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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

writings. The lecture of Dr. Netto, who is Director-General of the National Museum, presents a summary in the French language of the results of archæology in Brazil, and is devoted largely to the explanation of the principal features of the papers contained in the "Archivos."

Lorenz Alma-Tadema: His Life and Works. By Georg Ebers. New York: William S. Gottsberger. Pp. 94, with Thirteen Plates.

Alma-Tadema—a Frisian by birth—is one of the foremost of English painters, and an artist whose style—except as he may have had imitators—is unique. His favorite themes are the severe classical and mediæval. Dr. Ebers is his close friend, and has undertaken to present this review of his life and works under the impulse of the thought that "he who knew him so well as a man also understood him as an artist, and would probably be able to give a faithful picture of his life." The illustrations are representations of some of the artist's most famous works.

Lettre à Monsieur Ernest Renan à propos de l'Inscription Phenicienne Apocryphe (Letter to M. Ernest Renan respecting the Apocryphal Phœnician Inscription). By Dr. Ladislau Netto. Rio de Janeiro. Pp. 35, with Plates.

In 1872 Dr. Netto submitted to the Historical, Geographical, and Ethnographical Institute of Brazil a pretended Phœnician inscription which was said, by one Joaquin Alves da Costa, to have been found by his slaves on one of his estates. It was afterward ascertained, and Dr. Netto was convinced of the fact, that the inscription was false. In this letter, addressed to M. Renan as "one of the most illustrious Orientalists of modern times," the author explains his relations to the matter, for which he has been subjected to unfavorable criticism, but which appear to have been entirely honest.

Kidnapped. By Robert Louis Stevenson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 324. Price, $1.

This story—of the Highlands and the Highland life of Scotland at a period when the land was tormented by contentions—sets forth the adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751; "how he was kidnapped and cast away; his sufferings in a desert isle; his journey in the wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his uncle." The author is known as a story-teller of vigor and dramatic force, and as vivid in description; and the picture on the cover, of a Highlander jumping over a waterfall, promises exciting times to the reader.

Fourth Report of the United States Entomological Commission. By Charles V. Riley. Washington: Government Printing-office. Pp. 147, with Maps and Plates.

This report relates to the cotton-worm, concerning which it embodies the final report, with a chapter on the boll-worm. The investigation of the cotton-worm was begun in 1878, and continued during four years; and the results of it, according to the showing here given, have been fruitful. The history of the subject and the various matters relating to the worm, its depredations, and the treatment of the pest, are gone into with considerable elaboration. In the successive chapters of the report are considered the natural history of the insect; its past marked appearances and the remedies proposed, chronologically arranged; the distribution and anatomy of the Aletia; the cotton belt, its characteristics and peculiarities; the influence of soil, weather, etc., upon the first appearance of the worms and their increase and destructiveness; the natural enemies of the insect; means of destroying the worm; machinery and mechanical devices adapted to that purpose; the literature of the subject; insects liable to be confounded with the true cotton-worm; and the boll-worm.

The Mystery of Pain. By James Hinton, M. D. Boston: Cupples, Upham, & Co. Pp. 120.

From the introduction to this book by Dr. J. R. Nichols, we learn that its author was for many years a sufferer from despondency, and a victim to much mental and physical pain, and was also a deeply religious man. He himself employs, to illustrate the reason of pain, the supposition of an island, the climate of which is so