Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/872

854 cookery. In it are included the flavoring herbs known in our gardens; spices, etc., from abroad; condiments prepared from animal foods, mixed sauces like the Worcestershire, and ketchups and pickles. The author believes that these things, properly used, are aids to digestion. (Published by the Hotel World, Chicago.)

Of the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, for 1894, Part II contains papers on the availability of organic nitrogen, fungous diseases and their treatment, and injurious insects; Part III, Studies on the Proteids of Rye and Barley and on the Chemical Nature of Diastase; and Part IV on subjects relating to the dairy and on tobacco. The publications of the station are sent free to every citizen of the State who applies for them.

Under the title Bread from Stones a translation of some of the writings of Julius Hensel on fertilizers has been published by A. J. Tafel (1011 Arch Street, Philadelphia, 25 cents). Hensel declares that the current theory of fertilizing is wrong. Too much potash, phosphorus, and nitrogen, he says, are supplied to plants, and not enough lime, magnesia, silica, sulphur, or fluorine. The normal soil consists of weathered rocks. This is the best soil for plants, producing not only vigorous growth, but also edible parts of firm texture, resisting insects, and valuable and wholesome for food. He therefore advocates the use of finely pulverized stone-meal as a fertilizer, and gives testimony as to its efficiency.

The Senile Heart, by George William Balfour, M. D. (Macmillan, $1.50), is quite a comprehensive consideration of this and allied conditions in the other organs of the body to which the aged are especially prone. In the introductory chapter some space is given to a consideration of why we get old why we so rarely die of old age, and this is followed in Chapter II by an examination of the direct effects of age on the heart muscle. There are twelve chapters, the last four of which deal with therapeutics. A chapter is given to gout, and also one to angina pectoris. The book contains some interesting sphygmographic records.

The consolidated school law of 1894 made a number of important changes; but as published it is a pamphlet of one hundred and thirty-five pages, the legal phraseology and verbiage of which obscures the meaning in many places. A Handbook for School Trustees (Bardeen, 50 cents), by C. W. Bardeen, which arranges the law by subjects and gives the minor details only in notes, ought to prove valuable to teachers and other school officers. The differences in law between the district and union schools are pointed out, and directions are given for the establishment of an academic department under the Regents of the University.

In a little volume, half prose half poetry, entitled The Supremacy of the Spiritual (Arena Publishing Company, 75 cents), Edward Randall Knowles, LL. D., undertakes to show that the ether is spiritual rather than material.

John A. Kersey has written down under the title Ethics of Literature a part of what he would like to say about books and authors—a part only, for on page 570 he states that he is about to close without having finished (the author, Marion, Ind.). "I propose to inquire," he says in his preface, "what some great literary luminaries have done, and to show in some instances what were better left undone for the enlightenment of mankind. And in this retrospect we will observe the acknowledged Titans engaged in Herculean labors to establish truths which, in the nature of things and of mind, are either self-evident or unprovable. We will observe minds which have given the world some of the most superb thought, grouping the rarest gems in clusters with the veriest peter-funk." n Other instructive observations are also promised to the reader.

A neat little forty-cent edition of Defoe's History of the Plague in London is just issued by the American Book Company. While there is much fiction mixed up with the description, Defoe being only four years old at the time of the plague, there is enough of actual fact to give the work a historical value, and the less well authenticated portions add much to its readableness.

Roman Life in Latin Prose and Verse is the title of a book of selections from Latin writings, made by Harry Thurston Peck and Robert Arrowsmith (American Book Company). It is intended to be used either as the chief book for a short course in reading Latin or as a volume for sight-reading, and