Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/875

Rh spiritualizing tendency, and that the analytic stage of mind holds itself back determinedly from thinking the totality. In more metaphysical language, we are content with the category of otherness. In somewhat fatalistic fashion he predicts for us: "Renounce teleology and you find nothing but teleology in everything. Renounce introspection, and you are to find introspection the fundamental moving principle of all Nature." It is, however, just to say that the book is a strong, consistent exposition of the a priori philosophy and its applications, and has the saving grace of compelling its opponents to examine the ground whereon they stand.

The author of the Story of Photography has high hopes for the future of photography and its capacity for continued development and production, and writes with the enthusiasm which they inspire within him. He specially seeks to present the subject in the light of a fine art and as a source of æsthetic and refined enjoyment—"not so much with the object of producing a manual to teach photography as an art, but, while giving due weight to that side of the subject, to present it in its most scientific aspects." The order of arrangement of the topics is largely historical. In the detail of "the first steps toward photography," the earliest hints perceived by experimenters of the power of the sun to produce pictures are recorded. Then the steps are followed by which the art became real, and its development, with accounts of modern processes and inventions—printing presses, color photography, the Telegraph and Photography, and Photography and Art, of which the author says in conclusion that the one who takes up the combined science and art with the motto "All that there is in it or nothing," "will find but little cause to complain of the limitations, in view of the almost boundless possibilities of photography."

In La Culture des Mers en Europe (The Cultivation of the Seas in Europe), by Georges Roché, inspector general of maritime fisheries, the several branches of the propagation of fishes and oysters and the development of fisheries are treated, under the heads of piscifacture, or propagation, pisciculture, and ostreiculture. While not assuming to write a work on aqriculture, as he calls it, the author endeavors to instruct his readers concerning the working of maritime industries and the technics of the methods of fish and oyster culture. He first explains the modern methods of fishing and their results as applied to the European seas; then the methods of propagation and cultivation practiced in different countries and experiments in the reproduction of lobsters and crabs; the development of oyster culture in France since the natural supply became insufficient; and, in the last chapter, the cultivation of sponges.

The third volume of the Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada, and the British Possessions completes a work of the very highest value to American students. The number of species figured in the whole work is 4,162, comprising 177 families and 1,103 genera. Eighty-one of these species, being new determinations or new discoveries made while the book was going through the press, and too late for insertion in their proper places, are figured in the appendix. A conservative course has been pursued as to the admission of new species, and only those are inserted that have passed the test of continuous observation. It has nevertheless been thought better to err in the direction of illustrating too many forms rather than in giving too few. A general key of the orders and families is placed at the beginning of the volume, preceded by a table of abbreviations of the names of the botanical authors cited. A glossary of the botanical terms used is added. The orders are not described in the work itself, but their principal distinguishing characters are given in the key. The authors are sturdy advocates of the