Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/582

566 his views, which have, at least, the rare merit of being very brief. So wide is the range of this discussion, and so many big books have been written upon it, and so diverse are the theories maintained about it, that it was certainly no small exploit to put "The Philosophy of a Future State" in sixteen pages of large and readable type, but our author does not pretend to exhaust the subject. The argument is predominantly psychological, and, if not altogether original, is, at any rate, ingenious.

the Introduction, the place of physics among the natural sciences is defined, its methods are stated, and the operation of measuring together with certain measuring instruments, are described. The section on mechanics includes, under "Mechanics of Fluids," the subject called hydraulics in the old books. Heat is treated chiefly in relation to mechanics. A second volume is to follow, treating of electricity and magnetism, acoustics and optics. By this arrangement the connection between light and sound, as being results of vibratory motions, is more emphasized than the connection between light and heat, and the laws of radiation are not presented in the chapters on heat. The book has been prepared for college classes, and is one which students can work hard over. It attacks the subject from the mathematical side, and requires no laboratory work. The knowledge of mathematics which it presumes includes plane trigonometry.

book contains much scientific and technical information, ranging from bread-making and mining to the nature of money and the law of wills, joined by a thin thread of story. Children who care only for stories will not find it hard to skip the useful knowledge, but in following the narrative they will meet with a great many long words, and will have their attention drawn to the vicissitudes of Wall Street, and to that occupation known as "waiting for dead men's shoes." There are good stories which give considerable scientific information, and there are scientific books which are as interesting as any story, but this book belongs to neither class.

is a warm plea for national education of the South. Its points are supported by vigorous arguments, and re-enforced with telling statistics and diagrammatical illustrations. The author begins by attempting to show that the difference in the structure of Northern and Southern society is fundamental—not a merely temporary affair to be wiped out in a few years after the war—but a matter which lay away back of the war, and was its cause; and that under the most favorable circumstances its removal must be the work of a very long time. The difficulty has not been simplified but rather complicated by emancipation, which has brought the two elements of black and white into irrepressible rivalry. This rivalry will not diminish, but will grow with the increase of the colored element, which has been going on, and will continue to go on, with amazing rapidity, while the growth of the white population will be stationary or retrograde. On this matter, while regarding the subject from an opposite point, and with an opposite bias from those of Professor Gilliam (Northern as opposed to Southern), the author quotes approvingly that gentleman's assertion in "The Popular Science Monthly" for February, 1883, that a fusion of the two races is impossible, saying that his conclusion is indisputable "during any period with regard to which speculation may be properly and reasonably extended. Certain it is that the influences now existent will render his words as true a hundred years from now as they are today. What change may possibly be wrought in the tone and sentiment of generations more remote and under circumstances which can not be foreseen, it is, of course, impossible to estimate. . . . We are compelled to indorse his views in this respect almost without the least modification";