D. Appleton and Company have added to their Home Reading Series The Earth and Sky, a primer of Astronomy for Young Readers, by Prof. Edward S. Holden. It is intended to be the first of a series of three or more volumes, all treating of astronomy in one form or another, and suited for reading in the school. The treatment is based on the principle that "it is not so simple as it appears to fix in the child's mind the fundamental fact that it is Nature which is true, and the book or the engraving which is a true copy of it. 'It says' is the snare of children as well as of their more sophisticated elders. The vital point to be insisted on is a constant reference from words to things." The volume is written as a conversation with a young lad. He is first shown how he may know for himself that the earth is not flat, though it certainly appears to be so. The next step is to show him that he may know that the earth is in fact round, and that it is a globe of immense size. Its situation in space is next considered, and the child's mind is led to some formal conclusions respecting space itself. It is then directed to the sun, to the moon and its changes, to the stars and their motions, to the revolution of the earth, etc.
In 1887 E. S. Holden published through the Regents of the University of California a list of recorded earthquakes on the Pacific coast, it being the first systematic publication of the sort. The purpose of it was to bring to light all the general facts about the various shocks, and enable studies to be made of particular earthquake phenomena. It was necessary at the Lick Observatory to keep a register of the times of occurrence of all shocks on account of their possible effects on the instruments. With this was associated in 1888, when the observatory began its active work, the collection of reports of shocks felt elsewhere on the Pacific coast. Mr. Holden now reprints this pamphlet through the Smithsonian Institution in A Catalogue of Earthquakes felt on the Pacific Coast, 1769 to 1897, with many corrections and additions, including a complete account of the earthquake observations at Mount Hamilton from 1887 to 1897, and an abstract of the great amount of information that has been collected regarding other Pacific coast earthquakes during the same interval.
The Psychologie als Erfahrungs-Wissenschaft of Hans Cornelius is not intended for a complete account and review of the facts of psychical life, but rather to present the fundamentals of a purely empirical theory, excluding all metaphysical views. Such an account should not start from any arbitrary abstractions or hypotheses, but simply from actually ascertained, directly perceived psychical experiences. On the other hand, an empirical definition should be required for all the terms that are used in a comprehensive description of the experience; and no term should be used without the psychical manifestation described by it being pointed out. After an introduction in which the method and place of psychology, subjective and objective, physiological and genetic, are referred to, the elementary facts of consciousness are discussed. The coherency of knowledge is treated of in the next chapter, and in the third, Psychical Analysis and the conception of unobserved consciousness; and the succeeding chapters are devoted to Sensation, Memory, and Fancy; The Objective World, Truth and Error, and Feeling and Will. (Published at Leipsic, Germany: B. G. Teubner.)
An extremely interesting book is given us in the publications of the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Society of studies by George W. and Elizabeth Peckham, of the Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps. These insects are familiar enough to us all, as we meet them or see their nests of one or a few cells every day, and then think no more of them. But Mr. and Mrs. Peckham, following them to their haunts and keeping company with them, have found them manifesting remarkable instincts and exercising curious customs, which they describe in the style of persons who are in love with their work. The opportunity for the studies was given in two gardens, one on the top of a hill and the other lower down, with an island in a lake close by and acres of woodland all about, offering a rich variety of nesting places. There are more than a thousand species of these solitary wasps in the United States, to only about fifty of the social ones, and they live without knowledge of their progenitors and without relations with others of their kind.
The eighth volume of the report of the Iowa Geological Survey comprises the accounts of surveys completed during 1897 in six counties, making up the whole number of twenty-six counties in which the areal work has been completed. This does not, however, represent the whole extent of the operations of the survey, for some work has been done in nearly every county in the State, and in many counties it will require but little additional work to make a complete report. In addition to the areal work, too, special studies of coal, clay, artesian waters, gypsum, lead, zinc, etc., have engaged attention. A growing public appreciation of the work of the survey as illustrated in the demand for the volumes of the reports and for special papers, is recognized by the State Geologist, Mr. Samuel Calvin; and an increasing use of the reports as works for reference and for general study in high schools and other educational institutions is observed. The survey is now collecting statistics of production of various minerals mined in the State.
One of the features most likely to attract attention in the Annual Report of the State Geologist of New Jersey for 1897 is the paper of Mr. C. C. Vermeule on the Drainage of the Hackensack and Newark Tide Marshes. In it a scheme is unfolded for the reclamation and diking of the flats, under which an ample navigable waterway shall be developed, and the cities which now stop at their edges may be extended and built up to the very banks of the new harbor, made a highway for ocean sailing vessels. An interesting paper is published by Lewis Woolman on Artesian and Bored and other Wells, in which many important wells are described with reference to the geological strata they penetrate. Other papers relate to iron mining and brick and clay industries, mineral statistics, and statistics of clays, bricks, and terra cotta. The field reports describe progress in the surveys of the surface geology, the Newark system, and the upper Cretaceous formations.
On the basis of a reconnoissance made by him for Alexander Agassiz, Mr. Robert T. Hill has published through the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy at Harvard University, a paper on The Geological History of the Isthmus of Panama and Portions of Costa Rica. He finds that there is considerable evidence that a land barrier in the tropical region separated the two oceans as far back as Jurassic time, and continued through the Cretaceous period. The geological structure of the Isthmus and Central American regions, so far as investigated, when considered aside from the paleontology, presents no evidence by which the former existence of a free communication of oceanic waters across the present tropical barriers can be established. The paleontological evidence indicates the ephemeral existence of a passage at the close of the Eocene period. All lines of inquiry give evidence that no communication has existed between the two oceans since the close of the Oligocene.
The Twenty-second Annual Report of the Department of Geology and Natural Resources of Indiana, W. S. Blatchley, State Geologist, embraces, in part, the results of the work of the several departments of the survey during 1897. These appear in the form of papers of economic importance on the petroleum, stone, and clay resources of the State, natural gases and illuminating oils, a description of the curious geological and topographical region of Lake and Porter Counties, and an extended paper on the Birds of Indiana, with specific descriptions. A large proportion of the energies of the department were employed during the year in gathering data for a detailed report on the coal area of the State, which is now in course of preparation.
The Report of the United States Commissioner of Education for 1896-'97 records an increase in the enrollment of schools and colleges of 257,586, the whole number of pupils being 14,712,077 in public institutions and schools, and 1,513,016 in private. The increase is confined to the public institutions, the private ones having suffered from "hard times." Among the numerous papers published in the volume containing the report are those on Education in Great Britain and Ireland, France, Denmark, Norway, Central Europe, and Greece; Commercial Education in Europe; the Teaching of Civics in France, Switzerland, and England; Sunday Schools, including accounts of the several denominational systems; the Legal Rights of Children; and sketches of Horace Mann and Henry Barnard and their work in furthering education.
Mr. David T. Day's report on the Mineral Resources of the United States for 1896 appears as Part V of the Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, in two volumes of fourteen hundred pages in all; the first of which is devoted to Metallic Products and Coal, and the second to Nonmetallic Products except Coal. The report covers the calendar year 1896, and shows only a slight increase in total values over 1895. Of some substances, however—gold, copper, aluminum, and petroleum being the most important ones—the value was the greatest ever attained. Of other substances, including lead, bituminous coal, building stones, mineral waters, salt, and pyrites, the product was increased in amount, but the value was less. A paper, by Mr. George F. Becker, on the Witwatersrand Banket, records observations made by him in the Transvaal gold fields.