Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/870

852 is given to apparatus for changing alternating to direct currents or the reverse. Dr. Bell goes outside the strict limits of his title to treat of steam engines and of the development and use of water power. The organization of a power station, line construction, and the various problems of distribution, including the commercial problem, are all discussed in more or less detail. The volume contains over two hundred diagrams and other illustrations, including several halftone plates.

The Macmillan Company has issued for Dr. Charles B. Davenport the first part of a work on Experimental Morphology, to be completed in four parts. This part is devoted to the effects of chemical and physical agents upon protoplasm as determined by experiments. The chief chemical agents whose influence on the vital actions of protoplasm is examined are oxygen, hydrogen, oxides of carbon, ammonia, and various poisons. Among the physical agents experimented with are the forces heat, light, and electricity; the effects of moisture and dryness, of different densities of the containing solution, of molar agents, and of gravity are also passed in review. The influence of each agent on the direction of locomotion of the protoplasm is among the effects considered. Following each, chapter is a list of literature on the subject of the chapter. The work is designed as a contribution to the fundamental question. Why does an organism develop as it does? Of the two classes of causes that influence development, Dr. Davenport has confined himself to the external causes. The three parts of the work to follow will deal respectively with growth, cell division, and differentiation. (Price, $2.60.)

The United States Geological Survey is publishing a geologic map of the United States with a topographic base map. It is being issued in parts, called folios, each covering a small area. Thus the Yellowstone National Park Folio contains four topo graphic sheets, known as the Gallatin, Canyon, Lake, and Shoshone sheets, and four geologic sheets of the same districts. The scale is about half an inch to a mile, and the contour interval is one hundred feet. Contours and elevations are printed in brown, water courses in blue, and the works of man, such as roads, railroads, and towns, are printed in black. The geologic formations are indicated by systematic coloring. There are also eleven photo-engravings of views in the region covered, and six folio pages of description. The plan of the map is explained on the two inside cover pages. The Survey has a circular telling the prices at which the several parts are sold.

An atlas of Illustrations showing Condition of Fur-seal Rookeries in 1895 and Method of Killing Seals has been printed as a Senate document to accompany the report of C. H. Townsend. It contains forty-six plates, many of them folded, the greater part of which are views on St. Paul and St. George Islands, showing the seals on the beaches. Six plates show the processes of killing and skinning the seals.

In the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, covering the year 1892–‘93, the director, Major J. W. Powell, describes the work of the year, which included investigations along a number of distinct lines. The immediate purpose in organizing this bureau was "the discovery of the relations among the native American tribes, to the end that amicable groups might be gathered on reservations. It was early found that classification by somatologic (physical) characters was useless for the purpose in view, while a grouping by language, governmental institutions, religion, industries, and arts brought together tribes who could live in proximity with little or no strife. In general, language alone will serve as a satisfactory basis for this practical grouping, and readers familiar with the previous publications of the bureau have noticed the large share of attention that has been given to Indian languages, both spoken and written in pictograph. The present report is accompanied by three extended papers. One of these, on The Menomini Indians, by Dr. Walter J. Hoffman, describes the ritual of the Mitawit (Grand Medicine Society), into which he was duly initiated, and gives a considerable collection of Menomini mythology and folklore, together with descriptions of many of the arts and customs of this tribe and a vocabulary of its language. The memoir is illustrated with many full-page plates and smaller cuts. The