Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/721

Rh repair. Efforts have been made to improve the garden in all respects, but particularly in those features which will make it attractive and instructive to visitors, and render possible in it the performance of substantial and useful botanical work. The task of mounting the Engelmann herbarium has been nearly completed, and the collection is temporarily deposited in a nearly fire-proof building, awaiting the erection of a permanent fire-proof house. Measures will then be taken to form a museum. The record is given of the school of horticulture, in which provision is made for six pupils at once, and the announcement of the Washington University School of Botany, to which the garden furnishes a laboratory and working ground. Besides these accounts of routine work, the volume gives the proceedings at the first annual banquet to gardeners, florists, and nurserymen, given December 13, 1890, and, under the heading of "Scientific Papers," a revision of the American species of Epilobium occurring north of Mexico, by Mr. Trelease, which is richly illustrated.

work, containing one hundred and fifty-two illustrations and diagrams, chiefly of the nervous system in man and the lower animals, aims to present some account of The Philosophical Problem of Mind, The Rise of Organized Life, the basic facts of Brain Activity, some remarks upon The Immortality of the Race and the Data of Propagation, the results of some of The Investigations of Experimental Psychology, and The Ethical and Religious Aspects of Soul-life. According to Dr. Carus, the true conception of the soul is as form. The idea of form, he thinks, is not a mere speculative theory, but of practical importance, especially as related to the problem of life after death. The following passage will indicate the author's position on this point: "Man's soul was formed in the course of the evolution of the human race by the reactions upon the external influences of the surrounding world, and the present man is the outcome of the entire activity of his ancestors. . . . Every one of us began his life with the beginning of all life upon earth. We are the generation in which the huge billow of human life now culminates. We, ourselves, are that billow; our real self, our spiritual existence, will continue to progress in that great wave.

"Our existence after death will not merely be a dissolution into the All where all individual features of our spiritual existence are destroyed. Our existence after death will be a continuance of our individual spirituality, a continuance of our thoughts and ideals. As sure as the law of cause and effect is true, so sure is the continuance of soul-life even after the death of the individual, according to the law of the preservation of form" (p. 423).

The author regards "as not the least important feature of the book" its philosophical foundation as corroborating "the unitary conception of the world, commonly called Monism, or, more exactly expressed, Monistic Positivism."

A Clinical Study of Diseases of the Kidneys has been published by Clifford Mitchell, M. D. (Keener), in which the author insists on the importance of thorough examination of the urine for information in regard to not only diseases of the kidneys but also many other disorders, and in regard to the effects of diet and treatment. One hundred pages are devoted to the treatment of Bright's disease, including the regulation of diet, air, exercise, care of the skin, place of residence, psychical influences, etc. In writing this book the author has kept in view the needs of American patients, and has shunned those recommendations of English writers on diet and hygiene which are not suited to the climate of America. Although the title of the book limits it to renal diseases, the author has deemed it necessary, in connection with these, to pay attention also to those of the entire urinary tract.

Ezamen Quimico y Bacteriológico de las Aguas Potables is a treatise on drinkingwater and its impurities by A. E. Salazar and C. Newman, of the laboratory of the Naval School at Valparaiso, Chili. It is the result of studies of the waters of the city carried on in the laboratory in 1887 and 1888, and is published partly as a guide to those who wish to make similar studies in other parts of the