Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/582

564 In 1892 he published a work on the Future of Silver, which, translated by Robert Stein into English, is now printed and circulated by the Finance Committee of the United States Senate. In this essay the author reaches the conclusion that, assuming that the system of metallic coinage continues to exist, silver will become the standard metal of the earth, and that "the question is no longer whether silver will again become a full-value coinage metal over the whole earth, but what are to be the trials through which Europe is to reach that goal."

Charles Denison's Climates of the United States, in colors, already well known in its form in charts, has been revised and condensed in dimensions, and is now published in a convenient little volume by the W. T. Keener Company, Chicago. It gives in maps, with scales of colors graphically showing the intensity of the phenomena in the different regions, the average annual cloudiness, rainfall, temperature, and winds, the elevations of different regions, and the combined atmospheric humidities and seasonal isotherms and wind indications for each of the seasons throughout the whole United States, excepting Alaska.

Dr. Adolf Brodbeck, of Zurich, believes that in his little pamphlet. Die Zehn Gebote der Jesuiten (The Ten Commandments of the Jesuits), the truth about the Jesuits and their relation to Christendom is said for the first time. The authorities on which he relies are the classical writings of the order.

George H. Boehner prefaces an interesting study of the Prehistoric Naval Architecture of the North of Europe (United States National Museum) with a brief notice of Greek and Roman boats, the constructions of the Germans, and such ancient boats as have been found in England. By far the largest part of the paper is devoted to Scandinavian boats, of which a considerable number have been found in the northern countries. This gives opportunity to describe the situations and positions of these boats, their surroundings, and the articles which were found with or near them, so that incidentally much information is conveyed concerning Scandinavian archæology in general.

Christ, the Patron of all Education, is the title of a sermon preached by the Rev. Charles Frederick Hoffmann before St. John's Guild of Hobart College, on the occasion of the commencement of that institution in 1893. It is published, by request of the guild and of members of the college faculty, by E. and J. B. Young & Co., New York. In company with it the same house publishes, also by request, an address delivered by Dr. Hoffmann on the occasion of the laying of the corner stone of St. Stephen's College, Annandale-on-the-Hudson. The subject is The Library of a Divine Child.

The composition of The Study of the Biology of Ferns by the Collodion Method was begun by George F. Atkinson after he had been successful in applying the method in his classes to the preparation of the very delicate tissues of ferns, and especially to the infiltration of prothallia without shrinkage. He started to prepare a simple laboratory guide, giving directions for preparing the various tissues, with a few illustrations, made chiefly from preparations put up by students in their regular work, together with some descriptive matter. Gradually other features were added, and the book grew to its present volume of 1 34 pages, constituting a fairly full technical manual. The first part is descriptive of the life cycle of ferns, their reproductive organs, parts, growth, and functions. The second part relates to methods of preparation and examination. The study is published by Macmillan & Co., New York, at the price of $2.

The Eighteenth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Michigan State Board of Health for 1889-'90, besides the regular matter of official routine in the first part, contains in a second part a number of papers, abstracts, and reports, among which are one on the Principal Meteorological Conditions in Michigan in 1889; one on the Time of Greatest Prevalence of each Disease, being a study of the causes of sickness in the State; and one on Dangerous Communicable Diseases in Michigan in 1889, relating to diphtheria, smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, typhoid fever, whooping-cough, pneumonia, dysentery, glandular hydrophobia, and lump-jaw. Henry B. Baker, Secretary, Lansing.

The Rev. T. W. Webb very useful and convenient work on Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes—a fitting companion for Mr. Serviss's Astronomy with an Opera