Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/942

852 starts in a quiet and dignified way. There was evidently no effort to go far afield for conspicuous contributors to the first number, six of its seven articles being contributed by Chicago professors. It is announced, however, that some of the most eminent sociologists in the United States and Europe will be advisory editors and contributors. We are glad to see the lack of a journal for America in this field supplied. The new magazine can be productive of much good, both to its readers and to its contributors—to the latter, by forcing them to state their ideas so as to be proof against the criticism which never dares raise its head in the professor's lecture-room.

Two pamphlets on American currency, either of which may be taken as an antidote to the other, have come to hand within the same month. In one, The Financial Question, a large number of considerations adverse to the free coinage of silver are presented by Charles S. Ashley in short, disconnected discussions or quotations (the author, Toledo, O.). A feature of the publication is a series of diagrams, in which many of the author's facts and estimates are presented in a graphic way. Various considerations on the opposite side of the question are presented by Mason A. Green under the title Are we Losing the West? (C. E. Brown, Boston, 10 cents). If the Ohio man can be taken as speaking for the West, the anxiety of the Massachusetts man is misdirected.

Among the bulletins issued by the University of the State of New York in 1895 was a revision of the Academic Syllabus, or statement of the requirements for the examinations conducted by the university. It contains the changes determined upon since the last revision, in 1891, the most important of which tend toward more thorough work in English and history. Another bulletin is devoted to the Tenth Annual Conference of Associated Academic Principals, in which discussions on a number of subjects interesting to teachers are reported. Extension Bulletin No. 9 consists of brief descriptions of the Summer Schools of the United States and of a few abroad.

Guides to genuine science teaching are steadily increasing in number. A little manual which well embodies the spirit of such instruction is Practical Proofs of Chemical Laws, prepared by Vaughan Cornish, of Owens College (Longmans, 2s., 75 cents). It is a course of some twenty experiments on the combining proportions of the chemical elements, with full working directions, and a statement in each case of what the results mean. The results of historic experiments and of students' work are frequently cited to show what approximation to accuracy should be expected.

A Naturalist in Mexico, by Frank C. Baker (David Oliphant, Chicago), is the account of a winter's trip to Cuba, northern Yucatan, and Mexico. The expedition was undertaken under the auspices of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, its object being to collect data and specimens illustrating the fauna, flora, and geology of Yucatan and southern Mexico. The text is a combination of narrative, science, and history. Some of the descriptive writing is very well done, and while the book is perhaps not exhaustive, the whole trip only lasting a trifle over three months, it is extremely interesting. Illustrations from photographs, taken by the party, together with sketches made by the author, are quite numerous; and there are also figured a number of new species of mollusks which were discovered by the expedition.

A Laboratory Course in Experimental Physics, by W. T. Loudon and J. C. McLennan (Macmillan, 8s. 6d., $1.90), was prepared, say the authors, to assist them in handling large laboratory classes in which they had found it very troublesome and slow to give the necessary detailed explanation of the experiments to each individual orally. The book contains a series of elementary experiments adapted for students who are not familiar with higher mathematical methods, which have been arranged as far as possible in order of difficulty. There is also an advanced course of experimental work in acoustics, heat, and electricity, which is intended to follow the elementary course.

The Eleventh Annual Report of the Commissioners of the State Reservation at Niagara contains, besides the detailed account of the work of the commission for the year 1893-'94, an interesting paper on the Duration of Niagara Falls and the History of