JONATHAN EDWARDS. BY ALEXANDER V. G. is in domestic heating. The open fireplace | balance is shown to be decidedly in favor of and several ventilating fireplaces, and the the country, pre-eminently so to those who "American" stove, are mentioned; but most seek quiet, rational enjoyment, with health, space is given to gas heating and cooking who desire leisurely culture without excitestoves. Heating by means of hot air, hot ment, who are willing to live independently water, and steam also receives attention. The of fashion, and who do not attach an exagapplication of fuel to vaporization, i. e., the gerated importance to show. heating of boilers, is next treated; and from this subject the authors pass to the evaporation of liquids and distillation. The drying of wood and malt, baking bread, and firing brick and porcelain, also have a place. Furnaces for metallurgical and other technological operations are next treated, and an important chapter follows on gas-furnaces, including those using the regenerative principle. The closing chapter deals with the practical effect of fuel. A series of tables giving analyses of coals follows. Through out the book exact information in regard to the several divisions of the subject is furnished in tables and diagrams. The volume contains seven plates and six hundred and seven other illustrations, and is provided with an adequate index. LIBERTY AND A LIVING. BY PHILIP G. HU- THIS book is described in its sub-title as the record of an attempt to secure bread and butter, sunshine and content, by gardening, fishing, and hunting. One of its mottoes is, "The royal peace of a rural home." The author, a writer on New York newspapers, wearied with the monotony and drudgery of city life, sought a way in which he could spend his time in the outdoor season profitably in the open air, and without giving up the winter residence in the city which his profession demanded. He found a place on the sea coast of Long Island which af forded a home, garden, wood-lot, access to the water for boating and fishing, and hunting privileges. The book describes his life there, and the moral and practical lessons derived from it. The transcript of the diary of a week gives a realistic picture of the average life. The home and its arrangements, the garden-work and its returns, the fishing, the bee-raising, the advantages derived from the possession of a wood-lot, and the balance of advantages and disadvantages, are described in successive chapters. The VOL. XXXVII.-10 THIS is the first volume of the series of " American Religious Leaders," or biographies of men who have had great influence on religious thought and life in the United States, in which it is intended, besides depicting great figures in American religious history, to indicate the leading characteristics of that history, the progress and process of religious philosophy in America, the various types of theology which have shaped or been shaped by the various churches, and the relation of these to the life and thought of the nation. The present volume relates to the earliest and probably the greatest of those leaders-the thinker who, along with Benjamin Franklin, American and foreign critics agree in naming as representative of American intellectual activity in the eighteenth century. Prof. Allen's aim in this biography has been "to reproduce Edwards from his books, making his treatises, in their chronological order, contribute to his portraiture as a man and as a theologian." Something more than a mere relation of facts seemed to be demanded in order to justify the endeavor to rewrite his life. What we most desire to know is, what he thought, and how he came to think as he did. wards is always and everywhere interesting, whatever we may think of his theology. On literary and historical grounds alone no one can fail to be impressed with his imposing figure as he moves through the wilds of the New World." Edwards's life is full of dramatic incident, and his writings furnish ground for fruitful study-a study which he that would understand the significance of New England thought in the last century, and under its later aspects as well, will find indispensable. The summation of the result of Edwards's work is concluded with the assertion that "all who accept the truth that divine things are known to be divine be "Ed cause humanity is endowed with the gift of direct vision into divinity, are accepting what Edwards proclaimed, what constitutes the positive feature of his theology. There are those who have made the transition from the old Calvinism, through the mediation of this principle, to a larger theology as if by a natural process. Among these typical thinkers were Thomas Erskine, McLeod Campbell, and Bishop Ewing in Scotland, or the late Mr. Maurice in England. These and such as these, in whom the God-consciousness is supreme, are the true continuators of the work of Jonathan Edwards." THIS book is written for manual training classes in schools and colleges, having been prepared in the first instance in manuscript for the students in the College of the City of New York. The manuscript was copied for other schools. Many changes and additions were made under the suggestions of subsequent teaching; and it is now printed and published, for all who desire a volume of the kind. Being the product and result of work in teaching, it could hardly be other than a working book; and a working book, so far as it reveals itself to a critic's ken, it is. Its scope is the presentation of the facts which are most essential to the wood-worker's success and the good execution of his work, and of directions for the use of his tools and for manipulation. These facts and directions are given in a simple, concise style, intelligible to any pupil of ordinary sense. The book deals particularly with carpentry and joinery, and is divided into two parts. The first part treats of the structure, properties, and kinds of wood; its manufactures and economic relations to other substances; parasitic plants and insects, and means of preserving wood; under these heads are articles on the structure and composition of wood, branching of stems, age of trees, their decay, the season for cutting, milling, drying, and warping, the properties and defects of wood, its measure and values, and the kinds of wood. The several species used in wood-work, coarse and fine, are named and described; their value is estimated, their special qualities are pointed out, and the purposes indicated to which they are applied. This is followed by a tabular exhibit of the qualities of the various kinds of wood. A few words are given to the relations of wood and iron, and the wood-working trades are mentioned, and carpentry and joinery defined. A description of parasitic plants or fungi injurious to living trees and lumber follows; an account of injurious insects, prepared expressly for the book by Mr. Bashford Dean, and directions concerning the preservation of wood are given. The second part contains the exercises, preceded by a description of tools. The directions for the care and use of tools are explicit, and are illustrated by drawings representing the method of handling each tool, and the mark it makes. These exercises are followed by those concerning the forming and fixing of the several kinds of joints, gluing, making boxes, with hinging tops, drawers, and generally on uniting several pieces to make a complete structure; a series on the details of ordinary house carpentry, whence models may be constructed and the building of the various parts making up a wooden dwelling learned; the use of the frame-saw and methods of bending wood; pattern-work; shaping (boat model) by the use of templets; and veneering, with directions for painting and polishing. THE NATIONAL MEDICAL DICTIONARY. Two vols. By JOHN S. BILLINGS, M. D., etc., and Collaborators. Philadelphia: Lea Brothers & Co. Price, $12. THIS work aims to define "every medical term in current use in English, French, German, and Italian medical literature, including the Latin medical terminology of all of these languages." The pronunciation of English and Latin terms is indicated, and the derivation of most English and Anglicized Latin words (except names of drugs and plants) is given. The dictionary does not attempt to be cyclopedic, but gives simply brief definitions of the words and phrases included in its list. Prefixed to the first volume is a number of tables, including a table of doses, of antidotes, of the inch and metre system of numbering spectacle-glasses, of thermometric scales, of the average dimensions of the foetus at different ages, of the average dimensions of the parts and organs of the adult human body, and of the weights of the forded the most important material." The importance of students being well acquaint organs. Among these tables, also, there is a series, prepared by Prof. W. O. Atwater, showing the percentages of nutrient ingredi-ed with the anatomy and structure of an anients in a large number of food-materials, the fuel-values in the same, and standards for dietaries for different classes and occupations. Another table shows the expectation of life as derived from records of life-insurance companies, and from the last United States census. THE ANATOMY OF THE FROG. By Dr. ALEXANDER ECKER. Translated, etc., by GEORGE HASLAM, M. D. Illustrated. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 449, with Colored Plates. Price, $5.25. THE frog is aptly designated by the author as eminently the physiological domestic animal. It is kept in every physiological laboratory, and is daily sacrificed in numbers on the altar of science. The physiologist has recourse to it, not only to obtain answers to new questions, but for the sake of demonstrating easily and quickly the most important known facts of the science. It bas furnished the means through which many most important discoveries in physiology have been made. It has "afforded almost the only material for the investigation of the excitability of nerves and its associated electromotive changes, and also no inconsiderable part of the remaining nerve and muscle physiology." Much of our knowledge of the | functions of the spinal cord is derived from experiment upon it. Its muscles have served for the investigation of the phenomena and the conditions of contraction. But for the web of its foot and the gills and tail of its tadpole, "we should not perhaps for a long time have arrived at a satisfactory knowledge of the existence and the conditions of the capillary circulation. Acquaintance with the constituents of the blood directly concerned in nutrition; important facts in the physiology of the blood and lymph; and insight into the laws of the heart's action, have all been obtained by observations and experiments on the frog. To it, also, in histology, we owe much of our knowledge of the structure of nerve-fibers, their origin and termination, their relations within the ganglia, and the structure of muscular fiber; and for the study of reproduction and development the frog has, next to the chick, af mal which plays so prominent a part in their researches is obvious; and it is this which Dr. Ecker, who is Professor of Human and Comparative Anatomy in the University of Freiberg, and Dr. Haslam, have furnished in the present book. The original work of Prof. Ecker was published in 1864. A second part, embodying, besides the author's work, fruits of the researches of Prof. Wiedersheim, appeared in 1881-'82. The translation was undertaken by Dr. Haslam at the suggestion of Prof. A. Gamgee, and was accepted by the delegates of the Clarendon Press as one of the series of Foreign Biological Memoirs published by them. But it soon became evident that a mere translation would be unsatisfactory, and that it would be desirable to recast and modify parts of the book, and to give descriptions of the minute structure of the several organs. The translator has included the results of recent researches, and has added facts derived from his own observations. THE ELEMENTS OF ASTRONOMY. WITH AN URANOGRAPHY. By Prof. CHARLES A. YOUNG. Boston: Ginn & Co. Pp. 470. Price, $1.55. PROF. YOUNG has prepared this text-book for use in high schools and academies, using in it much of the material and many of the illustrations of his larger work, General Astronomy. The author has tried to avoid going to an extreme in cutting down and simplifying, while giving a clear treatment of every subject. From the number of pages in the book it may be inferred that he has provided abundant material for a highschool course in astronomy. He has paid special attention to making all statements correct as far as they go, though many of them, on account of the elementary character of the book, are necessarily incomplete. No mathematics higher than elementary algebra and geometry is introduced into the text. In an appendix of some seventy pages, methods of making certain calculations and the construction of astronomical instruments are described. The Uranography comprises a brief description of the constellations visible in the United States, with four maps, from which the principal stars may be iden tified; also a list of such telescopic objects | between the habits of the orb-weavers and in each constellation as are easily found, and lie within the power of a small telescope. The volume is illustrated with one hundred and fifty-eight cuts. AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNING-WORK. Vol. I. By HENRY C. McCook, D. D. Published by the Author: Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. Pp. 372. Price $30 (set of three volumes). THE naturalist who takes dried or alcoholic specimens as the subjects of his study can prosecute his researches at all times and seasons, and independently of the will of the creatures that he is studying. But this advantage is offset by the limitation that the habits of the creatures, the kind of places they live in, the sort of structures they make, the way they move about, obtain their food, and rear their young, are a sealed book to him. The observations of the field naturalist, on the other hand, are attended by many more difficulties than those of the laboratory student. He must go to his specimens instead of having them brought to him. Perhaps they are not to be found at all seasons, and, when they are accessible, many hours must be spent in watching familiar actions in order not to miss a chance of seeing a new operation. He has the compensation, however, that he studies the creatures alive; hence the things which are hidden from the laboratory naturalist are revealed to him, and the knowledge that he gains arouses the widest interest and wins the greatest appreciation. The results which Dr. McCook lays before us in the present volume belong mainly in the latter class. They relate to the spinning-work of spiders, as performed in the making of webs and dens. With this is naturally connected some account of the methods of procuring food and the nestinghabits of these creatures, and the intelligence that they display in adapting their operations to particular circumstances. In order to give the reader a correct idea of how spiders form their threads, a fully illustrated chapter on the structure of the spinning-organs has been introduced. The whole work will be confined to the orb-weaving spiders of the United States, but a vast amount of material relating to other tribes, which the author has collected, has been drawn upon in order to make comparisons other spiders. To the general reader, who sees no important difference between any two common wheel-shaped spider-webs, the distinct varieties of orb-weavers' snares described by Dr. McCook will be a revelation. Artists, too, who are supposed to be careful about the correct shapes of the things they draw, seem to have looked only carelessly at spiders' webs, for our author states that he has never seen but one in art work or book illustrations that gave proof of having been drawn from a natural web, by one who knew its characteristics. In three chapters the general features, the mode of constructing in detail, and the armature of orb-webs are presented. Passing to varieties of the orb, Dr. McCook describes the web with its center of closely woven silk tissue and a zigzag ribbon extending upward and downward, which is made by Argiope, a spider whose large size and beautiful markings make it conspicuous in our autumn fields. The round vertical webs made by Epeira and other spiders are then touched upon. An account is given of the composite snares, which consist of a wheel-shaped web combined with a maze of intersecting lines; also of the sectoral orb, in which there is always one division of the wheel that is not crossed by the concentric rings. Among the other peculiar features in webs that the author describes are the domed orb of the basilica spider, the ribbon decorations of the feather-foot, the triangle or part of a circle constructed by the triangle spider, and the somewhat irregularly radiating snare of the ray spider. A chapter on the engineering skill of spiders gives instances of their using weights to hold their webs taut, their placing of stay-lines in the best position allowed by circumstances, using unfamiliar substances for building a nest, etc. Especially interesting is a chapter on the mechanical strength of webs and the physical power of spiders, in which cases are given of spiders capturing and hoisting from the ground animals many times as large as themselves. Other topics that are fully treated, but which can be only mentioned here, are feeding habits, uses of poison, and nestmaking habits. In a concluding chapter on the genesis of snares, the author traces the relations which exist between the various A great many facts which chemists constantly need to refer to are put into handy shape in the little pamphlet which Prof. John H. Appleton has published now for eight years, called the Laboratory Year-Book (G. Roscoe and Co., Providence, 12 cents). This publication contains a calendar, notes on the chemical work done in the preceding year, a list of new elements announced since 1877, a table based on the latest revision of atomic and molecular weights, tables of weights, measures, and thermometer scales and equivalents, the C. G. S. system of units, pronunciations of words used in chemistry, logarithms, postal regulations, etc. forms of spinning-work treated in the fore. | tution during the year, of accessions to the going pages. The volume contains three museum and to the library, and of internahundred and fifty-four illustrations, the au- tional exchanges. thor being convinced that a drawing is better to communicate some facts than pages of words. The pictures, moreover, are of artistic quality, and the mechanical work of the volume is of a high grade, making the book a remarkably handsome one. In the second volume of this work the author will treat the habits and industry associated with mating and maternal instincts, life of the young, etc. The third volume will be a systematic presentation of the orb-weavers of the United States, the descriptions being accompanied by a number of lithographic plates colored by hand. The work, aside from its scientific value and its popular interest, will be a treasure to the library of any one who secures a copy. The "author's edition" is limited to two hundred and fifty numbered copies, which are issued in cloth with uncut edges. A large part of the edition had been subscribed for before publication. The Report of S. P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, for 1889, states that the income of the Smithsonian fund is becoming less and less adequate for the work of the Institution with each year of the country's growth. This fund is now $703,000, of which only $1,500 have been received in bequests since the original Smithson legacy. The secretary calls attention to the Institution as a suitable trustee for moneys intended for the advancement of knowledge. Additional space is needed for exhibition purposes for the National Museum. The appropriation allowed for making the foreign exchanges required by Government does not cover what this service costs the Institution, even though free transportation is given by many steamship companies. The library received 17,354 accessions in the course of the year, and the collection is so large that much of it is inaccessible from lack of room. The collection of living animals, which numbers over three hundred, has outgrown its accommodations, and a scheme for creating a zoological park on Rock Creek, in the District of Columbia, is being agitated. The report includes statistics of publications of the Insti The Meteorological Observations made on the Summit of Pike's Peak, January, 1874, to June, 1888, are published in the Annals of Harvard College Observatory, Vol. XXII. The observations were made and were prepared for the press by the United States Signal Service, and the expense of publication has been borne by the Boyden fund. The observations occupy four hundred and fifty-eight quarto pages, and are introduced and supplemented by a few pages of text. The Observations of the New England Meteorological Society for 1888, published in the Annals of the Harvard College Observatory, contains tables in which the work of the society for the year is summarized. In a general account of the weather of the year it is stated that nine months were colder and three warmer than the average in New England. The total precipitation exceeded the usual annual fall by twenty-five per cent. Among the papers that have appeared in recent numbers of The Modern Science Essayist (James H. West, Boston; 10 cents a number) is one on The Scope and Principles of the Evolution Philosophy, by Lewis G. Janes, the first lecture of the Brooklyn Ethical Association's second season. Dr. Janes represents evolution as a universal method, explaining the processes of all activity. He states the agnostic position in regard to the Unknowable Cause, and denies that the evolutionist is a materialist. In his closing paragraphs he points out the kind of aid that evolutionary philosophy can give to the solution of the problems of society. The |