given the occupation and number of the workers concerned, locality, cause or object, duration, whether successful or not, losses to employers and employees, etc. The main table of strikes is arranged by States, years, and industries, and occupies over 1200 pages of the first volume. The lockouts are presented in a table of 108 pages. The second volume contains summary tables in which the same information is presented from various aspects. From the commissioner's analysis of the tables, it appears that, of the 10,487 strikes occurring in the seven years and a half, 43·52 per cent were successful, 10·19 per cent partly successful, and 46·28 per cent failed. Of the lockouts—four or five hundred in all -48·87 per cent were successful, 10·15 per cent partly so, and 40·44 per cent failed. For the whole period of thirteen years and a half covered by the Third and Tenth Reports together, the loss to employees from strikes was, in round numbers, $164,000,000; from lockouts, $27,000,000. The losses to employers from the same causes were $83,000,000 and $12,000,000 respectively.
The Pedagogical Series of papers issued by the University of Pennsylvania has for its first number an account of Three Typical Educational Systems, by Lewis R. Harley, Ph. D. This consists of outlines of the public-school systems of Massachusetts, New York, and Michigan. While often referring to the origin of certain features, Dr. Harley has not undertaken to give a history of school administration in these three States, but rather to represent it as it exists.
The memoir on the discovery of Argon with which Lord Rayleigh and Prof. William Ramsay won the Hodgkins-Fund prize has been issued as one of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. This remarkable discovery has been widely described in both technical and popular journals, and a revised version of the memoir has been published in the Philosophical Transactions. The paper is here presented in the form in which it was submitted to the committee.
The Peabody Museum at Cambridge has begun a series of quarto publications with a memoir on Prehistoric Ruins of Copan, Honduras, being a preliminary report of the explorations made by the museum from 1891 to 1895. This report has been compiled by George B. Gordon from his field notes and those of Marshall H. Saville and John G. Owens, who at different times have carried on the explorations under the direction of the museum. It is intended to give only a general description of the ruins and a summary of the work of the several expeditions. It will be followed by special papers on the discoveries made. The museum has had the co-operation of Alfred P. Maudslay, the English explorer of Central America, and has adopted the names, letters, and numbers with which he has designated various portions of the ruins and some prominent sculptures, while for new features the letters and figures have been continued in sequence. The memoir is illustrated with a plan of the ruins and a considerable number of plates and figures representing stelæ, altars, and other pieces of sculpture. The explorations were made possible by the contributions of subscribers, whose names appear in the report.
It is a serious warning that is put into story form in Cursed before Birth, by J. H. Tilden, M. D. (the author, Denver)—a warning to women who shirk the cares of motherhood, to girls who think it is a benefit to be noticed by old and wealthy men, and to young men on whose shoulders rests the guardianship of a home. It is a warning also to those rapacious miscreants who imagine that they can prey upon the virtue of their communities without coming to a day of reckoning. Dr. Tilden writes with much earnestness, and there are many who should heed his admonition.
An elementary book under the title Uncle Sam's Letters on Phrenology, originally published in 1842, has been reprinted recently (Fowler & Wells Company, paper, 50 cents). The letters are written in a familiar style, with considerable pleasantry, and contain many illustrative anecdotes and allusions to public men and affairs of fifty years ago.
On account of the important position occupied by the alternating current transformer in systems of distribution for light and power. Prof. Frederick Bedell, of Cornell University, has been led to prepare a treatise on The Principles of the Transformer. "Ten years ago," the author re-
