Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/729

Rh F. Wheeler and Erwin F. Smith. Hubbardstown, Michigan. Pp. 105. 50 cents.

The Mineral Resources of the Hocking Valley: Being an Account of its Coals, Iron-Ores, Blast-Furnaces, and Railroads. By T. Sterry Hunt, LL.D. Boston: S. E, Cassino. Pp. 152, with Map. 75 cents.

Educational Journalism. By C. W. Bardeen. Syracuse, New York. Pp. 30.

The Physiology of Climate, Season, and Ordinary Weather Changes. By Alexander Rattray, M.D. San Francisco, California. Pp. 20.

"The Odontographic Journal: A Quarterly devoted to Dentistry." Conducted by J. Edward Line, D.D.S. Rochester, New York: Davis & Leyden. Pp. 64. $1 a year.

Proceedings of the United States National Museum, June 2 and 22, 1881. Pp. 80.

A Manual of Accidents and Emergencies. By George G. Graff, M.D. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Printed for the Author. 1881. Pp. 92. 50 cents.

Revised Odd-Fellowship illustrated. By President J. Blanchard, of Wheaton College. Chicago: Ezra Cook & Co. 1881. Pp. 272. $1.

The French Revolution. By Hippolyte Adolphe Taine. Translated by John Durand. Vol. II. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1881. Pp. 358. $2.50.

Annual Report of the Chief Signal Officer to the Secretary of War, for the Year 1879 Washington: Government Printing-Office. 1880. Pp. 782.

Algebra for Schools and Colleges. By Simon Newcomb. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1881. Pp. 454.

The Young Folks' Astronomy. By John D. Champlin, Jr. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1881. Pp. 236 60 cents.

Sea-Mosses. An Introduction to the Study of Marine Algæ. By A. B. Harvey, A.M. Boston: S. E. Cassino. 1881. Pp. 281. $2.

Book of the Black Bass. By James A. Henshall, M.D. Cincinnati; Robert Clarke & Co. 1881. Pp. 470. $3.

 

Science in Politics.—"Science and Civil Liberty" was the subject of an address by Dr. W. R. Condell at a recent meeting of the Scientific Academy of Springfield, Illinois. Its object was to show the important bearing of the physical sciences on political science, and their claim to be regarded in suggesting and instituting reforms. Accepting Mr. Spencer's principle that the social aggregate must be determined by the units composing it, he derived the corollary that any social or political system, arbitrary in its nature, and not determined by the nature of the units, must be disastrous to the units or individual citizens. The scientific study of the mind from the physical side must have an important bearing upon the subject of crime as well as on other social questions which have never been solved by existing methods. The metaphysical school, whose deductions rested on a less solid basis than the hard facts of nature, had had too much influence in our legislation. Science, Dr. Condell believed, should be acknowledged as the supreme political standard; and not till this result had been consummated would perfect civil liberty be realized.

Somnambulism.—The phenomena of somnambulism arise from the fact that the faculties are unequally suspended during sleep, so that one set of organs may be active while the others are dormant. It is frequently accompanied by dreams, which arise out of a similar condition of the nervous functions. Several incidents, illustrating the manner in which the partial suspension, partial activity of the faculties affect the somnambulist, are related in an English magazine. A boy, on his way to the sea-side, had traveled by steamer, railway, and coach, from six o'clock in the evening till four o'clock on the next afternoon, without cessation and with hardly any sleep. Shortly after going to bed, his companion was awakened by a crash of glass, followed by hysterical cries, and, on looking for the boy, found that he had got up, broken the window, and gone. He was found in the road, wounded in the feet. It appeared from his story that, when half asleep, he thought he saw a mad bull rushing at him. Catching hold of the curtain, which he thought was a tree, he swung himself over the hedge by which the tree grew—the window, open from the top—then jumped and ran away, breaking the window with his heel, and cutting his feet on the sharp stones. In this case the impression left on the mind of the sleep-walker was so strong as to enable him to tell all that he thought and imagined during the dream. In the next incident no trace of remembrance survived. A servant-girl came down at four o'clock in the morning, and asked her mistress for some cotton to mend her dress, which she had torn. While she was looking in her work-box some one offered her an empty spool, but she refused it, and taking up her gown pointed to two holes which she said she wanted to mend. A needle was threaded for her with black cotton, but she rejected it, saying she wanted brown cotton. Some one spoke, and she 