Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/437

Rh exercises and of references to more advanced treatises to further study of the subject. The primer stands in close relation to the author's previously published Outline of Psychology, but, being intended as a first book, its exposition is simpler, while its range is wider. Greater emphasis is laid throughout upon the fact of mental evolution. The definition of psychology and its work are discussed in the first chapter and its method in the second; and after these follow the several chapters on the conditions, operations, and powers of the mind, advancing from the simpler, sensation, etc., to the more complex, memory and imagination, thought and self-consciousness, sentiment, etc. The treatise ends with the discussion of abnormal psychology and an exposition of the province and relations of the science. The whole discussion goes, as the author believes, to show that psychology, so far as it has gone, makes up an orderly and systematic body of knowledge.

To the Concise Knowledge Library Maps D. Appleton and Company have added Astronomy, by Agnes M. Clerke and two other well-known students and writers on the subject. The aim of the work is to present in concise form a popular synopsis of astronomical knowledge to date. For this purpose authors are employed who are thoroughly conversant with the science and its literature, with the present theories and with current observations and their results, and who have earned a reputation for ability to present these things in a style intelligible and interesting to the general reader; and the reports of the most recent work in astronomy in the United States and abroad have been consulted. The work of authorship is systematically divided among the three writers whose names stand as sponsors for the book. Miss Clerke gives a brief historical sketch of the science from Hipparchus to the present time and furnishes the account of the solar system. Mr. Fowler, demonstrator of astronomical physics to the Royal College of Science, briefly outlines the general principles of spherical and gravitational astronomy, and describes the instrumental means now at the command of observers in the various branches of astronomical research; and Mr. Gore treats of the sidereal heavens. The work is illustrated by a large number of diagrams, and other designs prepared expressly for it, and by a number of reproductions of photographs and drawings made by distinguished astronomers in Europe and America. Among the observers and others to whom acknowledgments are made we find the names of American astronomers frequent and conspicuous.

A great deal of useful information and as much good taste are embodied in Mr. Bailey's little book on Garden Making, and it is further full of suggestions for readers who may be able and disposed to plan and carry out gardening enterprises beyond the limits of the immediate teachings of the book. It deals with the kitchen garden and the ornamental grounds, their laying out, the tools to be used upon them and the best methods of operating, what to put into them, and all matters pertaining to their care and cultivation. The first section is General Advice, the second on the Plan of the Place. Then follow hints and instructions on Planting the Ornamental Grounds, the Fruit Plantation, the Vegetable Garden, lists of trees, shrubs, flowers, fruits, and vegetables, and calendars of operations for the North and the South. The author has been aided by L. R. Taft, F. A. Waugh, and Ernest Walker, professors of horticulture in Michigan, Vermont, and South Carolina.

A manual of Laboratory Experiments on the Class Reactions and Identification of Organic Substances, prepared by Prof. Arthur A. Noyes and Prof. Samuel P. Mulliken and published by the Chemical Publishing Company, Easton, Pa. (50 cents), describes experiments upon the class reactions of organic compounds; experiments illustrating the methods of detection of nitrogen, sulphur, and halogens in organic compounds; and methods of identification and separation of unknown organic substances. While the primary purpose of the experiments described is to illustrate the characteristic reactions of organic compounds, the importance of