chains of the Lucinda, lying at anchor in the Brisbane river, and was almost cut in two before capsizing. On February 19 an explosion of dynamite caused the death of about 100 persons and the injury of about 200 others, at Vredendorp, a poor suburb of Johannesburg in the Transvaal. The disaster occurred while some cars, loaded with about fifty tons of dynamite and ninety cases of detonators, were being switched from one track to another. A hole was torn in the earth 200 feet long, 80 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. Every house within half a mile was wrecked; and 1,000 families were made homeless. A relief committee was promptly formed under the presidency of President Krüger. The government of the republic subscribed £25,000 to the relief fund; the Netherlands railway, £10,000; and the dynamite company, £5,000. For the time being, political and racial differences were lost sight of, and European and Boer worked shoulder to shoulder in extending aid to the distressed. On March 23 a large part of the city of Colon, Colombia, was destroyed by fire. Loss: probably over $300,000. Science: LITERATURE. The Climatic Causation of Disease. With chart showing the pathological distribution of climate in the United States. By I. M. Cline, M. A., M. D., of the University of Texas. 23 pp. Paper. Galveston, Tex.: Knapp Bros. A very instructive paper read before the Texas State Medical Association last year, showing that to some extent definite relations subsist between climatic influences and the prevalence of certain types of disease. The Story of the Solar System. Simply told for general readers. By George F. Chambers, F. R. A. S., author of The Story of the Stars. With twenty-eight illustrations. The Library of Useful Stories. 188 pp. 188 pp. Indexed. 16mo. 40 cents. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Treats of the sun, his planets, and the comets in a descriptive and practical way, with special reference to the convenience and opportu nities of persons having access to telescopes costing from $50 to $200. Elementary Lessons in Zoology. A Guide in Studying In Animal Life and Structure in Field and Laboratory. By The aim of this work is to put the student in the way of acquiring a knowledge of animal life and structure by making all things connected with its study so simple and readily understood that they appeal to every child. Handbook of Arctic Discoveries. By A. W. Greely. Columbian Knowledge series. Number III. Edited by Professor Todd. 257 pp. Indexed. Illustrated. $1.00. Boston: Roberts Bros. 12mo. Contains a mass of information of special interest at the present time. Briefly, but comprehensively and most clearly, the history of the various expeditions to the North is presented. Greenland Icefields and Life in the North Atlantic. With a discussion of the causes of the Ice Age. By G. Frederick Wright, D. D., LL. D., F. G. S. A., author of the Ice Age in North America, etc., and Warren Upham, A. M., F. G. S. A. With numerous maps and illustrations. 407 pp. Indexed. 12mo. $2.00. New York: D. Appleton & Co. This work is based on observations made during the Arctic expedition of 1894 in the ill-fated Miranda (Vol. 4, p. 682), but it is much more than a diary of the voyage. It is really a most valuable contribution to the geological knowledge of the northern latitudes, and its style of writing makes it a work of absorbing general interest. Philosophy and Psychology :— The Psychology of Attention. By Th. Ribot. 3d edition, revised. 120 pp. Indexed. Cloth, 75 cents; paper, 25 cents. Chicago, Ill.: Open Court Publishing Co. The author's purpose is to investigate the "mechanism" of attention as distinguished from its effects. It is to the latter that psychologists have heretofore given most thought and research. Studies of Childhood. By James Sully, M. A., LL. D., author of Outlines of Psychology, etc. Illustrated. 527 pp. Indexed. 12mo. $2.50. New York: D. Appleton & Co. The studies in this volume are not, says Professor Sully, "a complete treatise on child-psychology, but merely deal with certain aspects of children's minds which happen to have come under my notice, and to have had special interest for me. In preparing them I have tried to combine with the needed measure of exactness a manner of presentation which should attract other readers than students of psychology, more particularly parents and young teachers." Political Economy, Civics, and Sociology: Handbook on Currency and Wealth. By George B. Waldron, A. M., statistical editor of The Voice. Vol. 6.-15. With numerous tables and diagrams. 150 pp. 12mo. Flexible cloth, 50 cents. New York, London, and Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Co. It would be impossible to overestimate the value of this little compendium for those who are interested in the silver question now so prominent. The book is impartial, presenting in an unbiased manner the facts on all sides, and leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions. The book contains among other things descriptions in full of the money systems of the United States, present and past; the money systems and finances of the world; the relation of gold and silver, as to production, prices, and wages; wealth and its ownership, including its production, distribution, and consumption; also the extent of debts of all kinds; facts relative to railroads, telegraphs, and telephones, strikes and lockouts, land and population, immigration and foreign born, the liquor traffic, and the last vote for president. A carefully prepared index furnishes easy access to any fact covered. Congressional Currency.-An Outline of the Federal Money System. By A. C. Gordon. Questions of the Day series. 234 pp. Indexed. 12mo. $1.25. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. It This book will appeal especially to practical, business men. deals with current questions, as well as with the question of currency, with national bank notes, with the public debt and the gold reserve, and with all the other grave matters which at the present moment are in the public mind. Political Economy for High Schools and Academies. By Robert Ellis Thompson, A. M., S. T. D. 108 pp. 12mo. 55 cents. Boston: Ginn & Co. This is one of the very few text-books written from the protectionist point of view. It is not, however, confined to tariff discussion, but traverses the general field of the still rather indefinite science of political economy. Regeneration. A Reply to Max Nordau. With an introduction by Nicholas Murray Butler. 311 pp. 8vo. Indexed. $2.00. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. An anonymous work-the writer probably an Englishman with anti-German proclivities. In many respects it is an intelligent, thoughtful, earnest, and vigorous criticism of Nordau's book, Degeneration, which appeared last year (Vol. 5, p. 487). The Principles of Sociology. An Analysis of the Phenomena of Association and of Social Organization. By Franklin Henry Giddings, M. A. Svo. $3.00. New York: Macmillan & Co. Notwithstanding the researches of the last twenty years, social A science is still in the early stages of development: it is indefinite. truly philosophical, and therefore final, presentment of those principles which underlie and control the phenomena of society" is still to be looked for. The present volume is a brilliant contribution. As stated by the author, it is an attempt to combine the principles of so ciology in a coherent theory. He believes that sociology is a pyschological science, and the reader's attention is therefore directed chiefly to the psychic aspects of social phenomena. Proportional Representation. By John R. Commons. With diagram, maps, appendix. Library of Politics and Economics. 298 pp. Indexed. 12mo. $1.75. $1.75. Boston: T. Y. Crowell & Co. The author "traces recent evil phases of American political life directly or indirectly to the century-old system of electing single representatives from limited districts," the result of which is merely to divide the people into two hostile partisan camps. A powerful argument is made for the plan advocated by the Proportional Representation League, of which Professor Commons was the founder. The author believes "that proportional representation will secure the independence of the voter and freedom from the rule of the party machine; that it will do away with the spoils system and result in the purification of politics; and that it will be an effective agent in municipal and social reform." PUBLICATIONS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE, PHILADELPHIA, PENN. An Early Essay on Proportional Representation. By Edmund J. James. 20 pp. 8vo. Paper. Price 25 cents. "In 1844 Thomas Gilpin read before the American Philosophical Society a paper on the Representation of Minorities of Electors.' This paper is remarkable as being one of the earliest systematic discussions of the plan now known as minority, or proportional, representation. The paper antedates Thomas Hare's earliest essays on the subject by thirteen years; and that of James Garth Marshall by almost ten years. It is reprinted entire in the present monograph, being preceded by a short sketch of Mr. Gilpin and a critical analysis of the paper. "The history of this pamphlet illustrates how there is a time for everything, and how everything must wait for its time. Written at a period when there was a general demand for some kind of reform in our system of representation, it undertook to show how, by adopting a system of proportional representation, the general ticket and caucus system could be made to yield satisfactory results. It failed to accomplish its immediate purpose; and only now, after fifty years, is beginning to bear practical fruit. The caucus system and the single member district system have not yielded the results hoped for. Whether any scheme of proportional or minority representation can do better, may be a question; but it begins to look as if some such method were destined to have a trial." Rudolf von Gneist. By Conrad Bornhak, of the University of Berlin. 18 pp. 8vo. Paper. Price 15 cents. An essay on the life and work of the great German political scientist and jurist. The writer says of Gneist: "More fortunate than his great predecessor, Montesquieu, he was able to see the realization of his ideals, though he was forced to admit also their partial inadequacy." The Multiple Money Standard. By Professor J. Allen Smith. 60 pp. 8vo. Paper. Price 50 cents. In this monograph Professor Smith first discusses the relation of money to industrial society, the two conceptions of a standard of value, and the unstability of gold as a commodity. He then shows the advantages and disadvantages of a composite gold and silver standard, and advocates the adoption of a multiple money standard. According to this plan a considerable number of leading commodities, such as wheat, gold, iron, cotton, silver, etc., are combined together in the ratio of their importance. These then form the permanent standard of value. Professor Smith then explains how a circulating medium could be issued on the basis of this standard, which would be convertible into either gold or silver. He also attempts to show why this standard would be practically invariable. In conclusion he tells how such a standard would help to solve the economic problem of distribution. Religion: A Series of Revival The Fisherman and His Friends. Sermons by Louis Albert Banks, D. D., pastor Hanson Place M. E. church, Brooklyn, N. Y. 365 pp. 12mo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.50. New York, London, and Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Co. The thirty-one revival sermons in this volume were all the result of long study and observation, but the actual construction of each sermon was left till the day of delivery. Bishop John F. Hurst characterizes these sermons as follows: "The subjects are strong, striking, and varied, the treatment is of the most searching kind, and, altogether, it is a most valuable addition to our devotional literature." In suggestion and illustrative material this book is invaluable to Christian workers in the Bible class of the Sunday school or in the pulpit. Talks to the King's Children. Second series of "Five Minute Object Sermons," by Sylvanus Stall, D. D. 256 pp. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. New York, London, and Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Co. This book belongs to a class of which there are but few in any language. The author has done for children what Schriver in Germany, and Dean Stanley in England, have done for grown people. With some object of every-day life presented to the eye, the author, after the manner of the parables, presents the important truths of the gospel to the easy comprehension of both old and young. Some of the sermons are little classics. The book is a model for children's sermons, and will be welcomed by mothers in the nursery, teachers in the school room, and missionaries in foreign lands, as well as by grown people for devotional reading and by pastors in preparing to preach to children. Christ's Trumpet Call to the Ministry; or, The Preacher and the Preaching for the Present Crisis. By Daniel S. Gregory, D. D., LL. D. 365 pp. Cloth, $1.25. New York, London, and Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Co. 12mo. The chapters cover the whole field of ministerial duty in its rela tion to present conditions and exigencies. The book attempts to demonstrate the obligation of the church |