oughts and expressions seem more appropriate to a period that survives only in history than to the present, when men's thoughts are running in other channels, and their controversies are on other questions than those that engaged exclusive attention twenty years ago.
Smithsonian Accounts of Progress in 1885. Washington: Government Printing-Office.
Geography. By J. King Goodrich. Pp. 36.—Mr. Goodrich has given a very readable account of the year's work in geography, which others than special students of the subject will be interested in. Beginning with "general notes" relating to the condition and growth of geographical knowledge as a whole, he arranges his review under the special headings of the several regions which have been fields of geographical research, with accounts of the work done in each.
Chemistry. By Professor H. Carrington Bolton. Pp. 50. This account, though short, gives the record of a busy year's work, in which, while no startling discoveries have been made, a great deal has been done in the study of important questions relative to the nature of the chemical radicals, their relations to one another, and their reactions.
Vulcanology and Seismology. By Charles G. Rockwood, Jr. Pp. 23.—The study of this branch is still devoted largely to individual manifestations, with much inquiry for laws and causes, but few definite general conclusions. It is given here as one of the conclusions of Verbeck's investigation of the great Krakatoa eruption, that that volcano lies at the intersection of three fissures of the earth's crust, and the earthquake of September 1, 1880, probably affected the Sunda fissure and facilitated the entrance of greater quantities of water to the volcanic furnace beneath. Hence the remote causes of the outburst of 1883.
Physics. By Professor George F. Barker. Pp. 60.—Besides the results in general physics, Professor Barker mentions the studies that have been made in the physics of liquids and gases, light, acoustics, and electricity, and special applications.
Mineralogy. By Professor E. S. Dana. Pp. 26.—The subject is considered under the headings of "General Works on Mineralogy," "Crystallography and Physical Mineralogy," "Chemical Mineralogy," "New Mineral Localities in the United States and elsewhere," and "New Minerals."
Anthropology. By Professor Otis T. Mason. Pp. 56.—This account includes considerable technical matter; but we find in it sections on the ethnology of the American aborigines, and on the glossology, comparative technology, sociology, and mythology and folk-lore of our tribes.
Astronomy. By William C. Winlock.—Mr. Winlock works as a substitute for Professor E. S. Holden, whose manuscript review, already prepared, was lost in removing his library. Faye's "Cosmological Theory," and G. H. Darwin's review of it, new discoveries of nebulæ, investigations of astronomical constants, recent star catalogues, studies in parallax, in variable, new, or temporary stars, in stellar spectra, proper motions, and photometry, astronomical photography, what has been done and said about comets, the studies of Langley and others on the sun, and of other astronomers on various planets, receive attention.
Zoolögy. By Professor Theodore Gill. Pp. 53.—The continued tendency toward the special study of embryology, and of animals from an embryological point of view, is remarked upon: At the same time systematic zoölogy has at least maintained its course. Particular mention is made of Dr. Boulenger's catalogue of the lacertilian reptiles in the British Museum, Professor Cope's "Tertiary Vertebrata," and Professor Marsh's "Dinocerata." The subject is reviewed according to the various groups of the animal kingdom in which memoirs have appeared.
North American Invertebrate Paleontology. By John Belknap Marcou. Pp. 47.—Mr. Marcou gives summaries of the various monographs that were published during the year, the whole furnishing a fair and tolerably full representation of what was accomplished. All of these reviews, except the "Geography" and the "Paleontology," which is itself a bibliography, add bibliog