Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/436

418 of arbitrary word signs has been reduced to a minimum consistent with requirements for all purposes, and the entire system has been rearranged into a series of easy and progressive lessons. . . . It contains a complete exposition of all the principles, word sign?, and contractions that are requisite for the most difficult reporting purposes."

In the bulletin on Farmers' Institutes in 1894-'95, issued by the Michigan State Agricultural College, there are reported nine institutes—abstracts of the papers read, and brief summaries of the discussions held at each, being given. These reports have a liveliness and meatiness that mark the meetings as occasions of much profit.

Whittaker, in London, and Macmillan, in New York, publish The Chemists Compendium, compiled by C. J. S. Thompson (price, $1). It is a handbook of information for druggists, containing the formulas of the British Pharmacopœia given briefly and arranged alphabetically, a posological table, the unofficial formulary of the British Pharmaceutical Conference, some directions for dispensing French and German prescriptions, besides many lists and tables relating to analysis, poisons, photographic chemicals, freezing mixtures, doses for domestic animals, artificial fruit essences, solubilities, etc., etc.

Volume XXXIV of the Annals of the Harvard Observatory is devoted to a Catalogue of 7,922 Southern Stars, by Solon I. Bailey. These observations were made from the top of Mount Harvard, near Lima, Peru, and are intended to furnish magnitudes for the southern stars on the same scale as that on which the magnitudes of the northern stars are expressed in Volumes XIV and XXIV. Two chapters describing respectively the plan and the reduction of the observations are prefixed, and another, giving a history of the expedition, in which the obstacles encountered are described and information as to the suitability of a number of sites for astronomical work is given. Part IV of Volume XL and Part III of Volume XLI of the Annals are devoted to meteorology. The former is a report on the Observations made at the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory in 1894 under the direction of A Lawrence Rotch. An appendix to the tables gives the results of a series of comparisons of anemometers begun in 1892. The latter of these publications embodies the Observations of the New England Weather Service, which has one hundred and ninety-two volunteer observers, with J. Warren Smith as director. Accompanying the tabulated observations and based upon them are a description of the weather month by month, a list of severe storms, and a map showing the mean annual isotherms in New England for 1894.

Terrestrial Magnetism is a quarterly journal which has been added to the list of periodical publications of the University of Chicago. It is edited by Dr. L. A. Bauer and a corps of associates representing most of the countries of Europe, the United States, China, Java, and Australia, the intention being to give it an international character. All languages that can be printed with Roman characters will be admitted to its pages. The chief contributions to the first number (January, 1896) are: On Electric Currents induced by Rotating Magnets, and their Application to Some Phenomena of Terrestrial Magnetism, by Arthur Schuster, F. R. S.; and Die Vertheilung des erdmagnetischen Potentials in Bezug auf beliebige Durchmesser der Erde, by Dr. Ad. Schmidt. This number contains also a photographic reproduction of Halley's earliest equal variation chart, with a brief history by the editor. (University of Chicago press, $2 a year.)

The Bachelor and the Chafing Dish is the title of a little book for the gourmet, by Deshler Welch. The work consists of a number of "informal" receipts for preparations which can be cooked in a chafing dish. There is considerable somewhat amusing and desultory talk interlarded, most of the receipts being given after the description of an appropriate situation, such as a camp in the woods or at a sick friend's bedside. There is appended a glossary of the various terms used in cooking. (F. Tennyson Neeley, Chicago.)

On account of its covering part of the year of the Columbian Exposition, the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1892-'93 contains an unusually wide range of interesting matter. The Exposition material includes essays on the educational