Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/289

Rh letter so that it would not fail to be understood by any one who went through the spelling-book in the old-fashioned way. Dr. Leigh's "Pronouncing Orthography" retains the common form of every word, but silent letters are printed in hair-line type, and the significant letters are so modified that it is always plain what sound they stand for. Ten or a dozen primers and readers by various authors have been published in Leigh's pronouncing editions. Professor March uses Dr. Leigh's types for nine single letters and five digraphs in his "A B C Book." Words containing silent letters are postponed to a later stage. A part of his general method is to have the pupils begin to write with the first lesson, but this may be omitted if the teacher prefers. The transition from any of the primers mentioned above to common print is said to be easy, but, if it seems desirable to keep the pupils longer on the phonetic print, second readers or other supplementary matter can be had in most of the systems for this purpose.

attempt is made in these cards to combine amusement, as it is sought in playing whist, with instruction in the principles of a science. The cards, on which the classification of animals is graphically represented, are arranged in two packs of fifty-two cards each, one including the vertebrates, the other the invertebrates. Each pack is divided into four suits, representing the classes and thirteen orders. The rank of the orders being fixed according to numbers printed on the cards, the game is played as whist is played. The game of zoönomia is played with all the cards, or a smaller number, and is in effect an exercise on the qualities of the orders of animals represented upon them.

is the substance of an address that was delivered before the Franklin Institute in December last, in which the plan of the railway as projected by Captain Eads is explained, and its feasibility and the prospective advantages to be derived from carrying it out arc considered.

American Historical Association was organized at Saratoga in September, 1884, with Andrew D. White as president, and Herbert B. Adams, of Cornell University, as secretary, for the promotion of historical studies, and has registered already, for a society so new, a large list of members. It will publish original contributions to history in the form of serial monographs, each complete in itself, bearing its own title, pagination, and price; but the monographs will be also numbered in the order of their publication, and paged continuously with the series, for the annual volume. They are sent to members of the Association who pay their annual fee of three dollars, and to other persons for four dollars a volume. The address of President White is a forcible presentation of the value of historical studies, and suggests ways in which they may be made most efficient.

committee was appointed by the Board of Managers of the Franklin Institute in November, 1884, to conduct examinations and make tests of the efficiency and life-duration of incandescent lamps. It having prepared a code of conditions to which all competitors were expected to conform, Weston, Edison, Woodhouse and Rawson, Stanley-Thompson, and White lamps were entered, for competition or for comparative examination. The history of the testing, its incidents, and its results, are recorded in detail in the report.

Kansas Academy is evidently a working body. This volume of the "Transactions" contains notices or abstracts of forty-nine papers and reports read at the two meetings, all of them of much local and