Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/434

420 essays have therefore been made into it by men ill fitted to add anything of a useful character to our current conceptions.

The author's thesis is that all worlds as well as the ultimate particles of matter are magnets, and that the planetary and stellar motions are the expressions of magnetic attractions and repulsions. According to his idea, light and heat are not transmitted from the sun, but are formed in our atmosphere by the interaction of magnetic forces. The author has some good ideas, and in some things he is in line with the most advanced views of modern physics, but what is good is so mixed up with a lot of insufferable rubbish that it is nearly if not quite impossible to disentangle the two. The book as a serious philosophical work is greatly marred by the flippant style of treatment and the introduction of a hypothetical personage from whom the author derives the views he offers.

first number of this magazine appeared in July, 1891, and already, before its first volume is complete, its circulation has become so large as to warrant a reduction to half the original subscription price. The contents of the numbers so far issued consist of outlines and suggestions for carrying on the new and popular form of educational work to which the magazine is devoted, with accounts of what has been done at the various centers for this work. In the number for April are articles on Class Work in University Extension, Extension Teaching in Wisconsin, University Extension Work in Mathematics, and An Unknown Quantity and One Possible Value. The last article advocates an extension of our free high-school system by means of evening sessions, so as to bridge the gap between the elementary schools and the university-extension work. The magazine is conducted by the American Society for the Extension of University Teaching, in Philadelphia.

G. Masson, of Paris, has begun the publication of the Encyclopédie Scientifique des Aide-mémoire, or Memory-help Scientific Encyclopaedia, the volumes of which are prepared under the direction of M. H. Leaute, member of the Institute of France. While the publication is expected to be marked by a practical character, it will at the same time be truly scientific. It will be composed of eight hundred volumes in small octavo, which are expected to cover the entire domain of the applied sciences. Each of the volumes will be by an author who is an authority, and will give in a condensed form the precise present condition of science on its special subject and of the practical conditions relating to it. The eight volumes which were to have appeared on the first of April include works on Chronic Delirium, by Dr. Magnan; Gynaecology, by M. A. Auvard; Transmission of Force by Compressed or Rarefied Air, by M. Al. Gouilly; A Calorimetric Study of the Steam-Engine, by M. V. Dwelshauvers Dery; Disease of the Respiratory Organs, by Dr. Faisans; Electrophysiology, by Dr. G. Weiss; Distribution of Electricity by Isolated Installations, by M. R. V. Picou; and Resistance of Materials, by M. Duquesnay.

A book by Julian Ralph, entitled Along the Bowstring, is a guide-book to the south shore of Lake Superior. The Bowstring which gives it its name is the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad, which runs (on the map) in a marvelously exact straight line from Sault St. Marie to Duluth. Special descriptions are given of Marquette and Presque Isle and of Mackinaw; and Dr. M. E. Wadsworth contributes an interesting scientific chapter on the Geology of the Marquette and Keweenan Districts. Published by the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad.

How to reduce your Weight, or Increase it, a vivacious monograph by Celia Logan, chatty and personal while intended also to be practical, is defined as "an exposition of the Salisbury plan." Its purpose, as outlined by the author, is to make plain to every one how an easy and sure deliverance from the burden of corpulence is in his own hands; and, incidentally, to point out a way by which the meager may, readily and agreeably, attain a pleasing roundness of outline. The author professes herself to have used her prescription with [advantage. William A. Kellogg, publisher, 1023 Sixth Avenue, New York. Price, 50 cents.

Notes on Beauty, Vigor, and Development, published by Fowler & Wells Co., is a