Mr. James W. Crook, in the introduction to his history of the development of German Wage Theories (Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law), remarks upon the slowness with which political economy, and particularly the study of questions concerning wages, has advanced in Germany. Hardly any original work on wages is to be found there for half a century after the publication of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, although numerous text-books bearing upon the subject were issued—all for the most part only summarizing or slightly modifying the reasonings and conclusions of the English master. The conditions of economic life in the two countries were different, and the "industrial revolution was slow in developing on the Continent, and in Germany the old industrial order with its restrictions and conservative methods prevailed long after England had replaced the old with the new." These differences between the two countries may adequately account for the great disparity in theoretic development. And Germany is still largely dependent upon other countries in its discussions. In the present work, the chief object being to discover progress of thought on the subject, chronology had to be sacrificed, in some instances, to a logical treatment. Those writers are grouped who appear to show the largest number of points of contact, and this leads to placing all the German writers treated in two groups, in one of which a real unity of method and interest prevails, and Hermann is the most important center, while the other group includes von Thünen, Karl Marx, and Schulze-Gaevernitz, authors who do not belong together in the sense that the others do.
Among the articles in the Columbia University Bulletin for June, 1898, are those on the Department of History, the Preparatory Schools (by G. R. Carpenter), Columbia Non-Graduates (H. G. Paine), the Teaching of Anatomy (by George S. Huntington), and the second of Mr. H. A. Cushing's historical papers on King's College in the American Revolution.
The report of Filibert Noth, special agent of the Division of Forestry, on Forestry Conditions and Interests of Wisconsin, and the Third Annual Report of the Chief Fire Warden of Minnesota, C. C. Andrews, furnish many facts and suggestions of value to persons interested in the maintenance and protection of our forests.
D. Appleton and Company publish as one of their Home Reading Books The Story of Rob Roy, by Sir Walter Scott, condensed for home and school reading by Edith D. Harris. The editor of the series, Dr. W. T. Harris, furnishes a preface, pointing out the essential qualities of Scott's works on which their fame rests, and analyzing the features of Scottish and English life of the age to which they relate and which give these stories of the border their interest and charm. In explanation of the plan and reason of the present condensation, he says that "it has been found possible to condense the Waverley novels by omitting all lengthy descriptions of scenery, historical disquisitions on the times, and a few passages of dialogue and monologue that do not contribute directly to the progress of the story, or throw light upon the character of the persons who enter upon the scene. It is believed that by this method the interest is preserved intact, and that after a year's interval the story in its unabridged form may be read with as lively an interest as the youth will feel in reading this version." Price, 60 cents.
A paper, Indices Ponderaux de la Crane (Weight Indexes of the Brain), in the Bulletin of the Anthropological Society of Paris, comprises the results of a study of the weight and capacity of the brain, the weight of the mandible, and the cranio-mandibular and cranio-cerebral indices, etc., made upon sixty-four heads of animals by George Grant McCurdy, of New Haven, with the collaboration of M. Nicolas Mohyliansky.
The pamphlet embodying the Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Session of the Association of American Anatomists, held at Cornell University in December, 1897, contains a portrait and notice, with bibliography of the late Dr. Harrison Allen, the reports of the majority and the minority of the committee on anatomical nomenclature, and seventeen papers contributed by members of the association.
The University Geological Survey of Kansas is conducted under the authority of the Board of Regents of the State University, and has issued already several large and elegant volumes recording the operations and results of its work. The fourth volume, now before us, embraces the paleontology of the Upper Cretaceous, and is by Samuel W. Williston, paleontologist. Kansas is famous for its fossils, no equal area in the United States, perhaps, presenting such varied and remarkable records of this kind. Yet, while the State has furnished much of interest to the sciences of geology and paleontology, the published accounts in these departments are confined to scattered and abstruse papers accessible only to the specialist. The present publication is an effort to put this knowledge, so far as the particular formation to which it relates is concerned, within the reach of students. Professor Williston has been engaged for twelve years in the study of the geology and paleontology of the State, having spent more than three years in field exploration, and has been eight years collecting material for his book, enjoying the advantage of access to the very important collection of the university. Much of the information is here published for the first time. The fossils of the western part of the State only are described in it, for the sole reason that more preparatory work has been done on them in the university in recent years; but other departments are in preparation and will appear in due course. The fossils described are birds, dinosaurs, crocodiles, mosasaurs, turtles, microscopic organizations, and invertebrates, all of the Upper Cretaceous.
In a paper on The Relations of the People of the United States to the English and the Germans, read before the Thursday Club of Chicago, Mr. William Vocke undertakes a defense of the Germans against a supposition that they are hostile to the United States. This is right, if the Germans need defense, which we doubt; but to give his thesis the shape of an attack on England, as is done in the paper, is unnecessary.
The account of the investigations conducted by Dr. D. N. Bergey under the supervision of Drs. J. S. Billings and S. Weir Mitchell, on the Influence upon the Vital Resistance of Animals to the Micro-organisms of Disease, brought about by a Long Sojourn in Impure Atmosphere, already referred to in the Monthly, is published under the Hodgkins Fund in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Contributions.
The Report of the United States National Museum which we are called upon to notice is for the year 1895, and bears the signature of G. Brown Goode. It embraces accounts of the origin and development of the museum, its organization and scope, and its work in public education; reviews of the special topics in its operations for the year; synopses of the scientific work in various departments; the administrative reports; appendixes relating to accessions to the collections, lectures, meetings, etc.; and a number of special papers of great value and interest, including an account of the Kwakiutl Indians, by Franz Boas; The Graphic Art of the Eskimos, by W. J. Hoffman; The Geology and Natural History of Lower California, by G. P. Merrill; The Tongues of Birds, by F. A. Lucas; The Ontonagon Copper Bowlder in the United States Museum, by Charles Moore; The Antiquity of the Red Race in America, by Thomas Nilsen; and accounts of the Mineralogical Collections in the Museum, by Wirt Tassin, and of the Taxidermical Methods in the Leyden Museum, Holland, by Dr. Shufeldt.