it does
not give us this perfect moral code itself. When reason and the
religious instinct are opposed we should, after reverent and full
consideration, act in accord with reason, but should be cautious in
guiding others that way, for the chances are decidedly that we are
wrong, and "the rule of action which will best satisfy conscience,
which will produce the closest correspondence between our action as
viewed in retrospect and our most permanently efficient impulse
series, is one which is based upon the religious instinct, and which
involves the presence in mind of the sense of duty."
[Footnote L: Instinct and Reason. An Essay concerning the
Relation of Instinct to Reason, with some Special Study of the
Nature of Religion. By Henry Rutgers Marshall. New York: The
Macmillan Company. Pp. 574. Price, $3.50.]
Mr. _Arthur Berry_ has undertaken, in his _Short History of
Astronomy_,[M] to give an outline of the history of the science from
the earliest times in a form intelligible to readers who have no
special knowledge of astronomy or mathematics. Some compression having
been necessary, it has been found possible to omit a considerable
number of details which might receive treatment, and indeed would
often require it in a treatise on the science. The author has
deliberately abstained from giving any connected account of the
astronomy of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Chinese, and other peoples who
are usually supposed to have had a share in the early development of
star-lore. Accounts of scientific instruments, except in a few simple
and important cases, are omitted. But little is said of scientific
discoveries that have to be described in technical mathematical
language, and of speculative theories that have not been established
or refuted. On the other hand, whatever pertains to the real history
of astronomy has been given with sufficient fullness to make it plain;
the principles which are illustrated by enormous masses of
observations that there is no room to record; short biographical
sketches of leading astronomers other than living ones; a considerable
number of dates, such as those of the births and deaths of
astronomers; and even descriptions of such obsolete theories as appear
to form an integral part of astronomical progress. Among the
illustrations are portraits of a few of the eminent astronomers of the
past.
[Footnote M: A Short History of Astronomy. By Arthur Berry. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons. (The University Series.) Pp. 440.
Price, $1.50.]
The special articles in the _Bulletin of the Department of Labor_,
Nos. 18 and 19, are Wages in the United States and Europe, 1870 to
1898, in the September number, and Mr. Dunham's paper on The Alaskan
Gold Fields and the Opportunities they offer for Capital and Labor,
and Mutual Relief and Benefit Associations in the Printing Trade, by
W. S. Wandly, in the number for November.
The Rev. Dr. _Adam Miller_ is a retired minister who has devoted his
leisure hours to the study of sunshine, in which he has included all
that properly belongs to the sun. He has read the standard works on
astronomy, and some, but apparently not all, the later results for
comparison, it seems, rather than information, and he has performed
some original and ingenious experiments with the sunlight. His views,
therefore, as expressed in _The Sun an Electric Light_ (Chicago), are
his own. He has come to the conclusion that the material theories of
the origin of the sun's light and heat do not account for the facts,
and are therefore insufficient if not wrong; postulates a theory that
the phenomena are matters of electric action made perceptible to us by
refraction through the atmosphere, and makes an unnecessary and
inconsequent attack on the theory of the conservation of forces. When
Dr. Miller assumes that his views of the insufficiency of present
theories and of the electrical nature of the sun's action are new, he
shows that he is not fully read up in the current literature on the
subject. The insufficiency of present views is confessed, and the
discussions of the subject with the various suppositions which he
criticises are efforts to find better explanations. The causal
identity of electricity, heat, and certain other forces is accepted.
But, given that electrical action is the basis of it all, what then?
Philosophers know of no way of maintaining electric action except
through material processes, and the way they are replenished to keep
it up is as hard to find out as would be the way fuel is supplied to
keep up a solar fire.
A pamphlet entitled _The Story of the Rise of the Oral Method in
America_ (of Instructing the Deaf and Dumb) _as told in the Writings
of the late Hon. Gardner G. Hubbard_, compiled by Mrs. _M. Gardner
Bell_, reveals a seeming indolence in the early instructors of the old
method that is hardly creditable to their energy in investigation.
When deaf-mute instruction was first projected here, a teacher was
sent over to Europe to learn the best methods. Denied access to
schools in London and Edinburgh, where articulation systems were
taught, he went to Paris, found the Abbé de l'Epée's sign language
there and brought it over. This and the finger language held sway in
our schools for many years, while the possibility of teaching
articulation to the deaf was denied. It required long-persistent
effort on the part of a few men who refused to have their deaf
children taught these systems and consequently isolated from their
fellow-men to secure a recognized place for oral schools. The story of
the struggle is told in Mrs. Bell's pamphlet.
The widespread ignorance and superstition with which even to-day the
practicing physician has to contend are hardly conceivable by an
outsider. The conditions under which a doctor knows his patients are
just those calculated to bring out the weak spots in their mental
organization, and the absurd notions which still have a foothold in
many minds are a constant source of wonder to the speculative doctor.
These superstitions are so widespread and so frequently dangerous to
the whole community, as well as the individual himself, that anything
which is calculated to improve matters, however so little, should be
welcomed with open arms. _Dr. Therne_, by _H. Rider Haggard_, is aimed
at the antivaccinators, and by means of a not uninteresting story
points out the serious consequences which a general belief in this
absurd crusade brought to an English city. The author labels his story
as an attempt to forecast the "almost certain issue of the recent
surrender of the English Government leaders to the clamor of the
antivaccinationists."
The annual number of the _Cumulative Index_ for 1898, constituting the
third annual volume, is a book of seven hundred and ninety-two pages,
and includes one hundred periodicals. It indexes--by authors, titles,
and subjects, including reviews and portraits--what is important in
the monthly and part of that in the weekly publications of the year.
Special attention is given to portraits, reviews, and necrology. The
Index is a very useful publication to writers and students of every
sort, recording the articles as they appear month by month in a form
that makes the knowledge of them easily accessible to one who seeks
it. The numbers succeeding the first number of the volume include,
besides their own fresh matter, that which has appeared in two or
three previous numbers, saving the necessity of hunting up scattered
editions. The annual volume contains all for the year. The Index is
edited in the Public Library of Cleveland, Ohio, and is published by
the Holman-Taylor Company in the same city.
Two papers bearing upon instruction of the deaf, published by the
Volta Bureau, Washington, are statistics, by Alexander G. Bell, of the
relative use in the United States of the several methods, and a
collection of _International Reports of Schools for the Deaf_. The
latter paper contains reports from sixteen countries.