Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/427

Rh character of their flowers or fruit, their longevity, rate of growth, and other circumstances tending to make them more or less acceptable in the places where they are to remain. The American elm and the soft maples appear to be among the trees best adapted to this purpose.

two pamphlets, which together attempt a new cosmology and a theory of development intended to take the place of the "mistaken attempt" of Darwin, furnish an example of the nonsense which a class of visionary theorists imagine they can pass off for Science. The basis of Mr. Philbrook's system is that the universe and all its parts and contents are manifestations of electricity. When he comes to details, he is startling as well as amusing. Thus: "The atmosphere is only a continuation of the condensation of the electricity of the solar system, and each atom of gas of this abundant element is but a slightly condensed globe of mica. "Gold" is produced simply by a great pressure of particles of mica. Silver is constructed by the pressure of chalk; copper by the pressing of the mica partly decomposed, and the substance is but little different from gold. Iron is produced by pressing quartz and the undecomposed mica in it." Coal is formed by the exposure of coral to great heat, and exists wherever there are mountains: in the Orange Mountains of New Jersey, and in Massachusetts, "sufficient coal for a whole nation," and if bored for deep enough, will be found there. Less beat than is required to convert coral into coal produces trap.

author gives as a reason for having prepared this book, "a desire to commemorate the freedom of Niagara from individual possession, and becoming in a manner the property of the world. Surely, if anything deserves a printed formal recognition, it is the removal of that great indignity done to Nature's masterpiece in the past." Her thought was a happy one, and her execution is worthy of it—and as nearly worthy as a modest human effort can presume to be, of the subject. A better guide the visitor need not ask for, and a more agreeable companion in a guide he is not likely to get. The directory of points of interest on the American and Canadian sides forms a but relatively small part of the book, but it is the practical part, and is ample for its purpose. The mass of the book is made up of choice articles from travelers and poets, most of them classics in English and American literature, describing the falls or reflecting the emotions which they have awakened; in short, it is a compendium of that which is best in the literature and romance of the falls. These articles are accompanied by numerous excellent illustrations.

work is number three in the series of papers of the American Historical Association. It reviews the history of all the grants of land that have been made by Congress in aid of education in the Northwest Territory and the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin; the dispositions that were made of them in the several States; the manner in which the funds accruing from them have been managed; and the net results in benefit to education that have been derived from them. The grants were variously made to the Territory as a whole, and to the States in severalty; they included the "school-section" in every township of thirty-six sections; saline lands, swamplands, grants for seminaries or universities, grants for agricultural colleges, and special grants. The grants have in no case been as well managed as they might have been, and have been in some instances badly managed, with much waste; but, with all this, they have been "instrumental, in a degree that can not be estimated in mere dollars and cents, in promoting the cause of education. It is doubtful if with the wisest management the school-land could have been made to maintain unassisted the work for which it was set aside. Perhaps the greatest benefit