"De Profundis; queries, rather than discussions, as to what can be fully understood about religious obligations. "Elsewhere;" similar queries about a future state. Almost every thoughtful "general reader" will find much that is stimulating and interesting in all these papers. LOVE IN THE NINETEENTH A HEARTFELT and cordial historiette, with abundance of bright thoughts all very genuine and healthy. The story is enough to string the thoughts on who would want more? Julius the newspaper man meets Clara the teacher, both on vacation in the country. He is "smart," and she is reserved, -oh! call it reserved, not prim, -and he rather precipitately pops; is refused, though pleasantly: they correspond, and grow sincere; compare views, suit; he repops, and is accepted; and they organize a deft and happy homelet. May there be millions! MONOGRAPHS.2 VERY pleasantly written and anecdotic reminiscences of eight eminent and notice-worthy persons: Suleiman Pasha, Humboldt, Cardinal Wiseman, Walter Savage Landor, the Misses 1 Love in the Nineteenth Century. A Frag ment. By Harriet W. Preston. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 16mo. Cloth. $1.25. Berry, Harriet Lady Ashburton, Sydney Smith, and Heine. The portraits woodcuts,pretty bad. The sketches most agreeable reading, intelligent, well mannered, pictorial, and often sparkling. Lady Ashburton's bright sarcasms in particular are extremely jolly; and one wishes one could now and then quietly say silly things to her so as to "catch it" back again. OTHER NEW BOOKS. FIRST LOVE. A Comedy, in One Act. By Eugene Scribe. Adapted from the French. By L. J. Hollenius. New York: R. M. DeWitt. 16mo. Paper. 15 cents. THE PARTING WORDS OF ADOLPHE MONOD TO HIS FRIENDS AND THE CHURCH. October, 1855, to March, 1856. Portrait. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. Cloth. THE SERMONS OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. Seventh Series: September, 1871- March, 1872. Eighth Series: March-September, 1872. 2 vols. New York: J. B. Ford & Co. 8vo. Cloth. Per vol. $2.50. THE DEAD SIN, AND OTHER York: Dodd & Mead. 12mo. Cloth. STORIES. By Edward Garrett. New $1.75. COGITATIONES VESPERTINÆ. "EVENING THOUGHTS." Book 1. Containing Dramas, Pen Effigies, Poems. By Unicus [William Bush]. Chicago: Best & Carson. 12mo. Boards. THE PASSIONS IN THEIR RELATIONS TO HEALTH AND DISEASES. From the French of Dr. X. Bourgeois. By H. F. Damon, M.D. Boston: J. Campbell. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25. COUNT KOSTIA: A NOVEL. From the French of V. Cherbuliez. By O. D. Ashley. New York: Holt & 2 Monographs, Personal and Social. By Lord Williams. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25. Houghton. Portraits. New York: Holt & Williams. 16mo. Cloth. $2.00. ALL FOR LOVE; OR, THE OUTLAW'S BRIDE. By Miss Eliza A. Dupuy. born. Published by the author. Rock18mo. Cloth. pp. 52. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & PLAY AND PROFIT IN MY GARDEN. By Rev. E. P. Roe. New York: Dodd & Mead. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50. THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WORLD; A SIMPLE ACCOUNT OF MAN IN EARLY TIMES. By Edward Clodd, F.R.A.S. London and New York: Macmillan & Co. 12mo. Cloth. $1.00. FERDINAND DE SOTO, THE DISCOVERER OF THE MISSISSIPPI. By John S. C. Abbott. Illustrated. New York: Dodd & Mead. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50. UPS AND DOWNS: AN EVERYDAY NOVEL. By Edward E. Hale. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Cloth. 16mo. $1.50. JESUS OF NAZARETH: A TRUE HISTORY. Given through the mediumship of Alexander Smyth. Chicago: Religio-Philosophical Publishing House. 12mo. Cloth. THE KNIGHTLY HEART, AND OTHER POEMS. By James F. Colman. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. Cloth. $2.00.. I GO A-FISHING. By W. C. Prime. New York: Harper & Brothers. 12mo. Cloth. EDUCATION IN JAPAN. A Series of Letters addressed by Prominent Americans to Arinori Mori. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50. BOSTON ILLUSTRATED. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. 12mo. Paper. 50 cents. ford, Ill. REPORT ON THE INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS OF LONDON, JULY 3-13, 1872. By E. C. Wines, D.D., LL.D., U. S. commissioner. With the Second Annual Report of the National Prison Association of the United States, containing the Transactions of the National Prison Reform Congress, Baltimore, Jan. 21-24, 1873. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1873. 8vo. Cloth. ABSOLUTE RELIGION. A View of the Absolute Religion, based on PhiloSophical Principles and the Doctrines of the Bible. By Thomas C. Upham. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50. OUTLINES OF GERMAN LITERATURE. By J. Gostwick and R. Harrison. New York: Holt & Williams. 12mo. Cloth. $2.50. LIFE IN DANBURY. By James M. Bailey. Portrait and Illustrations. Boston Shepard & Gill. 16mo. Cloth. $1.50. OLD NEW ENGLAND TRAITS. Edited by George Lunt. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 16mo. Cloth. $1.50. WHAT TO WEAR. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. 16mo. Paper. 50 cents. WIT AND WISDOM OF GEORGE ELIOT. Boston: Robert Brothers. Square 18mo. Cloth. $1.25. AS LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE APPLIED TO THE WANTS OF THE WEST. With an Essay on Forest Planting on the Great Plains. By H. W. S. Cleveland, landscape architect. Chicago Jansen, McClurg, & Co. 12mo. Cloth. WHAT THE SWALLOW SANG. By F. Spielhagen. New York: Holt & THEISM. A Poem. By R. S. San- Williams. 16mo. Cloth. $1.25. Record of Progress. AMERICAN SOCIAL SCIENCE AS- and theatres, 20.74 to 20.65; in SOCIATION. DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH. THE department of public health of the American Social Science Association was organized anew last January by the choice of Edward Wigglesworth, jun., M.D., as chairman, and D. F. Lincoln, M.D., as secretary. It now numbers eighteen resident members, and three associates; most of whom are medical men. Six business-meetings have been held, at which a variety of investigations relative to sanatory science were set on foot; and two papers have been read upon special subjects. The first of these papers-upon "Pharmaceutical Education " was repeated by its author (Prof. Markoe) at the Annual Meeting of the Association in May; the other read at a business-meeting of the department by T. Sterry Hunt, LL.D.—is here presented in abstract. The paper is itself mainly an abstract of part of the recent work by R. Angus Smith, M.D., on "Air and Rain," a voluminous and ill-arranged, but most valuable treatise. Pettenkofer found in Munich, in ordinary dwellings by day, 540 parts of CO2; in partially open bedrooms, 820; in the same rooms by night, with closed windows, 2,300; in schools, 2,000 to 4,100 parts per lion. mil "AIR AND VENTILATION." Composition of the Atmosphere. The most careful analyses of Regnault and others show, that, in the purest air, the quantity of oxygen varies from 20.99 to 21.08 parts in a hundred. In the streets and parks of London, in summer, 20.95 parts are found; in crowded court-rooms at lower elevations, viz., from seven 228 It is curious, that the air on mountain-tops contains more than double the proportion of carbonic acid found hundred to nine hundred parts. This fact is due to the presence of organic matters, which become oxidized at those very high levels, producing carbonic acid. It is doubtless also due, in part, to the decarbonizing action exerted by large masses of living verdure upon the lower strata of air. In all the above statements reference is had to the volume, not to the weight, of the gases. How Carbonic Acid affects Health. -Good ventilation implies that the air shall not contain more than seven hundred parts per million of this gas. But the injury done by the presence of excessive amounts depends on many circumstances. Animal exhalations are more distressing, sometimes, than carbonic acid; for we are quite comfortable in winter, in places which in summer oppress us, unless the ventilation is increased. In sleeping, it is of advantage to reduce the quantity of oxygen a hundred or two hundred parts in the million. The habits of men and animals illustrate this fact, and suggest that it has become an instinct, as it were, to correct the stimulus of pure oxygen by increasing the amount of carbonic acid, which, of course, is accomplished by simply consuming part of the oxygen. Miners do not suffer perceptibly from the heavy charge of this poisonous gas which they have to inhale. The human frame is certainly capable of accommodating itself to such abnormal conditions, just as it does to the use of tobacco, alcohol, and coffee, and even to the inhalation of sulphuretted hydrogen and the vapors of prussic acid. It is incorrect to ascribe the poisonous effects of carbonic acid to the simple fact that its presence excludes a certain portion of the oxygen requisite to sustain life. It is possible to breathe for a time in a close chamber contain ing the enormous proportion of four per cent: one must only take a deeper inspiration. The symptoms of actual poisoning by this gas are not those of asphyxia. The patient, in other words, is not "drowned," but is subjected to a narcotic influence. It is probable, that, if the carbonic acid formed in breathing could be removed immediately from the air, a person would not suffer much from a partial diminution of oxygen, except after a lapse of time. The carbonic acid and the oxygen must, in any case, enter the system through the lungs, by absorption into the current of the blood. It is probable that the physical laws governing this process, by which gases are dissolved in a fluid, do not differ greatly from those which have been established by Bunsen's observations upon water. He has shown that water exposed to an atmosphere containing the normal ingredients, but in varying proportions, absorbs carbonic acid in a very different way from oxygen; for the former gas is taken up pretty nearly in proportion to the amount present; so that from air containing forty parts in a thousand, forty times as much carbonic acid is absorbed in a given time as from air containing one part in a thousand. With oxygen the case is very different. The water absorbs rather less from the heavilycharged atmosphere than from the one which contained a smaller quantity. These rules cannot be exactly applied to the case of respiration. The temperature of the water in Bunsen's experiments was 68°; while that of the blood is 98°; and the chemical constitution of the blood must contribute to alter its capacity for absorption. Regnault and Reiset found that animals could live twenty-four hours in an atmosphere containing from seventeen to twenty-tliree per cent of carbonic acid, and from thirty to forty per cent of oxygen. It is presumable that a larger amount of oxygen was absorbed by the system in these experiments, and acted as a stimulus to counteract the effects of the carbonic acid. Other Impurities. — Carbonic oxide need only be alluded to, as a source of impurity in the winter season, when stoves of bad construction are used. Some sulphuretted hydrogen is pretty generally present, as evinced by the tarnishing of silver. Coal-gas, if properly made, should contain none; but sulphide of carbon is almost inevitably present, which gives rise, by combustion, to sulphurous acid, producing the foul odor characteristic of gasflames. The test for organic impurities consists in shaking a certain quantity of a solution of permanganate of potassa with a measured quantity of the air to be tested. The amount of decoloration produced in the fluid gives a criterion for estimating the quantity of organic matter present. In a hundred cubic inches of air from the Alps, from 1.4 to 2.8 grains were found; in the like quantity of sea-air, 3.5 grains; in London air, from 22 to 45 grains; and, in air from pigstys, from 63 to 70 grains. Disinfection is accomplished by Nature in various ways. Plants assimilate carbonic acid and some other gases. Ozone, a disinfectant of the most active character, is generated in many ways, especially under the influence of the sun's direct rays. Rain washes the air clear of carbonic acid and other gases, and of organic impurities, which are then brought immediately in contact with vegetable life, and assimilated. Animal effluvia remain very long recognizable by the smell. A portion is slowly deposited, as a sticky film, on surfaces of glass and wood in a room; but, if a portion of air from a "close". room is bottled up, it retains its odor (of perspiration) a great while. Flame-Test for Carbonic Acid. When a candle goes out in foul air, it is far too foul to be breathed: when a candle burns dull, a man feels a little depression, which he can overcome by taking a deep breath. It is not altogether the deficiency of oxygen that puts out the candle, but the absorption of the radiant heat from the flame by the carbonic acid, preventing the melting of the wax or tallow. Steam acts in a like manner. If twenty-one per cent of oxygen is present, a candle is nevertheless extinguished when four per cent of carbonic acid is added to the atmosphere it burns in. With three per cent of carbonic acid, the candle will go out if the percentage of oxygen falls below eighteen. Men can work for ten minutes at a time in air as foul as this. At the top of Mt. Blanc, a candle burns perfectly, but slowly, and with a large blue flame. In pure air of ordinary dryness, a candle will burn one hundred and twenty grains of itself in a certain time if the air contains twenty-two hundred parts of carbonic acid per million, only a hundred and ten grains will be consumed in that time. And so a rude measure of the purity of the air may be established. Minimetric Analysis is a method for estimating the quantity of carbonic acid in the atmosphere by ascertaining how small an amount of the air will give a precipitate, when shaken up in a bottle with half an ounce of lime-water. In applying this test, |