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418 adapted to go with the advanced free-hand series. The four books of the latter series are intended to interest and instruct the mind of the learner, and improve his taste by giving information on the principles of pottery design and the conventionalization of plant forms for purposes of decorative design. The diagrams to be drawn are mostly historical examples of approved form. The model and object series is likewise a freehand series, but has no drawings to be copied; the cuts and explanation being designed to illustrate the underlying principles of model drawing and the method of procedure, and to send both teacher and pupil directly to the object itself. The manual presents a clear and concise statement of the principles of model and object drawing, and can be used independently of the drawing books. The æsthetic series gives the principal elements of the best known styles of ornament, and explains them in such a way as to enable the learner to recognize those various styles at sight. The drawings are intended not to be copied, but to be studied and to point out the method to be pursued in inventing designs. The mechanical series is wholly instrumental. The institute series, with its primary grade book and grammar grade book, is made especially for teachers' institutes, normal classes, summer schools, and intelligent classes having only a limited time for study. A great elasticity is allowed in the use of these books, in numbers used, length of course, and purpose.

secretary calls attention to the desirability of securing an appropriation to meet actual outlays incurred in administering Government trusts. These outlays, for matters not equitably chargeable to the fund of James Smithson, are increasing; they are incurred in serving purely governmental interests, and are not met by any of the present appropriations. In the line of research the secretary. Prof. S. P. Langley, has investigated in aërodynamics and astrophysics; aid has been given in Prof. E. W. Mosley's determinations of the density of oxygen and hydrogen; Prof. A. A. Michelson has been assisted in his study of the application of interference methods to spectroscopic measurements; Prof. Holden is engaged in lunar photography; and other investigations are reported upon. Mention is made of Mr. W. W. Rockhill's adventures in Tibet and other explorations described in the Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Volume XXVIII of the Contributions to Knowledge consists of the memoir of Captain Charles E. Bendire on the Life Histories of North American Birds. Prof. Michelson's memoir on interference methods was also published. The thirty-fourth and thirty-sixth volumes of the miscellaneous collections contain respectively two articles previously published separately, and Dr. H. C. Bolton's new Bibliography of Chemistry. A gift of two hundred thousand dollars has been made to the institution by T. G. Hodgkins, of Setauket, Long Island, for the encouragement of the study of the nature and properties of atmospheric air in connection with the welfare of man. Mr. Hodgkins also made the institution his residuary legatee. The appendix to the report contains a large number of articles on current science, mostly selected.

scope of this work indicates that it has been prepared for the use of high schools and colleges.

Commencing with histology, excellent ideas of a cell, of karyokinesis, of the properties of protoplasm, and of the various forms of tissue are given. Physiology proper is then taken up and considered in its various phases. The chapters on the blood and circulation are excellent, and that on the brain is especially good in its treatment of our modern knowledge of that nervous center.

The book has been prepared with great care and judgment, and is deserving of wide popularity in the field for which it is intended.

The Amateur Telescopist's Handbook (Longmans, Green & Co., New York) has been prepared by Frank M. Gibson for that