much. His analyses are always good, and are of interest to a limited class of readers; but for the general novel-reader they are too frequent, too long, and too metaphysical in form. From an artistic point of view also they are objectionable, as interrupting the movement of the story. HARPER AND BROTHERS add several other volumes to their Library of Select Novels. Of these, Daisy Nichol opens well, and we hoped for a quiet, cheery story of real life, the romance only of true love. But, like a day that opens bright and clear and ends in storm and darkness, it conducts us, at last, to a dénouement too overwrought to be truly tragic.-Frenchy has come to be the synonym of all that is unnatural and sensational in romance. When, however, we fall in with a story like Motherless, which "Miss MULOCK" has translated from the French of Madame Guizot de Witt, we wonder whether the American taste which selects, is not as much to blame as the French taste which originates, the ordinary French novels. "Motherless" is the most simple and quiet story on our table, and an admirable book for those for whom the title-page tells us it is intended-"girls in their teens."-Bred in the Bone is a very powerful novel, very much better, both in conception and execution, than the preceding work of the same author-"Gwendoline's Harvest." If there is a moral to it, it lies in the proverb which forms part of the title-"Like father, like son." It was well to put the moral in the title, since otherwise it would hardly have been detected in the story, the object of which, clearly, is not instruction, but entertainment. It is in no sense a parable-only a romance. It is amenable, too, though in a less degree, to the same criticism as "Gwendoline's Harvest.' The characters are not natural, and there is not one of them so drawn as to be morally attractive or inspiriting. Even poor Harry, who awakens our sympathies by her suffering, lacks the moral strength necessary to secure our respect. But, on the other hand, the incidents with which the story abounds are striking in conception, and are powerfully wrought. The visit of Richard and Harry to Gethin Castle, the court-house scene, the entrapping of Solomon Coe, Richard's remorse, and the midnight search in the mine, are all portrayed with unmistakable dramatic power; and the final repentance and death of Richard go far to redeem the novel from the unhealthful influence that attaches to a story which peoples the land of romance wholly with characters whose presence in real life we should account pestilential.-Fenton's Quest, by M. E. BRADDON, is the story of Gilbert Fenton's search after his fiancée, spirited away from him, first by a rival for love's sake, then by her unscrupulous father for her money. "All's well that ends well." The father, defeated, absconds; the rival dies; and Fenton's quest ends in Fenton's marriage Miss Braddon has been severely criticised, but has never been accused, so far as we know, of writing a stupid novel. "Fenton's Quest" is one of her best. The plot is novel and ingenious; and though the dénouement is not so well concealed as to defy the detection of the reader, it is not so fully disclosed as to detract from the interest of the story, which keeps its hold upon the attention of the reader to the close. Blue Jackets; or, the Adventures of J. Thompson, A.B., among the Heathen Chinee (J. E. Tilton and Co.), is so far a didactic novel that it is written for the purpose of securing the abolition of flogging in the British navy. We can not say that we think such an exposure of petty tyranny and intolerable cruelty makes an attractive story, but it may be a useful one; and probably there is no better way of bringing such monstrosities to the light than in the form of fiction. We confess we should regard the picture as distorted and exaggerated if it came from a professional novel-writer, who had taken the navy as the scene of his novel because of its dramatic possibilities. But Mr. GREEY ought to know whereof he writes, having served in the navy himself for several years.-Another story more true than agreeable is, Emma Parker; or, Scenes in the Homes of the City Poor (A. D. F. Randolph and Co.), a story of tenement-house life. Its aim is probably to awaken our sympathy for the suffering poor of our great cities; but we think it neither takes the best method nor prescribes the best remedies. It is rare that an Emma Parker is to be found in the dens and cellars of New York, and what we need to be taught is not to sympathize with poverty merely, but to feel a genuine Christian sympathy for the ignorance and degradation which generally cause and largely accompany the more abject forms of poverty.-A somewhat similar criticism applies to Opportunities, by Miss WARNER (Robert Carter and Brothers). How much money we may spend on hyacinths, and how much we ought to reserve for the poor, has puzzled wiser heads than Matilda's, and needs some clearer explanation than Mr. Richmond's. Experience does not indicate that the poor are best cared for in those countries where Christianity takes on most the form of charity for the poor. Such charities as "Opportunities" commends at the best only touch the surface of life.-Himself his Worst Enemy (J. B. Lippincott and Co.) is a historical novel. The author, Mr. A. P. BROTHERHEAD, tells us in his dedication that it is his first one. If he had not done so, we should have detected the fact in the volume itself. It contains some good writing, but some marks of immaturity, and deals with a subject which could be invested with interest only by genius far greater than the author's. The best we can say for it is that it justifies us in expecting of him a better novel when he next writes.-Phantastes : a Faerie Romance, by GEORGE MACDONALD (Loring), is as fantastic as its title indicates. It is a piece of wild, weird imagination. The author has given his fancy a loose rein, and his steed has rambled away into the veriest dream-land. What it means, or whether it means any thing, we can not tell. But it has this about it, that, in all our reading of romance, we have never seen its like; and it is as little like any thing else of George MacDonald's with which we are acquainted as it is to aught of any other author. MISCELLANEOUS. HARPERS add to their marvelously cheap edi tion of TENNYSON his last poem, or rather poems, The Window; or, The Songs of the Wrens, together with Mr. Arthur Sullivan's music, which is set to it. The following characteristic little preface by Mr. Tennyson tells the story of the origin of these love-sonnets: "Four years ago Mr. Sullivan requested me to write a little song-cycle, German fashion, for him to exercise his art upon. He had been very successful in setting such old songs as Orpheus with his Lute,' and I dressed up for him, partly in the old style, a puppet whose almost only merit is, perhaps, that it can dance to Mr. Sullivan's instrument. I am sorry that my four-year-old puppet should have to dance at all in the dark shadow of these days; but the music is now completed, and I am bound by my promise." come. It is not a large book; the author has put all he had to say in a duodecimo volume of about three hundred pages. In style it is short, terse, clear, perspicuous. There are no words wasted. There is no "fine writing.' The reader has no sifting to do; it is done for him. Every page leaves its mark, tells its story, and passes the reader on to new information. It is popular in style. Mr. Todd has the knack of knowing what it is that people want to know, and telling them that. He does not assume a knowledge which the reader does not possess. Any intelligent man may take this book for his guide, and under its instructions go on and raise his own apples. At the same time, it is the fruit of over thirty years of practical experience. It is not a book of theo Of the poem itself we think it needless to speak, since we have not space for an elaborate critique, nor the conscience to dismiss it with a brief one. But the addition which the combined poetry and music make to the resources of the parlor musician is a very welcome one. Some of the adaptations are admirable, as in the song, "The Frost is Here," or "The Mist and the Rain." In the wilderness of parlor music-aries. It is not the product of skillful editing by "howling wilderness," we might almost call it, a maze of meaningless music and vapid rhymes, barely relieved by Italian love-passages bereft of what little significance they ever did possess by being dissevered from the original connections in the opera-it is delightful to come across a collection of songs by Tennyson set to music by Mr. Sullivan. a man whose knowledge is all gathered from other treatises. It is itself genuinely original, and recalls the results of experiments in the orchard and among the fruits. Thus it contains a great deal of value even to the experienced apple culturist. There is no rural pursuit more fascinating than horticulture when successful, or more trying when it is a series of perpetual failures. The horticulturist will find in this volume peculiar fascination, and the would-be horticulturist will find in it indispensable information. The illustrations add greatly to the value of the volume. The marvels of fiction are less marvelous than those of history; the most romantic romances are those called historical. It was a characteristically French idea to pick out a number of these romances from sober history and group them in one volume, as has been done by M. BERNARD in the Wonderful Escapes, the latest volume of Scribner's Illustrated Library of Wonders. It is as interesting as fiction, and a great deal better than most fiction. It is particularly a good book for boys, will interest them, will give them information, and will inspire them with courage and endurance. Editing is a more thankless task than authorship, but it is often quite as valuable. He who succeeds in really adding a new book to the reference part of our sanctum library does us, we think, a greater benefit than he who gives us merely new thoughts of his own. It is the former service which Mrs. CLARA ERSKINE CLEMENT has rendered by her Hand-Book of Legendary and Mythological Art (Hurd and Houghton). There is a great body of medieval legends which to the ordinary reader is inaccessible, and yet to which, in literature and art, reference is continually made. We even venture to assert that many of our readers have only vague ideas concerning the famous St. Patrick, or the immortal St. George, or what was the dragon he slew, or how he came to slay him. Certain legends, like those of St. Christopher and St. Veronica, are, indeed, tolerably familiar to even Protestant readers; but for the most part the mythology of Christendom is more inaccessible than that of Greece and Rome. Mrs. Clement has gathered these legends together in a single compact volume, stated them clearly but briefly, and arranged the stories, for convenience of reference, alphabetically. The work will be invaluable as a hand-book for foreign travelers, useful to those at home who desire to have the benefit of familiarity with these legends of the past, serviceable in any library on account of the compact form in which so much information is gathered, and indispensable to the completion of any moderate- In a speech made by Mr. Jay at an entertainsized library. In truth, we should not know ment given by him at Vienna in honor of Washwhere to find in a score of volumes the informa-ington's birthday, he announced that, through tion which is here comprised in one. We have emphasized that part of the volume which treats of medieval legends, because this is the most important part. There is at the close a collection of some of the ancient mythologies; but it covers a ground already well covered by mythological dictionaries, and does not add very greatly to the value of the work. Mr. S. E. TODD's Apple Culturist (Harper and Brothers) is the best book on the subject, and will be the standard one, certainly for some time to We have given at some length in the April number of the Magazine an account derived from what is a very interesting addition to history, Lady BELCHER'S Mutineers of the Bounty (Harper and Brothers). It is enough to say here that she brings to light facts hitherto unknown, which she has gathered from unpublished manuscripts, and that her volume is unquestionably the fullest and most trust-worthy account published of one of the most romantic historical episodes which the romantic history of the sea has ever furnished. the courtesy of the Emperor, new materials for American history had been brought to light in the imperial archives. Several volumes, containing the correspondence of Baron Beilen, who was sent to America by the Emperor Joseph the Second of Germany, had been discovered. The letters are dated at New York and Philadelphia, from 1784 to 1787. Mr. Jay stated also that permission had been given him to take a copy, and he hoped soon to lay these valuable records before the American people. Editor's Scientific Record. OBSERVATIONS ON THE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 1870. SINCE the publication of the last number of the Scientific Record various reports have been published by different parties of the experiences and phenomena attendant upon the observations of the solar eclipse of December last; but so far no systematic presentation of the legitimate results of those observations, as a whole, has been made. Some of the American observers have returned, while others, as Professor Newcomb and Professor Harkness, are still abroad. It is understood that both the Coast Survey and National Observatory are busily occupied in making up their reports; and when these are presented to the world we shall be in a better position to judge what was really accomplished in the way of increasing our knowledge of the physics of the sun. Although the weather was unfavorable, so far as most of the observers were concerned, it is thought that by a careful collation of all the results obtained a material advance upon our present knowledge will be established. FRENCH PRESERVED BREAD. the bottom, as diffusion juice, after having remained in contact with the slices for a certain length of time. The liquid during the operation is agitated by machinery. It is suggested that this process may be applied on a small scale in domestic operations in making such drinks as lemonade, etc. INSECTS IN HAILSTONES. During a recent meeting of the Entomological Society of London an insect known as Chlorops lineata was exhibited, which had been found frozen up in the centre of a hailstone, proving that it must have been flying at a very considerable height in order to have been inclosed in the mass of ice. EXPERIMENTS WITH COMPRESSED GUN- We have already given a notice of some remarkable experiments by Mr. Abel, of Woolwich, in regard to the effect produced by compressed gun-cotton, when simply laid on or pressed against the surface of bodies, and have mentioned various applications that have been sug A new article called preserved bread has late-gested of this new explosive agent. A series of ly been introduced in Paris as a substitute for biscuit, or hard-tack, for travelers, and for naval and military commissary stores generally. Bread prepared in the ordinary way is first submitted to a drying process for from eight to fifteen days, until every particle of moisture is eliminated. It is then compressed to the utmost, so as to occupy the least possible bulk, having been previously exposed for a short time to the action of steam in a suitable vessel. The loaves are then piled up upon iron plates with rims, which serve as moulds during the operation. These plates are then placed under a hydraulic press, subjected to great pressure, and allowed to cool there during twenty-four hours. The cakes thus obtained are placed in boxes, sealed up, and, if kept from moisture, can be preserved for many years. This bread has a vitreous fracture, but the teeth penetrate it without effort. It softens readily in soup, and for many purposes is very much superior to the preparations usually employed under the same circumstances, especially on account of being leavened. EXTRACTING JUICE FROM SUGAR-CANE, ETC. A new method of extracting juice from sugarcane, beet-root, etc., by the process of diffusion, has been announced in the foreign journals. For this purpose the cane, or other original substance from which the juice is to be extracted, is to be first cut in slices by a special machine, and then placed in a series of closed water-tight tanks, and brought in contact with water at an elevated temperature in a certain succession and systematic order. Another method consists in carrying out the whole process of diffusion in a single vessel, in which the extraction of the sugar is carried on continuously by introducing slices of cane through a feeding apparatus at the bottom of the vessel, from which they rise slowly to the top, while fresh water is constantly running in at the top of the diffusing vessel, and is drawn off at experiments has lately been made by the officers HEATING BY CIRCULATION OF PETROLEUM. A new method of applying heat has recently been patented in England, and is now in use for working stone-ware pans, such as are required in certain pharmaceutical operations, by which any temperature between 100° and 700° Fahrenheit can be safely and easily obtained and maintained. The principle in question is to cause heavy paraffine oil to circulate first through a coil of pipes in a furnace, and then through the jackets of the pans. The oil is carefully selected for the purpose from the heaviest of the petroleum products, and moved by its own convection. Heated in a close coil of pipe by a coke fire, it rises into an air-tight tank, from which it passes, through pipes, to the jackets of the different vessels to be heated, returning after it has done its work to the lowest part of the furnace coil. A continuous circulation is thus maintained, similar to that which occurs in a hot-water apparatus for warming buildings. After leaving the tank the oil passes through a pyrometer, by which its temperature is indicated, and by means of dampers, etc., to the fire, the heat can be regulated to any required point. The heating medium is turned on or off the jackets in the same manner as steam; and as the rate of flow can be checked or augmented at will, the temperature is perfectly under the control of the operator. tending to dissipate the malaria, and prevent the cold and damp of the tropical night from acting upon the system when relaxed in sleep, and with the pores of the skin wide open. UTILIZING FURNACE SLAG. The new methods of utilizing the slags of furnaces bid fair to become of much practical importance, and to convert what is now a source of great annoyance into a product of positive commercial value. The slag is, of course, to be collected in troughs or moulds of proper size and shape. But the great difficulty has heretofore been in the glassy character of the product. It is now stated that if the surface of the melted slag, after it is run into moulds, be covered with In the model which has been employed the earth or ashes, so as to prevent too rapid cooling pyrometer generally indicates from 600° to 700°-which, in fact, should extend over a consideraFahr., while a saturated solution of chloride of calcium is maintained at the boiling-point in a shallow stone-ware pan. No smell of oil is perceptible in the room, and it is stated that the same oil may be used for years without deterioration, or causing any deposit in the pipes. As contrasted with steam heat the inventor claims for his process a saving of thirty per cent. in fuel. It is obvious that the large amount of heat necessary to convert water at 212° Fahr. into steam at 212° is hereby economized. GLYCERINE CEMENT. It is said that the claims of a mixture of glycerine and lead litharge to form a fire-proof cement have not been substantiated, but that if gold litharge be substituted instead of that of lead the desired result will be secured. ACIDIFICATION OF ALCOHOL BY It is said that if alcohol is digested with the seeds of the club-moss, or lycopodium, it will soon show an acid reaction, due to the development of vinegar. TREATMENT OF SMALL-POX SUBJECTS. During the prevalence of small-pox in Paris last spring the police authorities required the bodies of those dying from it to be sponged in a liquid composed of one hundred and eighty grains of carbolic acid in a quart of distilled water. Formerly chloride of calcium was used; but this had the great inconvenience of rendering it almost impossible for any one to remain in the room with a corpse. The carbolic acid solution in question is said to have all the advantages of chloride of calcium with none of its inconveniences. ble period-and if proper precautions be observed, the result will be an artificial porphyry, equal, for purposes of building or road-making, to the genuine porphyritic rock. CANNIBALISM IN EUROPE. In spite of the opposition manifested by many persons to the idea, it appears to be now well established that the earliest inhabitants of Europe were cannibals; and it is said that it was a matter of religious observance with the ancient Irish to eat their parents. HEATING CARS BY SAND. An ingenious method of heating railway carriages in Sweden consists in the use of sand made hot in an oven and placed in a double casing of sheet-iron, the space between the inner and outer casing being filled with cork shavings. The advantages over the hot-water apparatus, and more especially over ordinary stoves, will readily suggest themselves to every one, particularly in view of the entire immunity against danger from fire in case of an accident. The sand retains its heat for a long time, and does not require changing for many hours. HARD WATER VERSUS SOFT. The curious proposition has recently been enunciated by Dr. Letheby, of London, that moderately hard water is better suited for drinking than that which is soft. He states that a larger percentage of French conscripts are rejected from soft-water districts than from neighborhoods supplied with hard water; and also that English towns, with water of more than ten degrees of hardness, have a mortality of four per thousand less than those whose inhabitants use softer water. This assertion, so contrary to the usual theory in the matter, is, as might be expected, sharply contested by other sanitarians, and the final result of the controversy will be looked for with much interest by the general public. EXPLOSIVE BALLOONS. PHYSIOLOGY OF MOSQUITO CURTAINS. A suggestion that mosquito curtains in tropical countries, besides keeping off these pests, also serve as screens against miasma, has elicited various corroborating statements from travelers and others; and we find in a recent number of Na- An interesting and amusing philosophical exture an indorsement by Mr. E. L. Layard, the periment may be made by filling the new-fasheminent naturalist of South Africa, as to a ben-ioned collodion balloons with a mixture of oxyeficial action in this direction. He finds that gen and hydrogen gases, and after closing the even so slight an obstruction as the fibre of the mouth of the balloon tightly with a string, allownet causes a great difference in the temperature ing it to rise into the atmosphere. A fuse of filbetween the interior and exterior air, this differ- ter-paper, about an inch long and half an inch ence amounting in some instances to eight de- broad, is to be previously gummed to the side of grees, the increased temperature of the inside the balloon, near the mouth, and allowed to dry. In the course of certain remarks respecting the production of artificial charcoal iron Mr. Berthault observes that both Bessemer and Heaton base their systems upon the purification of the pigs by oxidizing reaction either of nitrate of soda or of nitrate of potash; but, referring to the quantities of alkaline salts contained in various fuels, Mr. Berthault remarks that the results appear to prove that soda or potash salts, thrown into the blast-furnace at the same time as the ore and fuel, would give with coke or other mineral fuel a metal closely resembling charcoal iron, and even a steely pig. Every thing will depend upon the quantity of soda or of potash added, and he contends that the best salt to employ is the neutral carbonate of potash, such as is obtained from vegetable sources, and commonly known as pearlash. To obtain iron of uniform quality in the blast-furnace it is desirable to mix the salt with some glutinous liquids, such as blood and water, and dampen the coke with it. THERMO-DYNAMIC ACCELERATION AND RE TARDATION OF STREAMS. In a paper by Professor Rankine, on the thermo-dynamic acceleration and retardation of streams, the attempt was made to prove the following principle: That in a steady stream of any fluid the abstraction of heat at and near places of minimum pressure, and the addition of heat at and near places of maximum pressure, tend to produce acceleration; the addition of heat at and near places of minimum pressure, and the abstraction of heat at and near places of maximum pressure, tend to produce retardation; in a circulating stream the quantity of energy of flow gained or lost in each complete circuit is equal to the quantity of energy lost or gained in the form of heat; and in the absence of friction the ratios borne by that quantity to the heat added and the heat abstracted (of which it is the difference) are regulated by the absolute temperatures at which heat is added and abstracted, agreeably to the second law of thermo-dynamics. Among particular cases of the thermo-dynamic acceleration and retardation of streams the following were specified: Acceleration by the addition of heat at and near a place of maximum pressure; the draft of a furnace; and the production of disturbances in the atmosphere in regions where the ground is hotter than the air. Retardation by the abstraction of heat at and near a place of maximum pressure; the dying away of atmospheric disturbances in regions where the ground is cooler than the air. Acceleration by the abstraction of heat at and near a place of minimum pressure; the injector for feeding boilers, in which a jet of steam, being liquefied by the abstraction of heat, is enabled not only to force its way back into the boiler, but to sweep a current of additional water along with it; also, to a certain extent, the ejectorcondenser. The conduction of heat from the parts of a stream where the pressure and temperature are highest to the parts of the same stream where the pressure and temperature are lowest produces, according to the foregoing principles, a gradual and permanent retardation of the stream, independently of the agency of friction; and this is accompanied by the production of heat to an amount equivalent to the lost energy of flow. KILLING WHALES BY CANNON. The inventive genius of America has of late years been directed very largely toward improved modes of capturing fish, in which, not satisfied with the comparatively rude methods of hooks and lines, spears, and even nets, an effort is made to destroy them in a much more wholesale manner. Even the whale-fishery, which for so long a time has been carried on by means of the harpoon, has, as is well known, lately been prosecuted by firing explosive substances into the body of the animal with shoulder guns or with cannon, and thus disabling it very quickly. This method has been adopted by many whalers in the Greenland seas, and has been especially applied of late to the taking of the large finback whales of the Norwegian coast. These animals have hitherto been but little disturbed by whalers, as, although of enormous size (from sixty to ninety feet), they possess comparatively little blubber, and are so active as to be rarely, if ever, successfully attacked by the harpoon. A recent writer in Land and Water recounts a late visit to the establishment of Herr Foyen, in the Varanger Fiord, where, from a small island, the fishery is prosecuted by means of two small steamers of about seventy tons each. The special apparatus employed consists of a harpoon, inclosing in its head half a pound of gunpowder, and with jointed or hinged barbs containing some percussion powder between them. When the whale is within gunshot, this harpoon, attached to the end of a long cord coiled around a drum, is fired into the animal from a cannon about the size of a four-pounder. As the flukes penetrate the side of the whale they are naturally brought together or pressed down toward the shaft, and in so doing ignite the percussion powder, which sets fire to the gunpowder, causing an explosion in the body of the animal that usually produces a mortal wound. The whale, of course, starts off under the stimulus of the pain, and the rope is carried out for a time, being uncoiled from the drum precisely like a fishing line from the reel of a fishing rod, the steamer following after so as to prevent any undue strain. If necessary a second discharge takes place, which almost invariably produces death. The steamer then tows the animal back to the station, where the blubber is taken off in a long strip by means of properly constructed apparatus, after which the flesh is removed in a somewhat similar manner, and finally the bones are separated and hauled out. It is the intention of the proprietor to prepare a fertilizer by drying the flesh and reducing it to powder, and a brisk trade has already sprung up in Germany in this article. The bones are likewise to be ground |