Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/437

 Schorlemmer, Carl. The Rise and Development of Organic Chemistry. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 280. $1.00.

Shufeldt, Dr. R. W. Lectures on Biology. Pp. 103.—On the Osteology of Certain Cranes, Rails, etc. Pp. 14.—Notes on the Steganopodes, and on Fossil Birds' Eggs. Pp. 3.

Shufeldt, R. W., and Miss Audubon. The Last Portrait of Audubon, together with a Letter to his Son. Pp. 5, with Plate

Smith, H. Q. Notes on Eskimo Traditions. Pp. 8.

South Dakota. Report of the State Board of Health for 1892. Pierre. Pp. 57.

Spencer, Herbert. A Rejoinder to Prof. Weismann. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 27.—Weismannism Once More. London. Pp. 24.

Steiner, B. C. The History of Education in Connecticut. United States Bureau of Education. Pp. 300.

Strike, Report on the Chicago. Washington: Government Printing Office. Pp. 53.

Strike, The, at Pullman. Statements of President G. T. Pullman and Vice-President T. H. Wicks before the United States Strike Commission. Pp. 38.

United States Geological Survey. Geologic Atlas of the United States. Pike's Peak Polio. Pp. 6, and 5 Maps.—Chattanooga Folio, Tennessee. Pp. 4, and 5 Maps.

Walker, General F. A. General Hancock. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 332.

Wallihan, Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Hoofs, Claws, and Antlers of the Rocky Mountains with a Camera. Photographic Reproductions of Wild Game from Life. With an Introduction by the Hon. Theodore Roosevelt. Denver, Col.: Frank S. Thayer.

Ward, L. F. Recent Discoveries of Cycadean Trunks in the Potomac Formation of Maryland, Pp. 9.

Warren, L. Z. Defective Speech and Deafness. New York: G. S. Werner, 108 East Sixteenth Street. Pp. 116.

White, G. R. An Elementary Chemistry. Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp. 372.

Wood, Henry. The Only Practical and Possible Bimetallism. Boston: Lee & Shepard. Pp. 19.

Wright, Carroll D., Commissioner. Ninth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1893. Washington. Pp. 719.

Zinet, Alexander. An Elementary Treatise on Theoretical Mechanics. Part HI, Kinetics. New York. Macmillan & Co. Pp. 237. $2.25.



Decrease of Russian Rivers.—A diminution in the quantity of water in the rivers of eastern Europe, particularly in Russia, has been recognized for a long time. Koeppen began to seek for the cause of it as early as 1830, and the Russian Government is giving attention to the subject. Prince Vassiltchikoff, of the government of Saratov, having observed that the sources of a river on his estate shrunk as the region in which they were situated was dried, planted trees, and succeeded in causing the water to reappear. The experiment seemed to demonstrate incontestably that the removal of the woods was the immediate cause of the disappearance of the springs, and indicated that means might still be found for restoring the dried streams of the valley of the Volga. M. Vermoleff, present Minister of Agriculture of Russia, repeated M. Vassiltchikoff's experiments on a vast scale and with all the precautions to assure success which science could suggest. He dispatched a scientific expedition, composed of specialists, to visit the sources of the Volga and its affluents; and upon their recommendation suitable measures were taken to increase the quantity of water of the sources, and especially to make the flow more regular and less rapid. Thus, after having drained the marshes in some of the governments of Russia, the authorities are seeking means to give others a sufficiency of water.

Mr. Maxim's Flight.—Mr. Maxim, on the 31st of July, achieved a flight through the air, with his flying machine carrying himself and two of his men, of five hundred feet. The machine was held to the earth by a railway, on which it was locked by a device permitting its rising an inch or two, but preventing its soaring to any considerable height. It sailed, lifted from this railway as far as the machinery would permit, at the rate of forty-five miles an hour. The machine, with its four side-sails and aëroplanes set, is more than one hundred feet wide, and is described as looking like a huge white bird with four wings instead of two. It is propelled by two large two-bladed screws, resembling the screw propellers of a ship, driven by two compound engines which are said to be, in proportion to their weight, the most powerful ever made. The whole apparatus weighs about eight thousand pounds, and the engines have a lifting power of about ten thousand pounds.

Progress of Electrical Theory.—Lord Kelvin's address at the recent annual meeting of the Royal Society was largely devoted to a review of the history of the doctrine of the ether, and of light, heat, and electricity, culminating in Hertz's demonstration of its validity. During the fifty-six years, the speaker said at the conclusion of his address, since Faraday first offended physical mathematicians with his curved lines of 