Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/723

Rh Moths of New England, Fresh-Water Fishes, and Frogs, Turtles, and Snakes (Whidden, 50 cents each).

An introduction to the subject of Electrical Measurements, by Edward Trevert (Bubier Company, $1), is a neatly arranged little book, of convenient size for the pocket. For an amateur who is attempting practical work the book ought to be a very handy one. Its four chapters, Electrical Units, The Measurement of Resistance, Current Measurements, and Potential Measurements, occupy 117 16mo pages. There are numerous illustrations.

A condensed and convenient Handbook of Practical Mechanics comes to us in the shape of a 16mo from Charles H. Saunders, of Hartford, its author and publisher. It is intended for use in the shop and draughting room, and contains rules and formula? for the solution of practical problems. There are numerous tables and illustrations where necessary. The last few pages contain a collection of "workshop receipts."

In Robinson's New Intellectual Arithmetic (American Book Company, 35 cents) we have a carefully arranged system of meutal arithmetic; a science, the study of which is of great value in developing the thinking and reasoning powers, and which has a direct utility for the business man. The general divisions of the subject—addition, subtraction, etc.—are treated in the same order as in an ordinary arithmetic, and the problems are much the same, but more carefully graded.

Elementary Lessons in Algebra (American Book Company, 50 cents) is a series of lessons inculcating a knowledge of algebraic processes and giving facility in the use of algebraic symbols. They set before the learner the combinations of literal quantities into sums, differences, products, and quotients, with little reference to arithmetical processes and without associating number values to the letters—often a source of confusion to the beginner. The book is intended for use in grammar schools.

The puzzling problem of money is treated by Arthur Kitson in A Scientific Solution of the Money Question (Arena Publishing Company, cloth, $1.25; paper, 50 cents). Although acknowledging important services rendered to political economy by Jevons, the author criticises him and other economists for confusing the subject of value. He further maintains that there is no such thing as an invariable unit of value, but that there may be such a unit of purchasing power, and undertakes to show how the latter may be obtained. In his view the only proper kind of money is one that is itself valueless and the issuance of which is not made a monopoly by law, He advocates the abolition of all laws restricting the issue of currency, and says that the result would be the rise of a variety of competing systems the fittest of which would survive. During the continuance of the struggle for existence people would have to depend on their own discrimination to determine whose money it was safe to take.

The third of the Occasional Papers issued by the trustees of the John F. Slater Fund is an outline of the Education of the Negroes since 1860, by J. L. M. Curry. It tells of educational work done while the civil war was yet in progress, sketches the labors of the Freedmen's Bureau, and of various religious and benevolent associations, and gives some account of the operations under the Peabody and Slater Funds (Baltimore: The Trustees).

Mr. C. Osborne Ward, who is the author of several books on the labor question, has issued a volume in advocacy of communism, under the title The Equilibration of Human Aptitudes and Powers of Adaptation (National Watchman Company, Washington, $1.25). He maintains that the competitive system is a failure, and points out its defects, giving especial prominence to the piracy of inventions and plagiarism of literary productions. He praises the trades unions for having made important progress in the right direction, and touches upon a multitude of minor topics to illustrate or enforce his contentions. In his last chapter he gives the average longevity in a large number of occupations and comments upon the injustice that allows quicksilver miners and brakemen to die at the age of twenty-six, while the rich of no occupation, farmers, judges, and some others live till past sixty. The author gives evidence of a wide reading, and expresses himself clearly and vigorously.

Several essays on The Nature of the State, by Dr. Paul Cams, which first appeared as