Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/581

 quarters, has prepared a little book on How to keep a Dog in the City, which is published by William R. Jenkins, New York, for 25 cents. It supplies information respecting the details of the management of the dog from puppyhood up, including lodging, feeding, measures for cleanliness, care of his skin, exercise, training, and treatment of his ailments.

How to make a Trial Balance representing any number of accounts in less time than an hour is explained in a small book written and published at Baltimore, by A. Weinberg. The method is the result of much thought and study, and may, the author claims, be applied to a business of five thousand accounts as easily as to one of fifty accounts, with great saving of time and labor.

Two series of twelve charts each, published by the United States Signal Office, show graphically the probability of rainy days and the average cloudiness for each month in all the regions of the United States within the circle of observations of the several local signal stations. They are based on observations made from 1871 to 1888 inclusive, or for shorter periods at the more recently established stations. The percentages of rainy days (called such when precipitation to the extent of ·01 inch or more occurs) are calculated for each station and month from the average number of such days. The cloudiness charts are made up from eye-observations taken three times a day. They are expected also to show the sunshine by taking as sunshine the complement of the cloudiness. Such data, when well matured, are of great value in the study of climate and its adaptability to different conditions and needs of health.

Three numbers of The Quarterly Register of Current History (Evening News Association, Detroit) have been published. The first number, February, 1891, contained a review of the history of the world during 1890. The second number. May, and the third, August, 1891, are devoted respectively to the history of the first and second quarters of the year. The matter is classified and arranged under the heads of International Affairs; Affairs in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, and in America; Record of Progress, and Necrology. The idea of the publication is an excellent one. The short view we have been able to take of the numbers does not suggest that anything of value is omitted, but shows several things of minor importance which, if they had been left out, would not be missed a year or two hence; and there is room for improvement in pruning and smoothing the articles, the present style of which is more like that of a daily paper than of a record made to last.

To the attempts to teach foreign languages in the way they are learned in Nature must be added the method of Dr. Edward Pick, in which the language itself is employed as the instrument, and is taught by comparison with the English before the grammar is learned. The author holds that remembrance is assisted most efficaciously in the study if we take the known as the starting-point of comparison with the unknown. In the study of foreign languages the known consists of those elements which we find in our own language, or in any other language familiar to us. Thus the knowledge of one foreign language facilitates the study of others. The usual method of studying foreign languages—beginning with grammar—"is contrary to the nature of the mind, because we begin with the unknown—nay, more, we begin with details unknown to us (the grammatical rules) of a thing equally unknown (the language)." In Dr. Pick's Method applied to acquiring the French Language (C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, New York), the pupil is introduced to Voltaire's History of Charles XII, for the study of the French text, word for word and form for form, with the English translation.



Ashley, J. M. The Impending Political Epoch. New York: Evening Post. Pp. 87. 25 cents.

Bill, Robert. Star Land. London and New York: Cassell & Co. Pp. 876. Illustrated.

Ball, Robert. The Cause of an Tee Ape. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 180. $1. Illustrated.

Bennett, T. J. Texas Sanitarian. Austin: Texas Sanitarian Publishing Co. Monthly. Pp. 72. $2 a year.

Bronson, T. B. Colloquial German. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 147. 65 cents.

Call, R. E. Tertiary Silicified Woods of Eastern Arkansas. Pp. 9. Reprint.

Cannizzaro, S. and Fabris, G. Tests for the Purity of Olive Oil. Boston: J. A. Hayes & Co. Pp. 41.

Carpenter, W. B. The microscope. Seventh edition. Edited by W. H. Dallinger. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 1099. Illustrated.

Charts showing the Isobars, Isotherms, and Winds