Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/286

274 of Connecticut—Wethersfield, Hartford, and Windsor by Charles M. Andrews. As in the other monographs of this series, the origin, growth, and development of these towns, with the various phases of social, political, and other life which they have passed through, are reviewed from the historical and philosophical point. The agrarian and civil life of the sturdy people who constituted their population, the author observes near the end of his story, "was not essentially different from that existent among the other New England towns; such life was in its general features everywhere the same. On close examination, however, we find that the machinery of town and court administration can be classified as to whether it is pure or mixed, simple or complicated, natural or artificial. To Connecticut belongs the best of these conditions. Her town life was pure, simple, and natural; the law which guided her political relations was nearer to the law which governs to-day than anywhere else on the American continent. We are apt to think of her settlement as an artificial importation, as one ready-made through the influence of pre-existent conditions. Beginning with the commercial stage, when trade was the motive power, it soon entered the agricultural stage, when the adventure lands were occupied by planters. With the development of this phase of its growth the military stage begins, when it became necessary to systematically arm against the Indians, and to turn the agricultural settlements into armed camps, with the people a body of trained soldiers. At this stage the ordinary religious life begins, when systematic church life arises with the infusion of new settlers; and last of all is reached the civil or political stage, when for the first time the settlements may be fairly called organized towns."

The Batrachia of North America, by Prof. E. D. Cope, is the forty-fifth of the series of papers illustrating the collections of the United States National Museum. The work embraces the results of a study of the character of the species, with their variations, for which the museum furnished liberal material, and studies of the osteology of the class, based on the material contained in various museums of the United States and Europe. The manuscript prepared several years ago by Prof. Baird and Dr. Girard has also been used, and ninety-one descriptions of species have been taken from it. The results have been expressed largely in systematic form, under the belief that descriptive zoology will never be complete until the structure is exhausted in furnishing definitions. Reference is made, wherever practicable, to the relations between the extinct and living forms. The general characters of the Batrachia, their general anatomy, larval characters, classification, affinities, and phylogeny, are considered, and terms and nomenclature explained, in the chapter introductory to the descriptions.

The Annual Report of the State Geologist of New Jersey for 1888 announces the completion of the magnetic and topographic surveys. The results have already been published and distributed in the first volume of the final report, recently noticed in the "Monthly." The second volume will contain full catalogues of the minerals, plants, and vertebrate and invertebrate animals, their occurrence and localities and some practical and economic particulars regarding them. The work still to be done in the matter of the geological structure of the rocks of the State consists mainly in combining and systematically arranging the materials which have been collected. A few points remain to be cleared up, and when this is done the volume on structural geology can be prepared, to be followed by one on economical geology. Among the material returns that have accrued to the State from the distribution of the reports are the system of artesian well-boring, which was started at the direct suggestion of the survey; increased attention to the development of the fire and potter's clay properties; drawing attention through the maps to many peculiar advantages of New Jersey; investments induced by the notices of mines, quarries, lime, marls, drained lands, and water supplies; and benefits to agricultural interests. The present report is brief, and includes "Geological Studies of the Triassic or Red Sandstone and Trap Rocks," with papers on drainage of the Pequest meadows and the low lands of the Passaic, water supply and artesian wells, and statistics of iron ores, zinc ores, fire clays, stoneware clays, and bricks.