teacher of elocution in this city who is known to have given his best attention during many years to the subjects with which his book deals. ENDYMION. A Novel. By the Right Honor. able Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. New York: D. Appleton & Co. If, as appears to be the case, "Endymion" was written recently, it shows a remarkable persistence of those qualities which characterized Disraeli the Younger when he first began his literary career. It is more than fifty years since "Vivian Grey" startled and somewhat bewildered the public by its audacities, and now, after more than an ordinary lifetime has intervened, precisely the same sensation is produced by the appearance of Endymion." There is the same thinly-disguised portraiture of well-known persons, the same more or less conscious disclosures of the author's own personality, the same tone of caustic satire and cynical depreciation, the same zest in depicting "high life" and the pageantry of wealth, the same glorification of "race" and " blood," and the same brilliant, scintillating, epigrammatic, burnished, and rhetorical style. The style, indeed, is somewhat less tawdry than in the earlier story, and there is, perhaps, more repose of manner; but there is no diminution of vivacity or vigor, and the work of the aged statesman is as lively, as aggressive, and as full of animal spirits as the earlier achievement of the literary free lance. The action of "Endymion" covers the period from about 1830 to 1850, and in its incidents and development follows, in the main, the order of historical events. As the author himself played a prominent part in these events, this of itself would suffice to give a certain piquancy to the story; and the piquancy is enhanced when we discover that the story of Endymion is the story of one who, like its author, raised himself from a position of obscure insignificance to that of Prime Minister of England. Yet it is obvious throughout that, while there is a certain parallelism between the actual career of Benjamin Disraeli and the fictitious one of Endymion Ferrars, and while real incidents of the former have been used to illustrate the latter, there has been no intention that the one should be regarded as a reflection of the other. And the same thing is true of most of the other characters. The Duke of Wellington, Huskisson, and Peel are introduced under their own proper names, and the disguises of others are so diaphanous that it was evidently designed that they should be easily penetrated. Prince Florestan, for example, is quite obviously Louis Napoleon; the banker Neuchatel is the late Baron Rothschild; and traits from the character or incidents from the life of known men and women have been worked into the portraiture of quite a number of the characters. But to one really acquainted with the history of the last fifty years, and with the prominent actors in it, nothing could well appear more absurd than the performances of the gossips who have constructed a complete list of dramatis persona, identifying Lord Roehampton with Lord Palmerston, Lord Montfort with Lord Melbourne, the Earl of Ferrol with Prince Bismarck, Job Thornberry with John Bright, Myra with Lady Palmerston and the Empress Eugénie, and (the climax of malicious absurdity !) Ste. Barbe with Thackeray. The extreme tenuity of the resemblances that have furnished the basis for all this guessing reminds one of the etymological achievement of Sydney Smith, who derived "Middleton" from "morals" by leaving off the rals and changing into iddleton. Regarded in its purely literary aspect, "Endymion" could hardly be assigned a very exalted place even in current fiction, which cannot be said to average very high; but as a political novel written by a self-made Prime Minister it possesses a certain piquancy now, and will always retain a certain interest. THE FAMILY MEDICAL GUIDE. A Complete Popular Dictionary of Medicine and Hy giene. Edited by Edwin Lankester, M.D., F.R.S., etc. American Edition. New York: E. R. Pelton & Co. The public has been so often imposed upon by works of this kind that any new venture in the field is apt to be regarded at the outset with a well-grounded suspicion. Nor is this a matter for surprise. Hitherto the field has been surrendered to medical quacks or to irresponsible compilers, whose productions have never represented the best medical science and practice, and have wrought infinite harm to those who have been confiding enough to trust them. Lankester's Family Medical Guide" is a work of a very different character. Dr. Lankester himself is a physician and scientist of the highest standing and of world-wide reputation, and he states in a Note prefixed to the volume that he should not have undertaken the editorship of this "Guide" had he not been fully assured that the professional gentlemen who wrote the greater part of the articles were fully competent to the task. "They all possess," he says, "the highest qualifications, and some of them are attached to public institutions, so that their individual opinions may be regarded as of importance." He adds: "On the whole, I believe the book will be found more up to the science and practice of the time than any previous attempt made to popularize the practice of medicine and surgery." The American edition of the work has been very carefully revised, with a view to the different local conditions, and contains many valuable articles not found in the English edition. For convenience of consultation the contents of the "Guide" are arranged in alphabetical order, as in a dictionary or cyclopædia, and there are upward of two thousand titles, the scope of the work being far more comprehensive than in anything of the kind previously undertaken. Besides the articles on every form of disease or ailment that flesh is heir to, each of the medicines, drugs, plants, and preparations used in medical practice is fully treated of in a separate article, and there are very complete instructions for the treatment of those various accidents that are liable to occur at any time, and which require immediate action. By the special desire of Dr. Lankester, much space has been assigned to all questions connected with hygiene, or the preservation of health, and every branch of human physiology is expounded and discussed by an expert. On such subjects as Food, Diet, Indigestion, Fevers, Insanity, Climate, Health Resorts, Mineral Waters, Vaccination, and Sanitary Regulations, the articles are, in length and importance, equivalent to special treatises. Moreover, as the book was written by London physicians of recognized ability and the highest reputation, the methods of treating diseases recommended in it comprise the very latest discoveries and improvements in the science and practice of medicine. "In this respect,' as the preface says, "it is probably twenty years ahead of the average medical practice in this country, outside the few largest cities; and many, perhaps most, physicians would learn much from it regarding novel uses of medicines and improved modes of treating disease.' It should be said, however, that, while written by professional men, the "Medical Guide" is designed and adapted strictly for family use. All technical phraseology has been carefully avoided, and the aim has been to make a book which any intelligent person could understand with ease and use with confidence. The directions are simple and precise; the remedies suggested are such as may be readily obtained and safely administered; and particular pains have been taken in explaining the significance of those signs or symptoms of disease which it is so important that we should appreciate correctly. Occasions are constantly arising in family life when an intelligent man or woman, using the information thus furnished, may mitigate suffering and perhaps save life. UNDER THE OLIVE. Poems. By Mrs. Annie Fields. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. If it possessed no other attraction than its outward aspect, this little volume would be entitled to some degree of attention, but its contents stand in strict relationship to its extremely tasteful and elegant exterior. Almost without exception the poems which it contains are suggested by Greek themes, and there is a scholarly and antique flavor about them, as well as the explanatory Notes, which is very pleasing. There is nothing of the Greek joyousness about them, however, the author's mind being evidently of a grave and reflective cast. Serenity of spirit is as marked a characteristic of them as elevation of thought, and the verse, without being melodious, exhibits a strong sense of rhythmical harmonies. It is a book for cultured readers, which cultured readers will estimate highly. HEROES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY (Henry Martyn, by the Rev. Charles D. Bell, M.A., D.D.; William Wilberforce, by the Rev. John Stoughton, D.D.; Philip Doddridge, by the Rev. Charles Stanford, D.D.). New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son. Under the above apt and striking title the publishers propose to issue a series of short biographies of the men whose works and names occupy the most prominent and distinguished places in later religious history. Each volume of the series will be prepared by a writer of recognized ability and authority, and while aiming at scholarly exactness in the method of treatment, will be entertaining in form, popular in style, and adapted to the needs of those who have neither the means to procure nor the leisure to read more elaborate works. Among the subjects already selected for treatment (besides those named at the head of our notice) are Richard Baxter, John Knox, Robert Hall, John Wycliffe, Thomas Chalmers, and Jonathan Edwards; and the volumes already issued show that the design of the series will be admirably carried out. The sketch of Henry Martyn, the missionary to India, is particularly good, and besides the biographical narrative, contains an interesting selection from his correspondence. The career of Wilberforce was in an unusual degree varied and picturesque, and furnishes an opportunity to the biographer of which Dr. Stoughton has not failed to make good use; and Dr. Stanford has made a hardly less readable record of Doddridge's life. FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES. IT has been estimated that there are now no fewer than 148,oco,000 copies of the Bible, as against only 5,000,000 copies in circulation at the commencement of the present century. RUSSIAN translations of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and 'Holy War' are to be published shortly, along with the illustrations which appear in Messrs. Cassell's editions. A NEW edition of Victor Hugo's "Toilers of the Sea" is in preparation, in which all the vigorous sketches with which the author illustrated the margins of his MS. will be reproduced in fac-simile. AFTER much deliberation, Professor Lotze, the metaphysician, and the well-known author of "Mikrokosmos,' has accepted a chair of philosophy at Berlin, where he will remove from Göttingen at Easter, 1881. A REMARKABLE discovery has been made in Berlin, viz., the papers of Marshal Bertier, found in a chest that had not been touched for seventy years. Among these papers are some letters from Napoleon I., and the summons to Saxony in October, 1806: they are shortly to be published. THE project of an International Congress of Orthographers, which was mooted in the spring of this year, received sufficient support from scholars in England and on the Continent to render it very probable that the first congress will meet in the autumn of 1881. DON FRANCISCO CARRASCO is preparing a catalogue of all the materials of the sixteenth ́and seventeenth centuries preserved in the Archivo de las Indias," and relating to the discovery and description of America, for the Congress of Americanists to be held at Madrid in September, 1881. A BENGALI writer, Jogendaranath Bidyabhushan, has recently published in the vernacular a life of Mazzini, together with a short account of Italian history, his object being, as he says, to excite patriotic feelings among the Hindoos, and to teach them to prefer the good of their country to their self-interest. THE editors of "Charles Dickens's Letters" are anxious to get together more of his correspondence. Miss Dickens and Miss Hogarth will, therefore, be grateful if any persons possessing letters of Dickens which have not been published will send them under cover to Miss Hogarth, at 11 Strathmore Gardens, Kensington, W. The letters will be most carefully preserved, copied, and returned to their owners with as little delay as possible. THE recent destruction of Professor Mommsen's library by fire has drawn the attention of librarians to the necessity of insuring the safety of rooms in which Mss. are deposited. Thus the Library of Heidelberg has obtained a special grant for building fireproof rooms for its MSS. We are sorry to say that nothing of the kind has been planned as yet for the Berlin Library, in which the MSS. are, so far as we are aware, stored up in those rooms which are nearest the roof. FEW are aware of the extent to which Sanskrit is at present used as a medium of conversation and correspondence in India, and of its extreme convenience when employed as a kind of lingua franca among learned men in a country where there may be no affinity between the spoken vernaculars, or not sufficient affinity to make two persons living in adjacent districts mutually intelligible. Mr. Cust has shown that about two hundred languages and dialects are spoken by the inhabitants of our Indian empire. What a barrier would this variety of speech be to the interchange of ideas, were it not for the universal employment of Sanskrit and Hindustani as vehicles of intellectual intercourse by the educated classes in all parts of the country!-Athenæum. It is well known that the contemporaries of Goethe and Schiller published some very strange criticisms upon them. Herr Julius Braun is engaged upon the compilation of a book which is to be made up exclusively of a chronological reprint of the criticisms which appeared in various periodicals upon the two great German poets between the years 1770 and 1834. The articles are collected from wellknown contemporary publications of Berlin, Vienna, Leipzig, Dresden, Halle, Jena, Weimar, Stuttgart, and Mannheim. WE understand that Mr. Boscawen has discovered in a private collection of objects coming from Carchemish a gem representing a priest, who stands upon a bee when sacrificing. The cultus of the bee among Semitic tribes could be deduced from the name of Deborah, Bee." Mr. Boscawen's discovery may help the understanding of the passage in Isaiah 7:18, "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt [the Philistines worshipped the fly], and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria." SCIENCE AND ART. THE EARTH'S ROTATION.-The Earth's rotation was demonstrated by means of the pendulum by Leon Foucault, in February, 1851. He was permitted to hang a bob of 28 kilos. from a wire 67 metres long, beneath the dome of the Pantheon, in Paris. A posthumous note in explanation of the observation is published in the recently collected works of the great physicist. He fully appreciated from the first that the rapidity of the deviation is equal to the Earth's velocity multiplied into the sine of the latitude of the place of observation; corresponding simply with sidereal time at the pole and being infinite at the equator. The pendu. lum had a period of eight seconds for each vi bration. It continued in motion with a single impulse for six hours, making a complete rotation in thirty one hours, and a deviation of I' 33" in each oscillation. By this noble experiment he substantiated an important physical fact, namely, the fixedness of the plane of oscillation, as a consequence of vis inertia in matter generally. This he afterward demonstrated still more ingeniously by means of a delicatelysuspended gyroscope. Another less known form of the experiment is also recorded in his works. A thin, long, elastic rod of steel is fixed to the mandril of an ordinary lathe, being free at the farther end. If this be pulled at the free end out of its position of rest, it vibrates in a series of lines, circles, and ellipses, following each other in regular succession. The same phenomenon is seen in Wheatstone's kaleidophone. When, however, a steady oscillation has been obtained, it is not interfered 'with in direction by causing the mandril and the attached rod to rotate rapidly about their axis, the plane of oscillation continuing stable though the mass of the vibrating body is in motion. Even beyond this the rotation protects the oscillatory plane against deformations due to unsymmetry of the rod, and renders it more stable than in a state of rest. Indeed, whatever form the vibratory curve may have taken up, whether linear, circular, or elliptical, this is preserved unchanged as long as the axial rotation is kept at a certain speed. THE SUSPECTED ULTRA-NEPTUNIAN PLANET. No results have been made known with respect to the distant planet believed by Professor George Forbes to be at present close to the star ẞ Virginis. It is probable, therefore, that no attempt has been made to search for this very problematical planet. It will be remembered that Professor Forbes founded his belief in its existence on a study of the orbits of the different comets of long period, and that he assigned a distance from the Sun of over 100 times that of the Earth, and a period of over 1000 years. Professor Forbes also pointed out that in 1857 this supposed planet would be in the position of the star No. 894 in the Greenwich First Seven-Year Catalogue, a star which was only seen in the year 1857, and on no subsequent occasion. We now learn that this star, No. 894, was a tenth-magnitude star, observed by mistake for one of the minor planets, and that it still remains in its place. The hypothesis of Professor Forbes that this might be his planet therefore falls to the ground. As before pointed out, if Professor Forbes's planet really existed, it would probably be so faint (like a fourteenth-magnitude star) and would move so slowly that it could not be detected without enormous labor with an exceeding powerful telescope. clocks PNEUMATIC CLOCKS. Pneumatic have been successfully established in Paris, both for public and private purposes. The subscribers are supplied with dials on this system for the sum of a halfpenny per day. Air is compressed to five atmospheres in a reservoir at the central station. A distributing-clock places this in communication with distributingpipes for twenty seconds every minute, the used air being again employed to wind automatically the original train. The distributingtubes are of iron, 27 millim. in bore, carried under ground. These, by leaden or indiarubber connections, communicate with the affiliated dials. The dial has a small caoutchouc bellows, similar to that of the pneumatic telegraph, acting on a lever, which takes, by means of a ratchet, into a wheel of 60 teeth, carrying the minute-hand. The hour-hand is moved by the usual motion-work. Strikingclocks are also fitted up on the same system for the small increase in price of a single centime, namely, six instead of five per diem. It appears that the whole expense is from fifteen shillings to a pound per annum. ILLUSTRATING POLARIZED LIGHT.-A beautiful illustration of the laws of polarization of light has lately been made by M. G. Govi. Let a parallel beam of light be passed through a polarizer, then through a thin slice of quartz cut perpendicularly to the optic axis, then through an analyzing Nicol prism. It is seen, as is well known, to be colored. This colored light when passed into a spectroscope gives a spectrum marked by one or more dark bands, corresponding to the particular rays whose relative retardations in passing through the crystal slice have produced interference. These bands are not always in one place; they are displaced right or left (according to whether the crystal is a right-handed or a left-handed specimen) if either the analyzer or the polarizer be rotated. A slice of quartz about 4. 3 millims. thick produces a single band. One of 8.6 millims., two bands at once in the visible spectrum, the number of bands being proportional to the thickness of the crystal. Now suppose a mechanical contrivance by which both the analyzer and the spectrum can be rotated at the same velocity. A direct vision prism attached to the front of the Nicol prism realizes the optical portion of this combination. There will be seen on rotation a circular spectrum, having either red or violet at the centre, and either violet or red at its outer circumference. Now since the dark band spoken of is displaced by a quantity proportional to the amount of rotation, interference will take place in this circular spectrum along points which form geometrically a spiral of Archimedes. The persistence of impressions on the retina will enable this dark spiral to be seen in its entirety, provided the rotation be sufficiently rapid. If a thicker piece of quartz be used, giving two, three, or four dark bands, the rotation spectrum will present a most beautiful appearance, being crossed by a two-branched, or three-branched, or four-branched spiral, the separate lines of which proceed from the centre to the circumference. The sense of these dark spirals will change with the sense of the impressed rotation. The effects, says Nature, are very striking. AN EXTRA BONE IN THE HUMAN WRIST.Dr. Eugène Vincent has found an additional (ninth) bone in each wrist of an old Arab. The first row of carpals consisted, as usual, of four bones, but the second row had five; the supplementary bone, which was equal in size to the pisiform, was between the trapezium and the grande, and it was applied against the scaphoid above and the trapezoid in front, but articulated by one of its faces with the second metacarpal. The structure was the same in both wrists. The orang and most of the lower apes regularly possess a ninth bone in the carpus, but this differs somewhat in position from the bone found by Dr. Vincent, and does not appear to reach the second metacarpal bone which is nearest to it. In the quadrumana, Cuvier considered the supplementary bone to be a separated portion of the grande; but according to the opinion of M. Alix it is rather a dismemberment of the scaphoid. Dr. Vincent regards the ninth bone in his Arab as probably derived from the trapezoid, which was much reduced in size. 46 ARTIFICIAL GLOBE LIGHTNING.-The following passage occurs in an old book entitled New Dissertation on the Electricity of Bodies." The 12th January, 1748, easterly wind and great cold. I stretched out a large cat on the coverlet of my bed, and on rubbing it I obtained in the darkness sparks of fire, the sound of which much resembled that of a comb when the hand is passed over the teeth. A thousand little points of fire danced about here and there, and, by continuing the friction, the sparks augmented to such an extent that they appeared like spheres or balls of fire, of the size of a hazel nut. I observed these little globes detach themselves from the body of the cat, fall upon the coverlet, rebound like foot-balls. . . . A thousand balls of fire were moving over the cat and on the coverlet; I observing attentively. I approached my eyes to a ball which appeared more luminous than the others. Immediately I heard a kind of explosion or crackling, and felt a pricking sensation in the eyes. There was no shock in any other portion of the body; but the pain was followed by a weakness which caused me to fall on my side. It was some minutes before I recovered." Unfortunately, the conditions for the repetition of the experiment are not very readily obtainable; otherwise considerable light might be thrown upon the undoubted phenomenon of "globular lightning."—Electrician. EDUCATION OF THE DEAF.-The meeting of the International Congress for the education of the deaf at Milan may be regarded as important, for they resolved to discard signs in teaching, and to adopt the "pure oral method." The president, Abbé Tarra, said in his address, "Signs must be altogether abjured, though a few simple gestures may be allowed when the little child is first introduced to school-life. In the school-room begins the redemption of the deaf-mute. He is waiting to be made into a man. Let him be taught to move his lips in speech, not his hands in signs. Of all movements for the expression of ideas, those of the lips are most perfect. Speech is addressed to the intellect, while gestures speak coarsely to the senses.' These views were supported by speakers from different parts of Europe; and from experiments made in England and other countries there is no doubt that persons utterly deaf can be taught to speak by watching the movements of their teachers' lips. LIGHT AND VEGETABLE GROWTH.-From observations made during nearly twenty years in a forest in the Jura, it appears to be proved that: (1) when light strikes the ground without having been sifted by foliage, it stimulates the production of carbonic acid in the soil; that (2) the growth of wood is diminished when the underbrush is so thick and tall as to impede the passage of sunlight to the soil, and its reflex action on the branches of the trees; and (3) that mould in too great a thickness becomes inert, and thus remains many years, as is the case with farm-yard manure when too deeply buried. THE COURSE OF A LIGHTNING FLASH.Professor Tait, of Edinburgh, insists that when people think they see a lightning flash go upward or downward they must be mistaken. The duration of a lightning flash is less than the millionth part of a second, and the eye cannot possibly follow the movements of such extraordinary rapidity. The origin of the mistake seems, he says, to be a subjective one, viz., that the central parts of the retina are more sensitive, by practice, than the rest, and therefore that the portion of the flash which is seen directly affects the brain sooner than the rest. Hence a spectator looking toward either end of a flash very naturally fancies that end to be its starting-point. It is singular that |