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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.