The essays comprised in Mr. William M. Bryant's volume entitled Life, Death, and Immortality, and Kindred Essays[46] have developed, as he expresses it, one by one during a number of years past. The term developed is a happy one, for the papers were certainly not made to order, but read like results of systematic, continuous thinking. They concern the religious aspect of human nature. The author thinks that negative criticism has for the time being exhausted its resources, and the time has come for further positive interpretation of the fundamental conceptions of the Christian doctrine as to man's nature and destiny. A reference to a few of the points in the first essay, which gives the title to the book, will afford a view of the author's method. Men of science are constantly insisting that the total quantity of energy is changeless, and nothing can be added to it and nothing taken away. What are the "total quantity of energy" and the "great first cause" but the same, to the activity of which is due every phase of reality? This being changeless, it could not at some period "have created a world and afterward left it to spin on of its own accord 'without interference.'" Mind is a form of energy, consequently indestructible and undying, and the question of immortality is reduced to the form "whether in respect of man's essential nature as a thinking unit, death can ever be more than transition from one to another grade of life." Other essays are on Oriental Religions, Church Organization, The Heresy of Non-Progressive Orthodoxy, Christian Ethics and those of other religions, and Eternity.
Professor Merriman's Elements of Sanitary Engineering[47] is a thoroughly practical treatise setting forth the principal rules and laws relating to sanitation, both individual and municipal, as it is practiced to-day. A brief historical introduction is followed by a classification of diseases, and a general consideration of such questions as filth and disease, impure air and disease, drinking water and disease, etc. The second chapter takes up the question of the purification of water. Chapter III discusses the practical aspects, for a municipality, of water-supply systems. Consumption of water, capacity of storage reservoirs, pipe lines, pumping engines, tanks and stand pipes and street mains are among the special headings. Sewerage systems are next dealt with. A discussion of questions connected with the disposal of garbage and sewage forms the fifth and last chapter of the book. An item which adds value to the volume is the series of exercises and problems, practically applying the laws set forth, which follows each chapter.
An Epitome of Human Histology[48] has been written by Mr. Weysse to meet the difficulty in which the conscientious student of microscopic anatomy is placed who finds himself in possession of a great many isolated facts about the minute structure of the body, but with rather an indefinite conception of the relation of those facts to one another and of the subject as a whole. In the writing the author has sought to present all the facts that are of real importance to the student; to express them in the briefest and clearest language, omitting whatever is not strictly required; and to arrange them in such a way that the reader, in considering any organ, may, if he will, actually sketch each part as he proceeds, and thus make a diagrammatic plan or picture of the entire structure. The book is not for idle students, but for serious ones, and it is not a text-book or intended to take the place of one; and it can serve its true purpose only when used by students who have had laboratory practice as well as lectures in histology, and have thus examined the actual structures.
In his work on Elementary Botany,[49] Professor Atkinson introduces the method which he has found successful in teaching beginners. Many of the newer botanical text-books, in reacting against the plan of presenting first the higher types of plant life, overwhelm the student not only with a multitude of unfamiliar forms, but demand from him powers of comparison and analysis that are generally the result of much scientific discipline. In this book the pupil receives some preliminary guidance in habits of correct induction. By studying the processes of transpiration, nutrition, growth, and irritability in plants belonging to higher as well as lower groups, he learns the universality of these life principles, and is led to see the foundations for sound generalization. This the author considers vastly more important than the knowledge of individual plants. The student, however, in this investigation becomes acquainted with special forms among the lower plants, and is thus prepared to take up morphology systematically. This topic begins with the study of Spirogyra, and ends with an outline of twenty lessons in the angiosperms. The final third of the book is devoted to ecology, the study of plants in their natural surroundings and of their modifying factors—climate, soil, topography, etc. The illustrations, which are above the average throughout the work, are in this division exceedingly good. The descriptive text of the same section is entertaining enough to be used as a class reader, and would interest those unfamiliar with botany. There are several slight errors to be corrected in a future edition. In the table of measures a kilometre is made to equal one hundred instead of one thousand metres, and the references to plates are occasionally wrong. On page 345 the reference should be 449, and on page 349 should be 458 in place of 457. In describing pollination of the skunk cabbage, the words "rub off" are ambiguous. The uninitiated might suppose that the insect obtained pollen from the stigmas instead of depositing it there. The book is not intended for recitation, but for reference and as a guide in study. It is supplied with an appendix upon the collection and preservation of material, and an index.
A notice of a book[50] of this nature is justified in this column, since it contains much that will be of interest to the student of ethnology, folklore, and cognate subjects. It is interesting to get a glimpse of matters pertaining to social customs, ways of thinking, and the occurrences which animated these ways among the Japanese a thousand and more years ago. The author says, "It is a remarkable and, I believe, an unexampled fact that a very large and important part of the best literature which Japan has produced was written by women."
The preparation of his Elementary Text-Book of Botany[51] was undertaken by Mr. Vines to meet a demand which appeared to exist for a less bulky and expensive volume than his Students' Text-Book. A more important feature than the diminution of the bulk is claimed in the simplification which the contents have undergone from the omission of certain difficult and still debatable topics. The usual divisions into morphology, anatomy, physiology, and systematic botany are followed; but the caution is appended that it must not be forgotten that these are all parts of one subject, different methods of studying one object—the plant. Hence they must be pursued together. "For instance, the morphology of the leaf can not be profitably studied without a knowledge of its structure and functions; and it is also important to know what is the systematic position of each of the various plants whose leaves afford the material for study. In a word, the student should not attempt to read the book straight through from the beginning as if it were a novel. On the contrary, he may begin with any one of the four parts as his main subject; but that part must be studied in close relation with the other three parts"; and this method of proceeding is facilitated by the insertion of a large number of cross-references in the text.
A satisfactory account is given by C. Francis Jenkins in Animated Pictures[52] of the development and present state of chronophotography, or the art of "conveying by persistence of vision a counterfeit impression of objects in motion through the display in rapid succession of a series of related pictures." The story shows very clearly that this, like most other inventions of consequence, is no sudden discovery, but is the culmination of a very long series of experiments. The principle of it is embodied in the toy, the zoetrope, the origin of which is not known, though a citation from Lucretius indicates that something of the kind existed in his time. With the discovery of instantaneous photography, a new application of the principle of the zoetrope was found. Muybridge and Marey were pioneers in this development with their photographs of the motions of animals valuable in sciences. Since their work was begun the photographic processes and apparatus have been greatly improved. Mr. Jenkins forecasts a brilliant and useful future for the art, which he hopes will be prosecuted along the line of other than its present most popular uses. The book is practical as well as historical and prophetic, and contains an account of Mr. Jenkins's phantoscope as the first successful "moving picture projecting apparatus," for which he received the Elliott Cresson medal from the Franklin Institute.
The Metric System of Weights and Measures, prepared by Mr. A. D. Risteen, and published by the Hartford Steam-Boiler Inspection Company, Hartford, Connecticut (price, $1.25), gives what has long been wanted—a neat volume, convenient for the pocket and durably bound, furnishing tables for instantly converting all the metrical units up to one hundred of each into those of the English weights and measures, and vice versa. Calculation, being needed only for the numbers above one hundred, for which there are already short devices, is reduced to the lowest possible limit.
Terrestrial Magnetism, an international quarterly journal, edited by L. A. Bauer and Thomas French, Jr., and published at the University of Cincinnati, is the recognized organ of the International Conference on Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity. The September number, 1898, contains the proceedings of the conference, which met in connection with the last Bristol meeting of the British Association. It contains in full the welcoming address of Prof. W. E. Ayrton, the opening address of A. W. Rücker, president of the conference, and ten of the papers read at the meeting.
The name of Prof. John Trowbridge as author of such a book as Philip's Experiments; or, Physical Science at Home (D. Appleton and Company, $1) is a sure guarantee of its scientific value. The author has given a chapter substantially out of his own experience, for he says his taste for science and for drawing were stimulated by his father in the manner here described. His object in publishing it is "to show that a few moments devoted each day at home to simple investigations can result in habits of self-reliance in the acquirement of a modern language and in the study of the art of drawing." He endeavors also to show how to cultivate a taste for mathematics by studying practical problems in surveying and in sailing a boat; and how much a parent can accomplish in the formation of a son's tastes without special knowledge, and without the expenditure of much time and money. The account is in the form of letters from the father to a friend, describing his experiments with his son Philip in this method of teaching. He has always cultivated fellowship with the boy; and, finding him inclined to improve and add to the designs on the wall-paper, puts objects to be drawn and copied in his way, and induces him to go out and draw from Nature. So the boy learns to study forms and observe. To teach language he gives him regularly the daily German newspaper, to pick out what he can from it, and joins him in the sport. In a similar way he introduces Philip to surveying and physics, and other branches of science. The plan is a success; Philip attracts attention by the ingenuity which his training has enabled him to develop, and going to college is graduated with credit and in possession of a live as well as a book knowledge of what he has studied.