the general purpose of the work, much more space is devoted to the geographical distribution and general natural history of mollusks than to the details of systematic arrangement or technical discussion. Twelve chapters of 377 pages are devoted to generalities, and four, comprising 66 pages, to classification.

The work deserves high commendation for the thorough manner in which Mr. Cooke has foraged for fresh data, bringing together a vast number of facts on the biography, distribution, growth, anatomy and reproduction of mollusks. The style is clear and easy, and the facts are well selected and agreeably presented. For the audience for which the book is intended it seems admirably adapted, and so far as we know there is no work available at present which can be more cordially recommended to a beginner or the general reader.

It would be easy to criticise details of classification here and there, and on many points the opinions of experts will differ in the present state of our knowledge; but in recognizing the aim of the author and publishers it must be conceded that it has been well carried out.

It does not appear to have been necessary to separate the recent from the fossil brachiopoda, and recent efforts at a revised classification of the group have been so successful and complete that Mr. Reed's work appears already somewhat antiquated and too brief, but this perhaps was inevitable from the necessity of preserving due proportion between the parts of the series. Mr. Shipley's account of the anatomy and embryology is good, and his conclusions as to the relations of the class are conservative and reasonable.

The book is fully illustrated with rather unequal woodcuts, many of which are good and others rather wooden,' but an unusually large proportion of them are original and fresh. There are four very good maps

of geographical distribution and an excellent index. W. H. DALL.

A Laboratory Guide for a Twenty Weeks' Course in General Chemistry. By GEORGE WILLARD BENTON, A. M., Instructor of Chemistry, High School, and Chemist for the City of Indianapolis. Boston, D. C. Heath & Co.

This book might be better termed 'A Guide for a Course of Test-Tubing,' since nearly all the reactions are performed in a test-tube, and the sole object of the book seems to be to acquaint the unfortunate pupil who uses it with 'Tests' for the various elements and compounds.

The manual is supposed to be put into the hands of beginners in the subject, and yet before a single element is considered or anything is said about elements, compounds or formulas, quite a number of formulas and reactions are given. As an illustration of what the author calls compounds, a piece of wood and granulated sugar are taken and the equation C12H22O1. +H2SO4=12C +11H,O+H,SO,, is written out. Then the student is asked to explain the equation and to define a compound. And yet the author, according to his preface, is one of those who see in the Laboratory (with a big L) the means of high development on approved pedagogical grounds.'

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It would require more space than the book is worth to point out all its faults. It will, perhaps, be sufficient to state that directions are given for making dangerous compounds without any mention of the danger connected with the work. The pupil is asked, for example, to determine the odor of carbon monoxide, and not an intimation is given that it is one of the most poisonous gases known to the chemist.

Altogether, the book is one that can be most cordially recommended as the kind of a book for both teachers and students to avoid using, if possible. W. R. O.

field, Mass., Tuesday and Wednesday, August 27 and 28. The Council will meet Monday evening and the Society will convene Tuesday morning at 10 o'clock.

The Fellowship of this Society includes nearly all the working geologists upon the

continent. The roll now contains 223 names of Fellows.

The former Presidents of the Society have been James Hall, James D. Dana, Alexander Winchell, G. K. Gilbert, J. William Dawson and T. C. Chamberlin.

The officers for 1895 are as follows: President, N. S. Shaler, Harvard University.

Vice-Presidents, Joseph Le Conte, University of California; Charles H. Hitchcock, Dartmouth College.

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20

10

Secretary, H. L. Fairchild, University of Rochester.

Va.

Councillors:

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100 100

Oswald Ottendorfer, New York,......... 200

20

5

10

25

5

Seth Low, New York,...

E. C. Pickering, Cambridge,......

J. J. Putnam, Boston,..

W. A. S., New York,..

G. de Schweinitz, Philadelphia,....

N. S. Shaler, Cambridge,.......

Society of Eye Surgeons, San Francisco,

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Treasurer, I. C. White, Morgantown, W.

Editor, J. Stanley-Brown, Washington, D. C.

F. D. Adams, McGill College, Montreal. R. W. Ells, Geological Survey of Canada. I. C. Russell, University of Michigan. E. A. Smith, University of Alabama. C. R. Van Hise, University of Wisconsin. C. D. Walcott, U. S. Geological Survey. The Society has just completed the sixth volume of its Bulletin, which is a handsome octavo, with 528 pages and 27 plates. This volume includes twenty-one brochures.

Information concerning the Society and its publications can be obtained by addressing the Secretary, H. L. Fairchild, Rochester, N. Y.

NOMINATIONS BEFORE THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

THE following fifteen candidates were selected by the Council of the Royal Society to be recommended for election into the Society: J. Wolfe Barry, civil engineer, Vice-President of the Institution of Civil

Engineers; Alfred Gibbs Bourne, Professor of Biology in the Presidency College, Madras; George Hartley Bryan, Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Lecturer on Thermodynamics on the University list; John Eliot, Meteorological Reporter to the Government of India; Joseph Reynolds Green, Professor of Botany in the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain; Ernest Howard Griffiths, physicist Private Tutor; Charles Thomas Heycock, Lecturer on Natural Science, King's College, Cambridge; Sydney John Hickson, biologist, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge; Henry Capel Lofft Holden, Major Royal Artillery, electrician; Frank McClean, astronomer; William

Mac Ewan, Professor of Surgery, University of Glasgow; Sidney Martin, Assistant Physician, University College Hospital and Hospital for Consumption, Brompton; George M. Minchin, Professor of Mathematics in the Royal Engineering College, Cooper's Hill; William Henry Power, Assistant Medical Officer, H. M. Local Government Board; Thomas Purdie, Professor of Chemistry in the University of St. Andrews.

JOHN A. RYDER.

A JOINT meeting of members of the University of Pennsylvania, the American Philosophical Society and the Academy of Natural Sciences was held in the hall of the Academy of Natural Sciences on the evening of Wednesday, April 10, in memory of the late Professor John A. Ryder. General Isaac J. Wistar presided and Philip P. Calvert acted as secretary. Addresses were made by Dr. Harrison Allen on 'Dr. Ryder's Relation to the Academy of Natural Sciences;' Dr. Bashford Dean, of Columbia College, on 'Dr. Ryder's Work in the U. S. Fish Commission'; Dr. Horace Jayne, on 'Dr. Ryder and the School of Biology'; Prof. E. D. Cope, on 'The Evolutionary Doctrine of Dr. Ryder;' Dr. H. F. Moore, on Dr. Ryder as a Teacher,' and Dr. W.

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ing of the word geography. The editor, Otto Baschin, Berlin, W. Schinkenplatz 6, requests that authors send titles and works relating to geography to him.

THE Imprimerie Polytechnique at Brussels announces an important Egyptological work by G. Hagemans, which will include a history of Egyptian civilization, a summary of Egyptian literature and a discussion of the Egyptian writing, including a comparison between its hieroglyphs and those of Yucatan; this is to be followed by a CoptoEgyptian grammar, an Egyptian-French and a and a French-Egyptian dictionary. The entire work will appear in sixty parts at 25 cents per part.

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WE learn from La Nature that at the annual meeting of Le Congrès des Sociétés Savantes' at the Sorbonne, Paris, on April 20th, under the presidency of M. Poincaré, M. Moissan called attention to the rapid progress and brilliant discoveries of modern chemistry, and their practical outcome in stimulating national industries. He passed under review the processes of manufacturing iron, steel, aluminium, etc., the artificial production of the diamond, the crystalization of metallic oxides, and the use of electricity in the decomposition of those oxides hitherto regarded as irreducible. At the

close of the meeting M. Poincaré was elected president for a second term. The Legion of Honor was conferred on MM. le comte 'd'Avenal, O'Ehlert and Herluison.

THE honorary degree of D. Sc. has been conferred on Mr. Francis Galton by the University of Cambridge.

THE statute establishing degrees for research at Oxford has now been finally approved by Congregation, with the adoption of several amendments, principally of a technical nature.

THE University of Aberdeen is about to confer the degree LL. D. on Miss J. E. Harrison in recognition of her researches in Greek archæology. Miss Harrison will Miss Harrison will be the first woman to receive this degree from a British university.

DR. RICHARD HANITSCH, demonstrator of zoölogy at University College, Liverpool, has been appointed to the curatorship of the Raffles Museum, at Singapore.

THE Evening Post states that the Herbarium of Rousseau, composed of fifteen quarto volumes in cardboard and containing about 1,500 plants, is about to be sold

at Orleans.

Ar a recent sale in London, Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne, the author's original manuscript, in the form of letters to Thomas Pennant and Daines Barrington, first printed in 1789, was sold for £294. The manuscript contains many passages not printed in the several editions, and has never before been out of the possession of the lineal descendants of the author.

A CATALOGUE of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society from 1824 to 1893 has been issued by Dulau & Co., London. A large number of separate articles are included. Especially worthy of note is a paper on 'Observations on the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy *** with an attempt to prove that they are of Marine Origin' (1839), by Darwin, as also articles by Sir

MRS. ROBERT E. PEARY delivered an illustrated lecture based on her experiences in the North on May 23. This lecture was given under the auspices of the National Geographic Society, which aided Lieut. Peary in his first enterprise. The proceeds of the lecture will be devoted to a fund which is being raised to defray the expenses of an expedition that will enable Lieut. Peary to return to America. It is not believed, however, that he is in any immediate danger. The expedition (which will cost from $9,000 to $12,000, of which about $7, 000 has already been raised) will probably start about July 5th, so as to reach Lieut. Peary's headquarters before September 1st.

AT the meeting of the Boston Scientific Society, was held on May 28th, an address on Some Problems in the Use of Water Power as Applied to the Electrical Transmission of Power' was delivered by Allan V. Garratt.

PROFESSOR DYCHE, of Kansas University, is starting for Greenland in search of specimens of mammals and birds to add to his collection.

CHANCELLOR JAMES HULME CANFIELD has accepted a call to the presidency of the Ohio State University, Columbus.

AN infirmary in connection with Harvard University, which is proposed as a memorial to Dr. Peabody, is projected, costing not less than $12,000. President Eliot, in the name of the overseers of Harvard University, has offered a site for the infirmary,

DR. JAMES E. RUSSELL has been made professor of pedagogy in the University of Colorado.

THE American Institute of Archæology, which had already given a fellowship of $600 to the American school at Athens, voted a second fellowship of $600-$800 at the semi-annual meeting of the committee held at Middletown, Conn., on May 17th. probably These scholarships will be awarded to students and graduates of the coöperating colleges on competitive examination. The first examination will probably be held at the end of a year.

PROF. E. S. HOLDEN has been made a commander of the Order of the Ernestine House of Saxony in recognition of his services to science.

DR. P. DANGEARD has been appointed professor of botany to the Faculty of Sciences at Poitiers.-Nature.

WE learn from the Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau that Prof. Overbeck of Greifswald has been appointed professor of physics in the University of Tübingen as successor to Professor Braun. Dr. Hermann Struve, Dr. Hermann Struve, astronomer in the Observatory of Pulkowa, has been made professor of astronomy in the University of Königsberg; Prof. Koken of Königsberg, professor of geology and mineralogy in Tübingen; Prof. Hauser of Erlangen, Director of the Erlangen Anatomical Institution; Prof. Brauns of Karlsruhe, professor of geology and mineralogy in Giessen, and Dr. Schutt of Kiel, professor of botany in the University of Greifswald.

PROFESSOR V. KNORRE has been called to the new chair of electro-chemistry in the technical High School at Berlin-Charlottenburg.

THE death is announced on May 4th of Surgeon-Major Carter, F. R. S., also of Prof. Manuel Pinheiro Chagas, General

IT is announced that Dr. J. P. D. John, who resigned the presidency of De Pauw University a few days ago, will be asked by the trustees to reconsider his resignation.Evening Post.

THEOBALD SMITH, M. D., has been elected professor of applied zoology, and Henry Lloyd Smythe assistant professor of mining, in Harvard University.

AT the semi-annual meeting of the trus tees of the American University it was announced that $127,300 had been subscribed towards the erection of the first building (the Hall of History), but that $150,000 were required. Those present at the meeting subscribed and assumed the entire deficiency.

DR. ROB. SACHSSE, assistant professor of sity, died on April 26. agricultural chemistry in Leipzig Univer

SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS.

THE ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, MAY. The Modern Spectroscope, XII: WILLIAM HUGGINS.

Dr. Huggins here describes the Tulse Hill ultra-violet spectroscope. An earlier arrangement of telescope and spectroscope had consisted in exchanging the small mirror of an eighteen-inch Cassegrain telescope for a spectroscope with its slit in the principal focus of the large mirror. Difficulties of adjustment and the sacrifice of either light or purity due to the restricted size of the spectroscope led to the abandonment of this form. The small speculum was replaced and the collimator was then inserted in the hole through the large mirror. The long equivalent focal length of the Cassegrain form is of advantage where it is desirable to have images of considerable dimensions upon the slit, while the instrument itself and the building may remain of moderate size.