reader than for the antiquary, and this idea has been kept in mind during the revision. There is a useful bibliography appended. (Philadelphia: David McKay, $2.)
The Coming Ice Age, by C. A. M. Taber, is an attempt to show the manner in which an ice age is being brought about, and is an extension, the author says, of a treatise published in 1894 on The Cause of Warm and Frigid Zones. The author's notion seems to be that ocean currents, in conjunction with winds and slight modifications in coast line, are sufficient to bring about the great changes in climate necessary to produce a glacial epoch in present temperate regions. The author sums up as follows: "Consequently, there seems to be no method yet devised through Nature's mode of action that can carry sufficient heat into the antarctic latitudes to melt the ice sheets from the southern continent, or even arrest their growth, while the Cape Horn channel maintains its present width and depth. Therefore the increase of glaciers and icebergs will slowly continue until a glacial epoch is perfected."
The Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science for the years 1893–’94 has just come to hand. The volume begins with an article by the retiring president, entitled "Small Things," in which he calls attention to the great importance in scientific investigation of apparently trivial details. There are a number of mathematical papers, among which may be mentioned The Inverse of Conics and Conchoids from the Center, and Harmonic Forms. A long and well-illustrated account of Kansas Mosses is the most important paper in the botanical section. Mr. Robert Hay contributes a paper on the Economic Geology of the River Counties of Kansas, to which is appended an exhaustive bibliography.
Modern Optical Instruments, by Henry Orford, is intended apparently as an elementary text-book of practical optics. The construction and properties of the human eye are described in the earlier pages, as are also some of the commoner aberrations and defects to which our eyes are subject. The following chapters, which deal with the theory and practice of ophthalmoscopic examination, with the various forms of spectacles and the principles governing their use and selection, the stereoscope, the optical lantern, and the spectroscope, contain a very good elementary consideration of these various subjects. (Macmillan, 80 cents.)
Special Method in Natural Science is the title of No. 4 of a series of special methods in the common-school studies. It is intended to give the teacher "a general view of the problem of science-teaching." As in most books of this class, many of the suggestions seem trivial and unnecessary. Some of the hints, however, are good, and very possibly the others may be useful to that large class of teachers who are such through "circumstances," and not because of any special training or ability which they have for teaching. (Public School Publishing Company, Washington, Ill., 50 cents.)
An extended work on Oceanic Ichthyology, by the late Dr. George Brown Goode and Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, has been issued by the Smithsonian Institution. It consists of technical descriptions of all forms of fishes found in the seas of the world, accompanied by an atlas of 123 plates bearing 417 figures. The text forms a volume of 553 quarto pages and contains many new facts. This treatise appears at a time when no deep-sea explorations are in progress, and the final ichthyological results of all past expeditions have been published. The authors have aimed to assemble in it all existing scientific data concerning oceanic fishes, and it is not likely to be superseded as an authority for many years. Its preparation was carried on in great part amid the pressure of official duties. It was first ready for printing in 1885, was revised and rewritten in 1888 and in 1891, and again in 1894 as it was going through the press, these changes being made necessary by successive publications of new material. For the senior author, whose death occurred within the same month in which it was issued, this is a truly monumental work.
The Tenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, for 1894, makes a thick octavo volume and another about half as thick. It is devoted to strikes and lockouts, covering those occurring in the United States from January, 1887, to June, 1894, and forming a continuation of the Third Annual Report. For each disturbance there are
