beyond all proportion to its wealth, membership„ and success. Host of the communistic societies of the United States might better be studied as religious than as socialistic phenomena. . . . Icaria is an attempt to realize the rational, democratic communism of the Utopian philosophers, hence its value as an experiment."
The Elements of Chemistry, Inorganic and Organic. By Sidney A. Norton, Ph. D. Cincinnati and New York: Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. Pp. 504.
Intending his treatise to be used as a text-book, not as a manual for reference. Professor Norton has endeavored to select such chemical phenomena as represent the cardinal principles of the science, giving preference to those which are easily reproduced by the student, and which enter into the affairs of common life. He invites students to experiment, and encourages them, if they can not afford artistically made apparatus, to extemporize apparatus with bottles and tumblers and connecting tubes. The most essential thing in experimenting, he says, is the experimenter, who should know what he proposes to do, what are the means at his command, and how he intends to use them; and, chemistry being exact in its methods, he must remember that careless manipulation will not secure good results, and that such words as neutral, acid, basic, and excess, must not be neglected. In nomenclature, the rules of the London Chemical Society are observed; in notation, a flexible plan has been adopted; and, in the descriptions of elements, Mendelejeff and Meyer's classification has been followed.
Report of an Archæological Tour in Mexico, in 1881. By A. F. Bandelier. Boston: Cupples, Upham & Co. Pp. 826, with Twenty-six Plates.
The report is one of the papers of the Archaeological Institute of America, in cooperation with which Mr. Bandolier made his explorations, and is the second of the American series of its special reports. Besides the notes of the explorer's travel, it embraces his studies of and observations upon the archæological relics in the city of Mexico, the mounds of Cholula, and the interesting ruins of Mitla, all richly illustrated, largely from photographs.
Science in Song; or, Nature in Numbers. By William C. Richards. Boston: Lee & Shepard. New York: Charles T. Dillingham. Pp. 131.
An attempt to present various facts and principles of science in verse. Among the special topics sung in measured numbers are steam, electricity, the spectroscope, magnetism, various chemical elements, heat, astronomical phenomena, etc. The verse has considerable life and merit as verse, and the author's success justifies his belief that philosophy and poetry in union are not incongruous. The singer's bias is decidedly against the doctrine of evolution, which he appears to believe—mistakenly, as both sides are coming to conclude—is in some way hostile to the foundations of his religious faith.
Reports of the Meetings of the Scientific Associations held in Montreal and Philadelphia, as given in "Science." Cambridge, Mass.: "Science" Company. Pp. 112.
Accounts of the proceedings of the recent meetings of the British and American Associations at Montreal and Philadelphia, with abstracts of the more important and interesting papers, including the presidential and vice-presidential addresses, were published in the consecutive numbers of "Science," from August 29 to October 3, 1884. These six numbers are here combined in a bound volume under the title given above, which, besides the abstracts mentioned, contains considerable other matter of scientific interest.
Representative British Orators, with Introductions and Explanatory Notes. By Charles Kendal Adams. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Three volumes, pp. 318, 308, and 376. Price, $3.75.
The object of this publication is to help show the great currents of political thought that have shaped the history of Great Britain during the past two hundred and fifty years, by bringing together the most famous of those oratorical utterances that have changed, or have tended to change, the course of English history. While the orations included—from masters of English oratory—are great as rhetorical efforts, it is not for this that they are given, but for their political significance. Eliot and Pym
