Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/731

Rh and Newark Tide Marshes; G. F. Jenkins on the Iron Mining Industry; and John Gifford on Forestry in Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and France; with mineral statistics. The reports are accompanied by excellent maps.

The last volume in Appletons' Home-Reading Series to reach us is entitled Curious Homes and their Tenants. It consists of a popular description of some of the more curious human and animal "homes." The author, James Carter Beard, disclaims any attempt to do more than attract the attention of his readers to the subject in the hope of awakening in them the desire for a more thorough acquaintance with an interesting and instructive study. As the chief function of the animal or plant seems to be the perpetuation of species, we may expect the highest and most perfect qualities and instincts to be manifested in the solution of the cares and duties of parentage. To give some idea of the scope of the book we take the following chapter headings: Cave Dwellers, Birds that build Edible Nests, Moles, Jumping Mice, Bees and Wasps as Miners, Ants at Home, Cliff-dwellers, Butterfly House, Human Nest Builders, Eskimo Homes, Human Lake-dwellers, A City of Birds. Illustrations are numerous and well chosen.

The purpose of the work Opposites of the Universe is explained by the author, Mamie Sands, as to demonstrate that the universe is a whirl of opposites, and that these opposites are eternal, "which implies that they are neither creatable nor destroyable when the whole kosmos is considered." The book is to be in six parts. The first part, now before us, is a Discourse about Immortality, in which "opposites in special" are considered. They are arranged under numerous headings, such as chemiological, astrological, electrological, etc., opposites; and the theses are enforced by citations from philosophical and other writers of all ages. (Peter Eckler, New York, publisher. Price, 50 cents.)

Mr. J. Wilson, in common with most of his human brothers, is not satisfied with the present management of "things," so he has written a book on the rights and wrongs of men, under the title Self-control, or Life without a Master. He states its aim to be the bringing of the reader to a realizing sense of the fact that "no man has a right, under any circumstances or under any conditions, to be the master of another man." He contends that under the existing order the child is a slave to his nurse, then to his parents until he is twenty-one, and from this time until his death to the state. "He does not believe in masters or governments in any form." He claims no originality for his thoughts; "he would not deny for a moment that such thoughts have come or will come to other men." And further he says: "If the reader has not full confidence in his" (the author's) "ability to discuss this question fully and fairly, and if he is not confident that the author knows just what he is saying and what he is talking about, he ought to select some other book for perusal," which is certainly fair enough. The closing paragraph of the volume contains the following prediction: "What happened in Paris in the eighteenth century is liable, I may say is certain, to happen in America some time during the twentieth." (Lemcke & Buechuer, New York.)

We have received from C. W. Bardeen (Syracuse) A Government Class-book of the State of Michigan. It is a review of the form of State, county, city, and township government which prevails in Michigan, stating the function and powers of the various governing bodies and officials, and containing as two appendices the Constitutions of the State of Michigan and of the United States.

Not In It, by Anna Olcott Commelin, is a story intended to show the obligation under which the rich man is to aid his poorer neighbors. It recounts the history of several individuals in varying conditions of life, showing the value of well-timed aid and the great suffering which poverty entails on those who are suddenly reduced to it from comparative wealth. (Fowler & Wells, New York, 75 cents.)

The first series of lectures by A. D. Waller on physiology, which was delivered at the Royal Institution in the spring of 1897, has just appeared in book form under the title Animal Electricity. The material consists of six lectures. The first is a demonstration of the phenomenon of animal electricity, the