Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 54.djvu/435

Rh accustomed places on the return of summer, and the song sparrow sings in the same tree he frequented the year before; but the woodchuck, the raccoon, and the deer are not so often found exactly where we think they belong. To seek an interview with such folk is like taking a chance in a lottery; there are numerous blanks and but few prizes. But because wild life is not in constant evidence, like the wild flower, is no proof that it is uncommon. To those who keep in touch with Nature, it becomes a very familiar thing, and to live a while where the wild creatures make their homes is to cross their paths continually." Mr. Mathews is in touch with Nature. He does not exactly know where to find the wild and shy, for they do not come at call, but he can put himself where he will meet them if they come around—and "one can never tell at what moment some surprising demonstration of wild life will occur at one's very doorstep." In this book Mr. Mathews records some of his meetings, at home and in his daily walks, offering as his excuse for the record, that he has lived long enough among wild animals to "respect their rights of life, and speak a good word for them when occasion offers."

The Short Manual of Analytical Chemistry prepared by Mr. John Muter, follows the course of instruction given in the South London School of Pharmacy. Encouraged by the continued favor which the book has received in Great Britain, the author offers a special edition of it to American students, a concise and low-priced manual, designed to introduce them to the chief developments cf analytical chemistry from the simplest operations upward. It includes many organic questions generally overlooked in initiatory books. By working through it the author claims the student may expect to become familiar with a great variety of processes, and to be in a position to use with satisfaction the more exhaustive treatises dealing with any special branch he may desire to follow. In preparing it for American students, the directions, wherever the British methods differ from the American, have been modified to agree with the latter. The processes given include the qualitative analysis, all the general operations and those relating to detection of the metals, of acid radicals and their separation, of unknown salts, of alkaloids and certain organic bodies used in medicine—with a general sketch of toxicological procedure; and in quantitative analysis, directions on weighing, measuring, and specific gravity; gravimetric analysis of metals and acids, ultimate organic analysis, special processes for the analysis of air, water, and food; analysis of drugs, urine, and calculi; and analysis of gases, polarization, spectrum analysis, etc.

The pure geometry of position is mainly distinguished, according to Professor Reye's definition, from the geometry of ancient times and from analytical geometry, in that it makes no use of the idea of measurement. Nothing is said in it "about the bisection of segments of straight lines, about right angles and perpendiculars, about ratios and proportions, about the computation of areas, and just as little about trigonometric ratios and the algebraic equations of curved lines, since all these subjects of the older geometry assume measurement. . . . We shall be concerned as little with isosceles and equilateral triangles as with right-angled triangles; the rectangle, the regular polygon, and the circle are likewise excluded from our investigations, except in the case of these applications to metric geometry. We shall treat of the center, the axes, and the foci of so-called curves of the second order, or conic sections, only as incidental to the general theory; but, on the other hand, shall become acquainted with many properties of these curves, more general and more important than those to which most text-books upon analytical geometry are restricted." Of all the other branches of geometry, the descriptive is the most helpful in facilitating the study of the geometry of position; and perspective or central projection plays an important part in it. It stands in a certain antithetical relation to analytical geometry on account of its method, which is synthetic, and whence it is