Miss Cornelia E. Horsford, being interested in the question of the origin of certain ancient ruins situated on the Charles River, Mass., and elsewhere in America, which were discovered by the late Prof. E. N. Horsford and were believed by him to be relics of the settlements formed by the Norsemen in the tenth century, commissioned Mr. Thorstein Erlingsson to examine for comparison certain ancient dwellings in Iceland, in the summer of 1895. The inquiries assigned to him related to the method of construction of the long houses, square buildings, hillside cots with pavements, mounds, things and doom rings, irrigation and drainage, ditches, river dams, hithes and ship docks, or nauts, grave-hills, and forts. The results of the study are given, with illustrations, in a small book, Ruins of the Saga Times, by Thorstein Erlingsson. (Published by David Nutt, London.) Mr. Erlingsson's report is supplemented by an outline of already ascertained knowledge regarding early Scandinavian home building, derived from previous excavations and investigations furnished by F. T. Norris and Jön Stefánsson, and a summary in French by M. E. D. Grand.
The Quarterly Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland was issued during the thirty-seven years from the beginning of 1871 in the form styled demi-octavo. The small pages of this size entailed some inconveniences, especially when ample plates and tables were needed for illustration. With the double number (August and November, 1898) a new series was begun, in the form styled imperial octavo, with a page considerably larger than in the old form and corresponding in size with the important publications of some of the continental societies of Europe. This number contains the proceedings of seven meetings of the society and important anthropological articles, some of them on American subjects. Among them is a criticism, by Prof. W. Z. Ripley, on Deniker's Classification of the Races of Europe.
In How to Swim (Putnams, $1) Captain Davis Dalton, Chief Inspector of the United States Volunteer Life-Saving Corps, gives a practical treatise upon the art of natation, together with instruction as to the best methods of saving persons imperiled in the water and of resuscitating persons apparently drowned. The treatise covers every branch of the art, and abounds in cautions in connection with nearly every topic, against the mistakes that may arise from timidity or the carelessness of over-confidence. The author holds that swimming is an art to be acquired and learned like other athletic arts, although it depends upon natural principles. The best movements for taking advantages of the physical laws involved in it have been studied by competent men, and a brief and clear presentation of them is attempted here. First, we have the lessons for the beginner, who must, before all things, "have confidence." The different strokes are described in detail and illustrated; the different modes of swimming and the postures, swimming in clothes, taking off clothes in the water, diving and swimming under water, swimming in waves, and other features are explained; and, finally, the life-saving directions are given, and public education in swimming is insisted upon.
The Southern Magazine is a new monthly, published at Manassas, Va., by the Southern Publishing Company, of which we have the third number, that for August. It has a definite flavor of the old South, for which we find no fault with, for there was much about the old South which ought to be preserved, and no little that was too precious to be lost. Among the matters of special interest in this number are the Sketch of Sidney Lanier, by Ellen Manderson, with selections from his writings; The Last Meeting of the Confederate Cabinet (held, by a curious coincidence, at Abbeville, S. C., where secession was started), by Walter L. Miller; an account of the University of Virginia, by John S. Patten, which appears to be the first of a series on Southern Educational Institutions; and an article on South Carolina in Letters, by Colonel J. P. Thomas.
The fifth yearly number of L'Année Psychologique of MM. Alfred Binet, H. Beaunis, and Th. Ribot is a volume of 902 pages, of which 591 pages are included in the first part, devoted to Original Memoirs and General Reviews. The papers are nineteen in number, on such subjects as muscular fatigue, the foreshortening of objects rising from the horizon, stereognostic perception and stereoagnosy, suggestibility, applications of the calculation of probabilities to psychology, colored audition, mental labor and nutritive changes, measure of mental fatigue, sensations of smell, phonographs and the study of the vowels, cephalometry, pedology, volume of the arm and muscular force, chronophotographic and other apparatus, and muscular sense; and the authors are MM. Van Biervliet, of Ghent; Blum, of Nîmes; Bourdon, of Rennes; Claparède, of Geneva; Clavière, Delage, Demeny, Druault, Mlle. Joteyko, MM. Larguier, Manouvrier, Marage; Marbe, of Würzburg; Obersteiner, of Vienna; Tscherning and Zwaardemaker, of Utrecht. M. V. Henri's paper on Muscular Sense would make a volume by itself. The second part—Analyses—consists of reviews of psychological publications entered under ten headings. The Bibliography contains 2,558 titles, and the index of authors fills upward of seventeen double-columned pages. (Paris: Scheicher Frères.)
Valuable papers on Comparative Tests of Bituminous Steam Coals, by John W. Hill; the Artificial Preservation of Railroad Ties by the Use of Zinc Chloride, by W. W. Curtis; and the Theory of Concrete, by G. W. Rafter, are given in the Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers (vol. xxv, No. 4, April, 1899), together with discussions respecting street grades and cross-sections in asphalt and cement and to loads and maximum stress on members of a bridge truss; also biographical sketches of D. L. Barnes and W. R. Michie.
A valuable addition to D. Appleton and Company's International Education Series, and a sprightly book in itself withal, is Montaigne on the Education of Children, a volume of selections bearing on the subject from the writings of the quaint old Frenchman, translated and annotated by L. E. Rector. The significance of Montaigne, as the editor of the series observes in his preface to the volume, lies chiefly in his protest against pedantry, and the translator finds Montaigne's modernity shown in his attempt to degrade men learning from the first place, and to lay the emphasis on fitness for practical life, ability to use one's judgment, and morality and virtue. While Montaigne had limitations and defects in his educational views, such as are pointed out by Dr. Harris, he still appears to have been far in advance of his own time, and in some respects of the present time as well. The solution of the human problem, success in dealing with one's self and his fellows, was his ideal. The translator shows how Locke and Rousseau, and, of course, all educational writers who have built upon these, drew from him. The subjects of the selections given here are the Education of Children, Pedantry, the Affection of Fathers, Liars, Physiognomy, Anger, the Art of Conversation, Idleness, Experience, and History.
An essay on The Object of the Labor Movement, by Johann Jacoby, translated by Florence Kelley, and published by the International Publishing Company, advocates co-operation, demands that the employer recognize the laborer whom he employs as a being fully his own equal and treat him accordingly, and claims of the State an especial consideration of the working class as an act of reparative justice.
The Transactions of the First and Second Regular Meetings of the Wyoming State Medical Society, May 13 and November 1, 1898, shows that that body is vigorous and active, and that the doctors of Wyoming are interested in maintaining the dignity and reputation of their profession. It is represented that fully fifty per cent of the regular physicians of the State have already been enrolled as members of the society.
Mr. Frederick H. Gelman's Elements of Blowpipe Analysis (New York: The Macmillan Company; 60 cents) is intended to serve the twofold purpose of giving the student a general outline of the analysis and of introducing him to the methods of determinative mineralogy. Every effort has been made to simplify the account. The first chapter is devoted to Apparatus and Details, and the second to the General Outline of Blowpipe Analysis. Then the general reactions for the detection of the metallic elements in simple compounds are described, the behavior of some of the principal ores before the blowpipe, and comparative tables.