ing experiments without making it publicly known. The opening address was by Mr. O. Chanute, and it is followed in the book by thirty-six other papers, on the work of the wind, propelling devices, sailing flight, soaring flight, the machines of flight and aspiration, forms of flying machines, aëroplanes, kites, balloons, explorations of the upper air, and discussions.
The Ills of the South. By Charles H. Atken, LL. D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 277.
Demoralized labor, lost fortunes, a ruinous credit system, and the indirect consequences of Southern lien laws, are the chief subjects dealt with in this volume.
The book is penned in no hostile spirit to any one State or class of people, while to the student of modern history it forms a valuable adjunct to his historic knowledge of the Southern States. In all, the work contains fourteen chapters, each imparting a succinct view of the various needs of the Southern people from 1865 to the present time.
Psychologie des Grands Calculateurs et Jouecrs d'Échecs. Par Alfred Binet. (Psychology of Great Calculators and Chess-players. By Alfred Binet.) Paris: Librairie Hachette et Cie. 1894.
The author of this work has made his investigations in these unusual forms of memory with the fundamental desire to discover something that might be utilized in pedagogics. The investigation of the mental processes of mathematical prodigies was made at the suggestion of the late Prof. Charcot. The investigation of chess-players' memories was made at the suggestion of M. Taine.
Mathematical prodigies form a natural class, and their ability is independent of heredity or environment. They manifest their talents precociously, and the familiarity with figures is at the expense of general intelligence. Furthermore, their aptitude is developed by exercise and is decreased by non-usage. It is largely a matter of auditory and visual mnemonics.
In blindfold chess the ability depends upon knowledge, memory, and imagination. The ability to recall so complex a mental image as one or more chessboards containing thirty-two or less pieces, in a variety of positions, constitutes what Binet designates as a visual geometrical memory, associated with which is a memory of recapitulation or faculty of repeating all the moves in the order in which they were played.
The work is an interesting study of curious phases of mentality.
The Pygmies. By A. de Quatrefages. New York: D. Appleton & Co. (The Anthropological Series.) Pp.255. Price, $1.75.
This work of one of the most eminent anthropologists of the century, translated by Prof. Frederick Starr expressly for the Anthropological Series, relates to a race, or rather a group of races, of men, concerning which speculation and tradition were rife for many centuries, but of which little or nothing was definitely known till very recently. They were mentioned by Homer, they were described by Aristotle, and were referred to as a historical fact by Herodotus. These authors placed them in Africa. Pliny, a more recent writer than they, speaks of them as living in different countries. The African pygmies remained substantially unknown, except from these ancient references, until a few years ago explorers of the heart of Africa brought home accounts given of them by neighboring tribes. Schweinfurth saw them and obtained an individual Akka, and specimens were brought to Europe; since then acquaintance has been direct. Besides these, M. de Quatrefages classified with the pygmies other "small black races" which had attracted his attention and interest in a special manner, and made frequent references to them in his writings. "These little blacks," he says, "are to-day almost everywhere scattered, separated, and often hunted by races larger and stronger; nevertheless, they have had in the past their time of prosperity," and have played a very real ethnological part. The principal purpose of this book is to make known the scientific truth in regard to the ancient fables, and to show what the pygmies of antiquity really were. He finds that the ancients had information "more or less inexact, more or less incomplete, but also more or less true," concerning five populations of little stature from whom they made their pygmies. Two were located in Asia; a third to the south, toward the sources of the Nile;
