Travels among the Great Andes of the Equator. By Edward Whymper. With a Supplementary Appendix, bound separately. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. xxvi + 456, and xxvi+147. Price, $6.
Whether regarded as a book of travel or as a record of scientific exploration, Mr. Whymper's production has eminent claims to attention. The chief object of his expedition was to investigate the physiological effects of the diminished air pressure at high altitudes. That some disturbance of the bodily functions is caused by ascending to great elevations had been established by the testimony of "multitudes of persons of diverse conditions—by cultured men of science down to illiterate peasants. . . . Nausea and vomiting; headaches of a most severe character; feverishness, hæmorrhages, lassitude, depression, and weakness; and an indescribable feeling of illness—have been repeatedly mentioned as occurring at great elevations, and have only been cured by descending into lower zones. To these maladies the term mountain sickness is now commonly applied." While such effects have been felt by persons who have slowly climbed mountains to heights of fourteen thousand to fifteen thousand feet, balloonists have often risen within an hour to much greater heights without such inconvenience. This fact gives reason to believe that symptoms produced by fatigue have been attributed often to rarefaction of the air. Accordingly, in his Andean explorations, Mr. Whymper took especial care to eliminate the effects of fatigue from his observations.
The scene of his operations was that part of the chain of the Andes crossing the Republic of Ecuador, and among the mountains climbed were Cotopaxi, on the summit of which a night was spent, and Chimborazo twice, the summit being reached only in the second ascent. Many less noted peaks also were scaled. Besides making the observations which were his chief care, Mr. Whymper determined the altitudes and the relative positions of the chief mountains of Ecuador, made comparisons of boiling-points and aneroid readings with the readings of the mercurial barometer, and made botanical, lithological, zoological (chiefly entomological), and archaeological collections. As stated in the introduction, he concerned himself "neither with commerce nor politics, nor with the natives and their curious ways." Yet the incidents of the expedition, which are plentiful and are recounted with much vividness and humor, tell not a little about the "curious ways" of Ecuadorian bipeds and quadrupeds, likewise of hexapods and centipedes. The baggage-mules were inexhaustible mines of original sin, and the insects in the lower regions were everywhere. One full-page plate crowded with figures of flying and creeping things is described by the author as "selections from my bed-fellows at Guayaquil." The volume is copiously illustrated with carefully drawn and engraved pictures, many of them from the author's photographs. The meteorological observations are appended to the main volume. In the supplementary volume Mr. Whymper's zoological collections are described, with illustrations. They include a goodly number of species which were new to science.
The Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine, John Fryer, LL. D., editor, is now in its sixth volume. Its purpose is to convey to intelligent Chinese a knowledge of the principles and progress of Western science and art. It contains, quarterly, one hundred pages of matter, printed in the best Chinese style, liberally illustrated, relating to subjects of practical as well as theoretical interest. In the number before us such subjects are treated as photography, the art of living long, sugar-making, therapeutics, pressing, drawing, shearing, and stamping machinery, electricity, materia medica, ice-making machinery, the manufacture of lucifer matches, dual consciousness, electric railroads, Edison's kinetograph, and mathematical problems. Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai; Ralph Waggoner, 10 Spruce Street, New York. Price, $1 a year.
Dr. John Aulde, acting upon the belief that with the better knowledge of the physiological action of drugs large doses are not needed to produce desired clinical effects, has prepared The Pocket Pharmacy—a book intended both for practical use and as a plea for small doses, to be administered in accordance with physiological deductions. We are learning, he holds, instead of the gross manifestations of disease, to regard more closely the derangement of cell function on
