single-sheet bulletins. It is proposed to continue the issue of these from time to time whenever there is information of special interest. Attention is called to the fishery resources of the Yukon River, which so far have been utilized only by the Indians for their immediate needs, but which it is believed may afford a food supply to the miners and traders who have been attracted to that region, and ultimately to the country at large. Full statistics are given of the sections covered by the report, and it may be noted that at Gloucester and Boston there has been a falling-off in the aggregate receipts of fish since 1896, while the South Atlantic States as a whole show an increase in the product, the amount of capital invested and the number of persons employed in the fisheries. What strikes one very forcibly in glancing over this report is the many discouragements the fish culturist is called upon to face and the large number of serious losses due to unavoidable, often seemingly trivial and sometimes inexplicable, accidents. A few degrees of temperature, more or less, a heavy shower, the lingering of ice or an unfavorable wind may cause heavy damage and almost bring to naught the labor of weeks. Another thought is to what extent should the general government undertake the propagation and distribution of the more strictly game fishes, such, for example, as black bass and trout? The investigation of the best methods for the accomplishment of such work should undeniably lie with the United States, but these once discovered, its continuance should rest with States and individuals. What may be done by individual effort is shown by the fact that a large number of the many ponds of Plymouth county, Mass., have been stocked with black bass by the simple process of carrying a few fish in pails from one pond to another. It may be said that the establishment of many of the trout hatcheries has been due to the efforts of members of Congress and not to any desire of the Commissioner of Fisheries. The propagation of such widely-spread and all-important species as cod, shad, the Pacific salmon and the lobster is quite another matter and should properly be carried on by the United States. The statistical as well as the strictly scientific work of the Fish Commission is again of national importance, and the special omission of fishery statistics from the coming census bears testimony to the value of the work done by this division. It is gratifying to learn that the appropriation for scientific work has this year been materially increased, for, from past experience, we know that what to-day appears to be a purely scientific problem to-morrow becomes an all-important practical matter. In this connection Dr. Smith urges the appointment of an expert in fish pathology, calling attention to the large mortality which often prevails among fish, both under natural and artificial conditions, and for which there is at present no known cause or remedy. The annual losses at the hatcheries of the Commission, while not excessive, are still great enough to demonstrate the need of skilled investigation, and the present expenditure of a few thousand dollars may yield subsequent returns of millions. Last, but not least, it may be again noted that under the present Commissioner it has been arranged to keep the laboratory at Wood's Hole under the scientific direction of Professor Bumpus open throughout the year. ENGINEERING AND THE PROFESSIONS THE receipt of the annual volume of Proceedings of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education'* is a reminder of *Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, Vol. VI. Published by the Society. 1898. 8vo. Pp. xxvii + 324. the extent to which all departments of education are becoming systematized and organized in the United States. Hitherto, in Hitherto, in all countries, there had been observable a very serious lack in this respect, even in Germany, where the central government, and the authorities of every kingdom alike, control and direct the education of all classes from central organized bureaux. With us primary and secondary education have had consistent and authoritative direction, not always wise or expert, but always earnest and well-intended; for the common school has been recognized, from the first, as the strongest bulwark of our institutions, political and social. Professional education and training, however, have, like all higher learning, been sustained mainly by private, sporadic and unsystematic, unauthoritative, support and aid. Education, in a true sense and on the lower levels, has been fairly well-cared for; professional training, that education which is rather a noble form of apprenticeship to a noble vocation, finds even yet almost no public and little private recognition. Of late the schools of engineering are securing some attention from investors in this form of higher security and from the State Legislatures and expert éducators and professionals. In the West, particularly, the schools of the vocations are attracting more and more attention as their relation to and bearing upon the social condition of the people is coming to be generally appreciated. The volume before us contains the proceedings of a single meeting of a representative association of this class, and presents a very excellent picture of the purposes and methods of such an institution. The Society, about five years old, numbers 244, and includes practically all of the leaders in the development of this branch of technical educational work in the country, and representatives from nearly all recognized professional schools in this field. Twentynine papers are published, together with lists of officers and members, the constitution of the Society, its rules and its proceedings at the Boston meeting of 1898. The leading paper is the address of President Johnson, a discussion of the topic: 'A Higher Industrial and Commercial Education as an Essential Condition of our Future Material Prosperity.' This is a most interesting and impressive statement of the needs of the United States in this direction, and of the dangers that threaten a nation neglecting to systematize its industrial system and the education of the Industrial Classes' for their life and work in presence of a competition which is coming to be more constant and more dangerous as the means of communication and of transportation become more extended and more perfect. The foreignMono-technic Schools' are held up to our view as models of a type of school which is almost unknown in this country, and as having proved the salvation of the Germanic peoples. The establishment of high-grade mono-technic and commercial schools is urged as the most promising and desirable of all visible modern improvements in education and training for the industrial classes. A full evening was given to a paper 'On the Organization of Engineering Courses and on Entrance Requirements for Professional Schools,' in which the writer, following a somewhat similar line of thought, developed the theory of professional education, exhibited the logical differences between the real education' of the academic colleges and the primarily vocational training, the higher apprenticeship' of the professional schools; showing that while the one should offer a ladder from the gutter to the university,' as Huxley said, the other lets down a ladder from the profession to the people, the two thus demanding radically different methods of construction of their curricula, as well as different methods of prescription of entrance requirements. The one supplements the schools, and must build smoothly up from below; the other builds down from the profession, and must, at all hazards, make its junction at the upper end effective, while its entrance requirements must be such as will least embarrass the aspirant while satisfying the proper demands of the profession. Each curriculum, however, must be constructed by experts in its own field, and the professional must be relied upon to perfect the courses and prescribe the requirements of the technical school, as must the expert in academic education be expected to be given a free hand in the upbuilding of general education. Shorter papers on laboratory work, on details of educational apparatus, 'thesis work,' courses of instruction in various departments and reports of committees, fill the volume with a mass of material hitherto unparalleled in this line, and which must deeply interest, not only workers in this field, but all educators, and particularly all who are interested in the promotion and improvement of our still defective and inadequate educational provision for the best interests of the industrial classes, and in the advancement to still higher planes of our professional schools. The careful study, not of this volume only, but of the series, beginning with the organization of the Association at the Educational Congress at Chicago, in 1893, in connection with the Columbian Exhibition, cannot but well reward every one interested in the modern and current movements in this politically, as well as socially, important department of the scheme of national education, the perfection of which is so vital an element in determining what shall be the political and the moral and intellectual status of our country in coming generations. R. H. THURSTON. SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. Die chemische Energie der lebenden Zellen. DR. OSCAR LOEW. Munich, Dr. E. Wolff, publisher. 1899.. Pp. 170. This publication gives the results of a series of observations on the chemical characteristics of living matter. It is proved that the proteids of living matter are of very labile nature and different from those of the dead matter, into which they are transformed by atomic migrations in the molecules. It is also demonstrated that in many plants a labile reserve-protein occurs which is not yet organized, but is changed by the same conditions as kill the cells. The book contains the following chapters: 1. Views on the causes of the vital activity. matter. 4. The essential concomitants of protoplasm. 9. A labile protein as reserve material in plants. 10. Chemical characteristics of the labile protoprotein. 11. Lability and activity in the protoplasm. 12. Theory of respiration. Chapters 9 and 10 give the results obtained in conjunction with Th. Bokorny. The most modern progress of theoretical chemistry has been brought to bear in this work. The theories advanced in the work and the suggestions which they contain will make the book invaluable to students of bio-chemistry and physiology. Doctor Loew has concluded his work with the following brief summary : "It may be briefly recapitulated in a few words how much the theses put forth correspond or coincide with the observations made. In the first place, it should be remembered that the living substance shows a great resemblance to a chemically labile body and that the dying process of the protoplasm is suggestive of the transition of a labile into a stable modification of organic compounds. According to the theory developed in the eighth chapter concerning the formation of albumin, the lability of the plasma-protein is due to the simultaneous presence of aldehyde and amido groups. The toxicological facts reported in the eleventh chapter, indeed, support this view. The further inference from the theory, that very labile but not yet organized protein substances possibly occur in plants, has also been verified. An exceeding labile reserve protein of an aldehyde nature was proved by Bokorny and myself to exist in many kinds of plants; its characteristics are described in the ninth and tenth chapters. Labile substances contain kinetic chemical energy; they contain certain loosely bound atoms, which under the influence of heat become more mobile than in case of a more stable arrangement. As a result chemical reactions are caused, the energy of these atoms being transferred to certain susceptible substances (sugar, fatty acids), which are thus drawn into a state of higher reactive power, especially with the otherwise indifferent oxygen of the atmosphere. In other words, catalytic actions are produced through a charge with chemical energy. The proteins of living substances appear as relatively firm structures in which separate labile atoms perform great oscillations. This conception is essentially different from that of Pflüger and Detmer, both of whom ascribe to all atoms in the plasma-proteins such an intense state of motion that a dissociation results, to be followed by a similarly energetic regeneration. Pflüger says: * "I do not expect to meet with any opposition if I consider the living matter as not only being astonishingly changeable, but steadily decomposing." Yet, when we consider that a minimal attack of extremely small quantities of a poison will produce the death of a cell, one may well doubt whether such a metabolism as Pflüger assumes would not sooner lead to death than to a possibility of regeneration. Neither can we, therefore, agree with Verworn when he says:† "The life process is the sum-total of all processes connected with the building-up and destruction of the 'biogens,' or, "life consists in the metabolism of the albuminous bodies." A more correct definition would be the following: Life is the sum-total of the effects made possible by the labile nature of the plasma-proteins and their respiratory activity, and governed by the specific tectonic of the energides and of the active paraplastic structures.* The nature of the living matter is in the first place determined by lability and organization, that is, by a systematic kind of motion in a structure (tectonic) of labile proteins. The principle of organization is not yet known. Even if we assume with Pflüger that the process of organization consists merely in a polymerization, the complicated details in generation and karyokinesis, would still defy explanation, and the genetic differentiation would not become better intelligible. Difficult problems are here facing us. Still it may be considered a slight advance to know at least a little more about the cause of respiration and the chemical energy of the cells than formerly. It is the lability of the plasma-proteins, which, supported by the effects of light, leads to the building-up of the carbohydrates in the green plants out of carbon dioxide and water with separation of oxygen. It is also this lability which assists in combining the organic substances with oxygen and renders the obtained energy applicable to physiological work. In addition to the well-known fact that all life functions are based upon the energies of the sun, it must be inferred that the lability of the plasma-proteins is necessary to transform this sun energy into vital action. ALBERT F. WOODS. DIVISION OF VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. Physical Geography. By WILLIAM MORRIS DAVIS, assisted by WILLIAM HENRY SNYDER. Boston, Ginn & Company. 1898. Pp. 431. Professor Davis well states in his preface the central principle of this volume: "Physiographic facts should be traced back to their causes and forward to their consequences." We find thus the widest departure from the piecemeal description and recital of facts, of most works in physical geography. We should expect this from one who has long been eminent as a student and teacher of the science and who *Kupffer designates the contractile substance of the muscular fibrille, the nervous fibre and the red blood corpuscles as 'paraplastic' formations. has not ceased to magnify the causal notion and the consequent educational value of geography. It cannot hereafter be said that the materials of the new geography are not available to the rank and file of teachers, as was conceded in the report of the Committee of Ten. The limits of a secondary text-book forbid anything like a full discussion, and it is to be hoped that a manual or college text-book may come from the author's hand. He has discarded, for the most part, technical terms. Thus the doctrine of the peneplain is elucidated in the text, but the name appears only once, and that in a footnote. The rational geography makes large use of geology, but this has been done in a simple fashion which obviates the necessity of a previous course in that subject for the pupil, though the teacher would find such knowledge all but indispensable. To dwell for a moment longer on the pedagogical aspects of the volume, the vital teacher need not hesitate to use it, though he be deficient in preparation, but it is emphatically a book for the best, and only such can wholly do it justice. It wisely joins itself to the present state of knowledge, but leads well out among the ideals and possibilities of the science. The illustrations are profuse and well selected. Especially useful are many diagrams which combine surface relief and vertical section, thus relating geographic form and geological structure. The appendix contains valuable bibliographic lists and a short catalogue of the best maps, whose use and importance are everywhere emphasized. The Earth as a Globe, the Atmosphere, the Ocean and the Lands are the four main subdivisions of the book. All but the last are briefly treated, offering an outline of the chief facts in mathematical geography, meteorology and oceanography, terms which we think, for the present purpose, wisely discarded. The lands are treated with greater fullness, the discussion occupying 273 pages. The chapter headings will best show the general character of this section. They are: The Lands, Plains and Plateaus, Mountains, Volcanoes, Rivers and Valleys, The Waste of the Land, Climatic Control of Land Forms, and Shorelines. The origin of these forms and their con sequences upon organic and especially human life are never lost from view, and thus is realized the highest definition of geography as a study of the 'physical environment of man.' No separate sections are devoted to the races of man or the distribution of animals, but a reader of the whole volume will discover that these subjects have not been neglected, but have been treated in an intimate and educational fashion. The principle of change of form by erosion and by change of relation to sea-level is early stated and receives manifold elucidation to the end. The Plain offers a good example of the author's method. We have first the formation of a coastal plain by deposition of land waste and uplift of marginal sea-bottom, with subsequent dissection by land streams. There logically follows the broader, higher, older and more dissected coastal plain, the eastern Carolinas serving as an example. The favorable conditions for artesian wells form here a naturally related topic. Embayed coastal plains show the effect of the later, partial submergence, the Chesapeake being used as a type. Such use of physiographic types, as a means of seeking and classifying examples in all parts of the world, is a favorite and important principle with our author. Similar plains of very ancient origin, as in central-southern Wisconsin and western New York, are then described and connected with the younger, less modified types, but without involving the difficult ideas or nomenclature of historical geology. The plateau, or uplifted plain, appropriately follows. Thus we have young plateaus, as in Arizona; mature and well-dissected plateaus, as in the Catskill-Allegheny-Cumberland belt, and old plateaus, as recognized in the buttes, mesas and table-topped mountains of the West. The treatment of mountains is, for the space, equally thorough and interesting. The various kinds are described-block mountains in various stages of maturity; folded and domed mountains, with such fruitful subtopics as climate of mountains, mountains as barriers, valleys among mountains, and inhabitants of lofty mountains. The chapter on Rivers and Valleys well illustrates the strides of physiographic science dur |