Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/579

Rh bibliography of the origin of iron ores, which occupies seventy-five pages. The volume contains also lists of mining companies and of leases of mineral lands, the mining laws of Minnesota, a glossary of mining and geological terms, etc. There are several colored plates showing microscopic sections of minerals, and other plates showing plans of mines, the general appearance of certain rocks, and the mining machinery made by various manufacturers, and there are several folded maps.

his sub-title the author describes this work as "an outline of philosophy in the light of the latest scientific research." Philosophy has not been so much affected by any movement in all the centuries of its history as it has by the activity of scientific thought in the last two or three generations, and this book is designed to inform the general reader as to what modification metaphysics has undergone in consequence of the scientific upheaval. "It is quite natural," says Dr. Shoup, "that they who are once taken with the experimental method should think they have no time, and show so plainly that they have no patience with the old hair-splitting, foggy metaphysic. And yet it will hardly do to cast contempt upon the old thinkers. The seductive path of positive science leads off into regions of speculative thought at numberless points; and if Science does not already know that she is caught in the toils of Metaphysics, it is only because she does not yet fully recognize her contact with the ultimate." In the early part of the volume Dr. Shoup sketches the latest results of physiological research upon the human mechanism in its relation to the psychic powers. He then devotes a chapter to the chasm between mechanism and consciousness, in which he states that the so-called scientific opinion that matter is the cause of mind is really unscientific and is not held by the leading men of science. He quotes against materialism Tyndall, Huxley, Spencer, Maudsley, Du Bois-Reymond, and Pasteur—all explicitly. Passing to the consideration of personality in its psychical aspect, Dr. Shoup treats each of the mental faculties in succession, closing with a discussion of ethical feeling, and a consideration of the infinite personality. The author states that the metaphysics of his work is in the main the Lotzian phase of Kant. The style of the book is attractive, and the author evidently has the too uncommon ability to appreciate the work of both metaphysicians and scientists.

The Report of the State Mineralogist of California, William Irelan, Jr., for 1890, is a large octavo volume, which contains, besides the general report of the mineralogist, a large number of special reports on the several counties of the State, prepared by assistants in the field, and other special papers. Among the latter papers are an account of the asphaltum mine of Ventura Asphalt Company, by E. W. Hilgard; Lead Smelting, with figures of apparatus, by F. C. von Petersdorff; Location of Mines, by R. P. Hammond, Jr.; Quicksilver Mining, by J. B. Randol; Mining of Gold Ores in California, by J. H. Hammond; Pico Cañon Oil-fields, by Edward North; and Auriferous Beach-sands, by Dr. H. De Groot. The volume is illustrated by diagrams and photographic views, and is accompanied by six folded geological maps.

The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences for November, 1890, being Numbers 9 to 12 of Vol. V, contain some two hundred pages, which are wholly devoted to Coleopterological Notices, second part, by Thomas L. Casey. A plate accompanies the text. The Transactions of the Academy for October, 1890, comprise the proceedings at four meetings, and abstracts of papers by Dr. John I. Northrop on The Geology of the Bahamas, by Dr. H. T. Vulte on the analysis of grains and cereals, and by Dr. H. Carrington Bolton on musical sand in the Hawaiian Islands and in California.

Volume XII of the Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science covers the twenty-second and twenty-third annual meetings of the Academy. The volume contains a large number of papers, most of them brief, dealing with a wide variety of scientific topics. Among the most important are two by Prof. F. H. Snow, describing his very successful operations in disseminating contagious