Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/433

Rh signed." The initial number of this review opens with a paper on The Critical Philosophy and Idealism, by Prof. John Watson, of Queen's University, taking Caird's work on Kant as a starting-point. Prof. George T. Ladd follows with a review of James's Principles of Psychology, under the title Psychology as So-called "Natural Science"; and Benjamin I. Gilman contributes the first part of an essay on Psychological Aspects of the Chinese Musical System, with extended examples. There is a carefully edited department of Reviews of Books, and another department in which are given summaries of articles on philosophical topics in other periodicals.

has undertaken the publication of a periodical which shall make known the results of researches upon the nervous systems of man and the lower animals. The two numbers now before us contain contributions to the Comparative Morphology of the Central Nervous System, by the editor, and Morphology of the Avian Brain, by C. H. Turner, both papers being continued, accompanied by plates. There is also a contribution dealing with Recent Investigations on the Structure and Relations of the Optic Thalami, by Henry R. Pemberton. The other matter in the numbers consists of notes on laboratory technique, editorials, and literary notices. In addition to the physiological topics treated in the journal, the editor intends to give increasing attention to the problems of comparative psychology.

little manual essays to give in concise form the information necessary to acquaint the non-scientific reader with the principles of electric lighting. The author first treats of the electric battery, and then of the dynamo as a source of the electric current, and explains the meaning of series and multiple arc distribution. A chapter is given to lamps, arc, incandescent, and the now obsolete form known as semi-incandescent, or incandescence in the open air. In the arc lamps figured and described the only one in extensive commercial use is the Brush, of which there is a diagrammatic sketch. As the book is designed as a guide to householders and amateurs, and is not meant to be historical, the description of apparatus that have ceased to have a commercial place does not seem to be called for, and only serves to confuse the reader by presenting a multiplicity of appliances. This remark applies as well to the storage battery as to obsolete forms of lamp. Whatever the possibilities of the storage battery for power uses, it has no place in electric lighting, and there is but little probability that it ever will have. A chapter is devoted to fittings, in which is included a brief description of voltmeters and ammeters, and also one to the electric motor. Mr. Bottone seems to have but little conception of the predominating position which is being taken by alternating-current distribution, to which he gives but a couple of pages, which contain little information. The subject of meters is treated very cursorily. This would seem to be a subject of especial interest to the consumer, and a full description of the principles involved and somewhat detailed descriptions of the meters actually employed in commercial work might properly find a place in a book of this kind.

Of the volume as a whole very little can be said in commendation. It is too brief to be of much use to one wholly unacquainted with the subject, and the salient features which would be of importance and interest to the householder are not brought out with sufficient clearness. The book is printed on good paper, in clear type, but the cuts, with a few exceptions, are wretched.

is one of those pseudo-contributions to science which make their appearance once in a while, written by men who, without any thorough grasp of the fundamental conceptions of modern physics, undertake to remodel our views of molecular and planetary forces. The domain of elemental forces is sufficiently vague and obscure to give scope to attempts of this character, and not a few