Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/583

Rh and that all ideas of anything else existing or acting conveyed by the terms and conceptions which we in the imperfection of our knowledge and capacity have invented to account for the things we see, are false. Mr. Atwood writes as one possessed of strong convictions.

The Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Service for the year ending June 30, 1896, presents statistics exhibiting the most satisfactory results yet accomplished by the service. While the total number of disasters was greater than in any prior year, the percentage of lives and property lost was less. The average annual loss of life from 1877, when the service was generally extended to the sea and lake coasts, till June 30, 1896 (excepting the year 1878, when an exceptional mortality attended the disaster to the steamer Metropolis), has been one out of every one hundred and twelve persons on board vessels involved in disaster, and the loss of property twenty-one per cent of the value imperiled.

In his essay on Value (Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., $1) John Borden presents a sober discussion of the principles on which value is founded, with its incidents—utility, use, value, relative exchange, market, nature, and money value; to which he adds A Short Account of American Currency, giving its history, and a chapter on A National Currency. His exposition of money value is sound, simply expressed, and forcible, showing how there can be but one standard, and that representing the intrinsic value of the bullion contained in the piece, and that coinage is merely a certification that metal to that value is there, not making the value or adding to it. He differs, however, from the majority of the gold-standard men in that he insists that if there is to be paper money (which must be merely representative of actual money behind it), the Government alone should issue it.

The sixth volume of the Proceedings of the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences covers the period from December, 1892, to the beginning of 1897. One of the most emphasized features observed in reading it is that it records the death of so many of the members who took part in the foundation of the academy and contributed to its usefulness and fame. The most important papers contained in the volume are a summary of the archæology of Iowa and a bibliography of Iowa antiquities, by Prof. Frederick Starr; a list of coleoptera from the southern shore of Lake Superior, by Prof. H. F. Wickham; and a revision of the Trexalinæ (grasshoppers) of North America, by Prof. Jerome McNeil. Shorter papers of interest relate to local and special subjects. Further, the minutes of the several meetings of the academy and the annual addresses of the presidents are given; also a portrait and biographical sketch of Prof. G. C. Parry, and a bibliography of his works.

The Eighth Annual Report of the Missouri Botanical Garden contains papers by William Trelease and J. Cardot, with fine plate illustrations, on the Mosses of the Azores and Madeira and botanical observations on the Azores, embodying the results of the visit of Mr. Trelease to those islands. The belief is expressed that by the system of distribution adopted, papers published in the garden reports are within the reach of more working botanists than those in any other similar publication on this side of the Atlantic. The garden suffered great damage by the tornado of May 27, 1896, and has been at considerable expense in repairing it. Plans are under consideration for making large additions to the grounds. The educational facilities offered by the garden are appreciated and utilized, but not so much as they ought to be.

Ten Noble Poems in English literature is the title of a pamphlet by J. T. Jones giving the result of a number of inquiries sent to various prominent literary people. The poems receiving the most votes were as follows: Intimations of Mortality; Saul; Elegy written in a Country Churchyard; Rabbi Ben Ezra; Ode to a Skylark; Harvard Commemoration Ode; The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Thanatopsis; The Eternal Goodness; Lines on Tintern Abbey (Unity Publishing Company, Chicago).

In Health of Body and Mind (Eagle Press, Brooklyn) T.W. Topham, M. D., gives us a discussion of the ethics of disease, in which he takes the position advocated by Mr. Spencer—that the care of the body is just as much a duty as is the care of the mind; that