Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/431

Rh there can be no substantial and lasting morality without a basis in inductive science. We maintained this at a time when the doctrine had few avowed friends and many active enemies. We are exceedingly gratified that now a dignified and ably edited magazine has been established in which this idea can have free and full expression. Among the other articles in this number of the Journal is The Law of Relativity in Ethics, in which the author, Prof. Harald Höffding, of Copenhagen University, maintains that "in an ideal state only that would be demanded of each individual which lay within his range and power." Prof. J. B. Clark, of Smith College, has a paper on The Ethics of Land Tenure, in defense of private ownership in land. Bernard Bosanquet writes on The Communication of Moral Ideas as a Function of an Ethical Society. Dr. Abbot's "Way out of Agnosticism" is criticised by Prof. Royce very fully and freely. As to this author's mode of thinking, Prof. Royce says, "Dr. Abbot's way is not careful, is not novel, and, when thus set forth to the people as new and bold and American, it is likely to do precisely as much harm to careful inquiry as it gets influence over immature or imperfectly trained minds." A brief paper on A Service of Ethics to Philosophy, by William M. Salter, of Chicago, suggests that "ethics not only enlarges our philosophy by opening to our view higher heights or deeper depths than Science is aware of, but it gives us something ultimate in philosophy, ideas that may be fairly classed as ultimate truths." The Journal's book reviews are all signed.

book is the second volume of a series to which the author has given the name of Nadaillac's work—Prehistoric America. It is devoted to describing those mounds of various shapes in our Western States which it is thought were intended to represent the forms of certain animals. The author has aimed to describe all the effigy mounds in the country; hence the volume, which is based on his own explorations in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Ohio, includes also the results gathered by other explorers in the same States and in Dakota, Georgia, and Florida. The descriptions are illustrated with two hundred and thirty-seven cuts, besides numerous plates, comprising plans of mounds, maps of the localities in which they have been found, and drawings of articles of aboriginal workmanship. The figures of mounds are generally silhouettes. The author gives the following as the points that he has sought to bring out by his explorations and descriptions: "1. The effigies were undoubtedly imitations of the wild animals which were once common in the region, but they are at the same time totemic in their character and may be supposed to represent many things in the clan life of the people. 2. The effigies are interesting as works of art, but, at the same time, they were evidently used for practical purposes, such as screens for hunters, guards for villages, foundations for houses, heaps on which sentinels were stationed. 3. There are some remarkable features embodied in the effigies which render them especially interesting, since they reveal certain strange superstitions and customs which are rarely found, but which are suggestive of the religious system prevalent in prehistoric times. 4. The question, Who built the effigies? is treated briefly, but is left undecided." The successive chapters deal with special divisions of the subject, such as the animals represented by the effigies, religious character of the emblematic mounds, the location of the effigies as related to the topography, etc. The author is editor of The American Antiquarian.

work is designed to be an authority for use in refineries, sugar-houses, experimental stations, schools of technology, etc. Within the past few years numerous new methods and modifications in old methods of sugar analysis have been brought forward, and many researches of importance to the chemistry of sugar have been accomplished. This material is scattered through so many publications, some of them being foreign journals not readily accessible, that it can be of use to the majority of American students and practicing chemists only when