and others, all of whom are to be found in the excellent little volume of Selections from American Poets, published in "Harper's Family Library" nearly forty years ago.-If there is a line of genuine poetry in the hundred and more sonnets which are grouped under the caption Life and Faith, it has escaped our search. Of an unexceptionable moral and religious tone, and convey ual nature with an earnestness and sincerity that command respect, they have no other title than their metrical form to be considered aught but plain prose.-Bonar's Hymns of the Nativity" and their companion poems belong to a far more exalted sphere of religious poetry than the volume of sonnets just laid down. His lyre, it is true, is not a grand or powerful one, but its tones are wonderfully musical and sympathetic; and as we listen to its tremulous vibrations on themes suggested by the great historical facts of the Christian faith, or that are responsive to the needs, hopes, and aspirations of the humble penitent or adoring worshipper, we are reminded of the kindred poet Keble, whom Dr. Bonar equals in religious fervor, and by whom he is not greatly excelled in poetic grace. upon merit, The Fireside Encyclopædia of Poetry contains much that is fair and curious and excellent in quality, and as much more that is paltry or indifferent. While it will prove a convenient and copious repertory for popular use and reference, it will not be rated at a high value by the scholar. Discarding a chronological arrangement of his selections, the editor has classified them under fifteen divisions based upon their subject-ing truths and sentiments of an elevating spiritmatter; and the publishers have made the work a model of completeness by full alphabetical indexes of the names of the poems, of the names and life periods of their authors, and of first lines. Thus much for its exterior. Of its interior it must be said that the selections presented are often far from being the happiest specimens of the authors they introduce, nor are they always numerically in proportion to their rank and productiveness as poets. This defect is exemplified by the paucity and comparatively inferior quality of the specimens given, among others, from Chaucer, Spenser, Drayton, and our own Dana. Its most serious defect, however, in view of the liberal space appropriated to numerous writers dubbed poets by courtesy only, is its wholesale omission of a large body of authors, many of whom are of distinguished merit and all of respectable rank. This omission is the more inexplicable in the face of the complacent assurance by the editor in his preface, that "none of the most famous minor poems of the English language will be found missing from these pages." The inaccuracy of this sweeping assurance will be made evident by the following list of poets of established reputation of whom there is no sign in the volume: among English poets-Gower, Lydgate, Tusser, Sackville (Lord Buckhurst), Gascoigne, Chapman, Massinger, Barnaby Barnes, Sir John Davies, Donne, Phineas Fletcher, George Sandys, Harrington, Sir John Beaumont, Davison, Denham, Butler (author of “Hudibras"), Savage, If one should be led to infer from its title that Dr. Young, Otway, Armstrong, Blackmore, Roch- The First Violin is a history of the original of ester, Churchill, Crabbe, H. F. Cary, Bloomfield, the instrument irreverently called a "fiddle,” he Bernard Barton, Talfourd, Ebenezer Elliott, Fal- would be mistaken, and, unless he were a virtuoconer, Anna Seward, etc.; and among American so, agreeably so. Instead it is a strong, emotional poets-Freneau, Barlow, Sands, Hillhouse, Trum- novel, whose story is told in a direct and straightbull, Ware, Wilcox, Pike, Simms, Dawes, Benja- forward manner, without the intervention of a min, Doane, Bethune, Hurst, Mrs. Whitman, and single ornamental digression, or the need of one, many more. Moreover, the text of the specimens to embellish or heighten its interest. The scene is not always reliable, the inaccuracies in it not is laid in Germany, and the narrative is based on being confined to mere words and phrases, but in the fortunes and the love of a nobleman cast in some cases extending, as in the case of "The the finest mould of physical beauty, possessing the Steadfast Shepherd," from Wither, to elisions of highest moral and intellectual qualities, and goventire stanzas.-There is little to merit commen- erned by a sense of honor which is chivalric aldation in Professor Beers's Century of American most to Quixotism; who suffers himself to bear Literature.19 Professing to give a view of our the stigma of a disgraceful crime in order to polite literature from 1776 to 1876, so far as re- shield the memory of his first wife-a sacrifice lates to authors no longer living, it omits from its which involves the abdication of his rank, station, poetical titles a large number of poets without and ancestral home, the forfeiture of the confiwhom any American anthology is radically de- dence and love of his family, and the surrender fective. For instance, we have looked through it of his only child, to whom he is passionately atin vain for any mention of Sands, Hillhouse, Tim-tached. While he is under the shadow of this othy Dwight, John Trumbull, Dawes, the Davidson sisters, Sprague, Wilcox, Doane, Mrs. Sigourney, 18 The Fireside Encyclopædia of Poetry. Comprising the best Poems of the most famous Writers, English and American. Compiled and Edited by HENRY T. COATES. Large 8vo, pp. 997. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates. 19 A Century of American Literature. 1776-1876. By HENRY H. BEERS. 12mo, pp. 407. New York: Henry Holt and Co. Mr. Rolfe has edited Shakspeare's Much Ado About Nothing in strict adherence to the general plan and methods pursued in his editions of the other plays of the great dramatist. In a brief introduction he gives a succinct historical account of the play and of the sources of the plot, and follows this by judiciously selected comments from Schlegel, Gervinus, Mrs. Jameson, Campbell, Verplanck, and Weiss in exposition, illustration, or criticism of the play or of particular characters in it. The same conscientious care has been observed with the text and the | same industry displayed in the notes that have been so deservedly commended in its predecessors. 20 Life and Faith. Sonnets. By GEORGE M'KNIGHT. 12mo, pp. 136. New York: Henry Holt and Co. Hymns of the Nativity, and other Poems. By Ho BATIUS BONAR, D.D. 16mo, pp. 143. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers. 22 Shakspeare's Comedy of Much Ado About Nothing. Edited, with Notes, by WILLIAM J. ROLFE, A. M. With Engravings. 16mo, pp. 178. New York: Harper and Brothers. 23 The First Violin. A Novel. By JESSIE FOTHERGILL. 12mo, pp. 432. New York: Henry Holt and Co. EDITOR'S LITERARY RECORD. dark cloud he falls back on his musical abilities | is an incongruous medley of romance and religion, for support, and becomes the "first violin" of an and is eminently unsatisfactory as a work of imorchestra in one of the German towns, in which aginative or constructive art, the freshness and position his genius as an artist evokes the admira- vigor of portions of its narrative, and the spirit tion, and his qualities as a man win the affection, and variety of some of its incidents, compensate of his artist companions. After the death of his in some measure for its abounding crudities and erring wife, an accidental meeting with a beauti-imperfections. ful English girl, as innocent and inexperienced as she is lovely and gifted, enables him to render her a service which first awakens her gratitude and then her love for him. It is a case of love at first sight, but not the kind that runs smooth. The vicissitudes and trials of this love, the obstacles that stand in its way, the invincible faith of the heroine, the resolute self-denial of the hero, are described with mingled power and pathos, till at length a fortunate ending is reached and both are made happy. Grafted upon the story, and performing an essential part in its movement, is the record of a manly friendship, which was as pure as it was true; and we are also given close inside views of life in German musical circles, its toils, probations, trials, anxieties, jeal-performance. Another valuable feature is an exousies, and triumphs. It would be supererogatory at this late day to tended bibliographical account of the book, by The Mistletoe Bough" is a collection of short original stories, fancifully denominated "sprigs," written by different authors, and edited by Miss Braddon, and which, after the fashion of some of There is a morbid tendency on the part of some Dickens's Christmas stories, are supposed to have been told by their several chroniclers for their There murder cases in which suspicion points in several mutual entertainment, but, unlike his, have no writers of fiction to build their plots on involved special bearing on that delightful season. are eighteen of these "sprigs;" one of them is a directions, often the most remote from the real tale of temporarily beclouded but ultimately sun-criminal, and compromising or endangering the ny and happy wedded life; several have the ring safety of the innocent. Doubtless this is in reof the old-fashioned love tale, in which locksmiths sponse to a morbid disposition on the part of and other obstacles are shown to be ignominious some readers to relish novels which weave the failures; others are stories of wonderful escapes, web of circumstance around a victim. Novels of or of uncanny and mystery-haunted houses; and this kind display ingenuity rather than invention, others, again, are tidbits of murder, robbery, mad- and their interest depends upon the success with ness, and similar pleasing horrors. These are in- which they can prolong the investing doubt and terspersed with "sprigs" in verse, in the ballad make it hard of solution, and the skill with which or legendary style, some serio-comic, and some they can create some imaginary detective, and enweirdly in earnest. Though the stories are well able him to ferret out the real culprit and rescue adapted to beguile a weary or tedious hour, they the innocent from their critical situation. To this lack the intensity, pathos, and humanizing influ-class belongs The Leavenworth Case, but it is ences which characterized the inimitable Christmas tales on whose model they are built. While Mr. Roe's A Face Illumined adroitly 24 The Mistletoe Bough. Edited by M. E. BRADDON. erwise objectionable as a work of art, and as little just to say that it is as little sensational and othobnoxious to criticism on moral grounds, as the best of its kind. Several of Mrs. Burnett's earlier love stories, originally written for a popular lady's magazine, having been published in book form recently without her consent, and with all their imperfections retained, she has revised them for authorized publication, and three of them, Lindsay's Luck,23 Kathleen, and Pretty Polly Pemberton, have been issued in a neat and attractive form. Although 26 Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly. By HARRIET BEROHER STOWE. New Edition, with Illustrations, and a Bibliography of the Work, by GEORGE BULLEN, Esq., together with an Introductory Account of the Work. 12mo, pp. 529. Boston: Houghton, Osgood, and Co. 27 The Leavenworth Case: A Lawyer's Story. By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN. 12mo, pp. 475. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 28 Lindsay's Luck. By FRANCES HODGSON Burnett. 16mo, pp. 154. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. By FRANCES HODGSON 29 Kathleen Mavourneen. BURNETT. 16m0, pp. 216. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 30 Pretty Polly Pemberton. By FRANCES HODGSON ner's Sons. BURNETT. 16mo, pp. 213. New York: Charles Scrib none of them reveal excellence of a high order, | soning, and makes it clear and intelligible in words they are all bright, entertaining, and unmistakably clever, and are interesting besides as distinctly manifesting the germs of her matured powers as a writer of narrative fiction. The eleventh volume of Dr. Schaff's edition of Lange's Commentary," the last but one completing the Old Testament, is devoted to Isaiah. The translation is from the German of Dr. Naegelsbach, and was originally undertaken by Dr. Lowrie, of Alleghany, Pennsylvania, and his colleague the late Dr. Jacobus. After the death of the latter, whose notes extended only to the first few chapters, Dr. Moore, of New Brighton, Pennsylvania, was associated with Dr. Lowrie. His contribution to the work comprises Chapters 21-30, and 60-66, and the remainder was executed by Dr. Lowrie. The metrical arrangement of the text is based upon the commentary of Bishop Lowth and the Annotated Paragraph Bible of the London Religious Tract Society. Besides the usual textual and grammatical, exegetical and critical, doctrinal, ethical, and homiletical notes and comments which belong to the plan of this scholarly work, there is a comprehensive introduction, in which a large amount of valuable matter is grouped, on the contemporary history of the prophet, on his person and prophetic labors, on the literary character and the scope and scheme of his book, on its authenticity and integrity, and on the literature relating to it. fit, few, and easily comprehended, by means of an analysis that is singularly searching and subtile, while it is characterized by great simplicity. 34 A field in the realm of classical fable, legend, mythology, history, and romance hitherto closed to the majority of readers is opened to them in the Stories from Virgil, by Rev. Alfred J. Church, just published in "Harper's Half-hour Series." Aside from the entertainment to be derived from these stories, they will make clear to non-classical readers the numerous allusions based upon them which are to be found in much of our polite literature. The elegant simplicity and succinctness of their style also make them excellent models for imitation.-Of immediate practical value is another of these convenient volumes, forming a part of Rev. M. Creighton's useful series of "Epochs of English History," "35 in which the history of modern England is traced in connected outline, by Oscar Browning, M.A., from 1820 to 1874, furnishing an intelligent synoptical view of all the leading foreign and domestic events of that critical period in English annals.-Modern fiction is agreeably represented in another of this series by Mary Cecil Hay's A Dark Inheritance—a tale of love and vicissitude told with her accustomed grace and spirit. Although the publications bearing upon ceramics would already form a library formidable in its dimensions and respectable in quality, they are constantly on the increase, in response to the growing taste for the art. One of the most prac tical of their number is a Treatise on China Painting and Decorative Art,37 by Professor Piton, of the National Art Training School at Philadelphia. The first division of this little manual is appro of the art, and comprises a consideration of the theory of color and the law of complementary colors; an account of porcelain and faience, including their composition, baking, and decoration; remarks on vitrifiable colors, fluxes, and the ap A number of articles originally contributed to the Princeton Review by the late Dr. Charles Hodge have been collected in a volume, with the title Discussions in Church Polity 32 Reviewing the action of successive General Assemblies, they give a narrative of the proceedings, and discuss the doctrinal and ecclesiastical principles involved.priated to an exposition of the theoretical portion The discussions cover a wide range, embodying an exposition of the fundamental principles underlying the constitution and composition of the American Presbyterian Church, and the application of them to its various historical conditions. Those who have been befogged by the casuis-plication of colors and enamels; and directions try of materialists and theologians till the propor- in detail as to the best methods of firing and bak. tions, properties, and functions of conscience haveing, the application of gold, and for the correct been reduced to a vanishing point, will be relieved representation of armorial bearings on tiles or by learning that it is a sober, substantive reality, and not a myth. They will be assisted to this satisfactory conclusion by a familiar analysis and exemplification of the nature, origin, structure, composition, meaning, alliances, operations, and effects of conscience, contained in ten Monday evening lectures delivered by Mr. Joseph Cook in Boston during the autumn of 1877, and now published in a volume entitled Conscience.33 In these lectures Mr. Cook departs from the usual method of darkening the subject by hair-splitting rea 21 A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical. By JOHN PETER LANGE, D.D., in Connection with a number of Eminent European Divines. Translated from the German, and Edited, with Additions, Original and Selected, by PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., in Connection with American Scholars of various Evangelical Denominations. Vol. XI. of the Old Testament. Containing the Prophet Isaiah. 8vo, pp. 741. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 32 Discussions in Church Polity. From the Contributions to the Princeton Review by CHARLES HODGE, D.D. Selected and arranged by Rev. WILLIAM DURANT. With a Preface by ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER HODGE, D.D. 8vo, pp. 532. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 33 Conscience. With Preludes on Current Events. By JOSEPH COOK. 12mo, pp. 279. Boston: Houghton, Osgood, and Co. porcelain. The second division is devoted strictly to the introduction of the amateur to the practice of the art, in a series of eight exercises, the text being assisted by as many folio plates of models contained in an accompanying album, and covering the following styles: Minton tile (faience), illustrated by examples of Persian or Rhodian decoration; Minton tiles, being decorations for a fire-place, with examples of Arabian decoration, after designs by Owen Jones; jardinières, comprising eight models in the Persian style; and the decoration of plates, with or without a border, after several tasteful models. Students of political economy, bankers, and pol 34 Stories from Virgil. By Rev. ALFRED J. CHUROн, M.A. "Harper's Half-hour Series." 32mo, pp. 255. New York: Harper and Brothers. 36 Modern England, 1820-1874. By OSOAR BROWNING, M.A. "Harper's Half-hour Series." 32mo, pp. 106. New York: Harper and Brothers. 36 A Dark Inheritance. By MARY CEOIL HAY. "Harper's Half-hour Series." 32mo, pp. 112. New York: Harper and Brothers. 37 A Practical Treatise on China Painting in America. With some Suggestions as to Decorative Art. By CAMILLE PITON. With Folio Album of Plates. 12mo, pp. 69. New York: John Wiley and Sons. EDITOR'S LITERARY RECORD. iticians will find Mr. Fawcett's Gold and Debt | ELIZABETH P. GOODRICH, by whom they are also useful for the large fund of information it con- set to music and gathered into a book, entitled tains in the form of tables, diagrams, statements, The Young Folks' Opera (Lee and Shepard), and and statistics, arranged in compact form, relative in which only simple scenes and thoughts, holiday to the financial questions of the day. The book fancies, vacation adventures, and pictures of childis not conceived or written in special advocacy of life have place. The words and the music were any theoretical scheme for ameliorating our finan-written for each other, and both are of a kind to cial troubles, but is intended as a hand-book of delight the young, while they refine their taste and precise information on the following subjects: educate their sentiments.-Miss ALCOTT'S Under the dollar and other units; paper money; gold and the Lilacs (Roberts Brothers) is one of the best silver in the United States and Europe; coin and boys' and girls' stories that has yet flowed from paper money in the world; the ratio of national her facile pen. The wonderful dog and his masrevenues to volume of money; values of the pre- ter the runaway circus boy, who figure in its A hearted girl friends Bab and Betty, and a charmcious metals; suspensions of specie payments; pages and divide the interest with their kindprices of commodities; national debts, etc. large portion of the volume is given to a digesting Lady Bountiful, will strike the fancy of all of the monetary laws of the United States, and genuine boys and girls, and set their thoughts as to a body of reference tables showing the prices well as their tongues industriously at work.-Boys, tricks, and who think it the height of fun to get of coins and monetary units of all nations during especially those who enjoy practical jokes and the past fifty-four years. into all sorts of scrapes, will greatly relish Mr. SHILLABER's story of the birds of like feather with themselves, which he entitles Ike Partington and his Friends (Lee and Shepard); and unless we greatly mistake, their sage fathers and mothers will as greatly enjoy the new instances of Mrs. Partington's exquisitely malaprop sayings that are freely sprinkled over this veracious chronicle of the doings of her mischievous son.-SOPHIE MAY'S story of Judge Pitcher's twins, who, because they were the youngest of seven, were styled Little Pitchers (Lee and Shepard), is bright and simple in style, and interspersed with incidents calculated to amuse very young children, and to make a wholesome impression upon them.-In a graver vein, and suited to children of a larger growth, is Mr. SEWALL'S tale Angelo, the Circus Boy (J. B. Lippincott and Co.). Though its tendency is to make the young reader thoughtful, it is not a book of the insipid goody-good kind, but wisely recognizes and in a harmless way fraternizes with the Notwithstanding the floridity of its style and a tendency to diffuseness, Dr. Mathews's Oratory and Orators is an exceedingly instructive and entertaining book. Its object is a laudable one: to call attention to and emphasize the value of oratorical studies in our country, and to impress upon those who are ambitious of excellence in this grand art that eminence in it can be attained only after a long and severe apprenticeship, at the expense of a conscientious training and preparation for its practical exercise, through the culture of the memory, the judgment, and the fancy, and by diligently and laboriously laying up large stores of various and exact knowledge. Among the subjects treated upon with fullness and enthusiasm, and also with sense and ability, are the power, influence, and qualifications of the orator; the trials and helps of the orator; the tests of eloquence; political, forensic, and pulpit orators; and oratorical culture. The positions advanced in the chapters on these topics are enforced and illustrated by a multiplicity of parallels, compar-old Adam that is always present in boy nature, isons, and contrasts instituted between orators of established renown; and the whole is enlivened by anecdotes descriptive of the modes of preparation, the effective peculiarities, the characteristics of style and manner, of matter and temperament, of all the masters of eloquence in ancient and modern times. that it may the better help to switch it off on the safe track of right thinking and doing.-Lest young readers should experience a surfeit of storytelling fiction, a more solid entertainment may be found for them in Miss KIRKLAND's comprehensive M'Clurg, and Co.), in which the authentic history Short History of France for Young People (Jansen, of that great nation is cleverly outlined from the earliest period until the establishment of the Third Republic in 1870.-It is not to be surmised, however, that entertainment for children must be dry, hard, or repulsive to their taste in order to be solid and not tending to satiety. The wise mean is to see to it that while their food is solid, wholesome, and nutritious, it shall also be toothsome and relishing. Few caterers for the young have exhibited a sounder discretion in this respect than the author of The Bodleys on Wheels (Houghton, Osgood, and Co.). In this genial volume the eye and the mind are simultaneously instructed and delighted-the former by the excellent and abundant illustrations that are set before it, and the latter by the copious store of information which it dispenses in the fields of legend, traditeresting descriptions of useful callings and intion, history, travel, and adventure, and by its in38 Gold and Debt. An American Hand-Book of Fi- dustries, all of which it binds together in a narSecond Edition. 12mo, rative that is redolent of the social atmosphere nance. By W. L. FAWUETT. pp. 270. Chicago: S. C. Griggs and Co. 39 Oratory and Orators. By WILLIAM MATHEWS, of home, and that sparkles with poetry, humor, LL.D. 12mo, pp. 456. Chicago: S. C. Griggs and Co. and innocent gayety. As we write, the department of children's books Astronomy.In the Vierteljahrsschrift der As- | scope; with this he will examine various test ob stars. jects at stations in Europe. On his return to the United States he will visit different places in the West, and, using the same telescope and the same test objects, he will be able to intelligently and systematically compare the various stations visit. ed in respect to their purely astronomical conditions. The longitude expedition under Lieutenant 2. Madeira St. Vincent. a. Pernambuco-Port Spain, Trinidad. (a and b could not be done on account of the breaking of the cables.) tron. Gesellschaft Dr. Gylden has a note on the mean parallax of a star of the first magnitude. He lays it down as a principle, for the present at least, that the distance of a star is not only to be considered as connected with its brightness, but also with its proper motion. As a hypothesis to start from, the parallax (p) of a star of nth magnitude with a proper motion s is assumed to be expressed by p=(P×8)÷(on × Mn), in which on is the mean apparent motion of nth magnitude stars, and Mn the mean distance of such stars estimated from their brightness alone. When M=1, p becomes the mean parallax of a first magnitude star. The data in the case are the observed parallaxes and proper motions of sixteen In so small a number of cases the value of P (sought) may vary considerably, according as we change the data. Using the data given by all the sixteen stars, and combining these in different ways, the value of P resulting varies between 0.048" and 0.062". Omitting a Centauri, Arcturus, and Sirius, which have unusually large proper motions, the result for P is 0.086"; or omitting all first magnitude stars, P is 0.083". If all stars having proper motions greater than 2" are omitted, P is 0.084". Dr. Gyldén is inclined to consider the result 0.08" to be near the truth, and to consider the formula above as expressing something like the true relation be-ington. tween distance, apparent stellar magnitude, and Among the noteworthy publications called forth proper motion. It may be remarked that the re-by the recent solar eclipse are two in the November (1878) number of the Princeton Review, by Professor Newcomb and Professor C. A. Young. The first deals with the present state of our actual knowledge of the sun, and the second gives a very full account of the special work done at the 1878 eclipse. sult of Dr. C. A. F. Peters's research on this point gave P=0.102"±0.026". There is a substantial agreement in the two results, which is a confirmation of Gyldén's formula. Encke's comet was discovered by Mr. J. Tebbutt, at Windsor, New South Wales, August 3, 1878, with a 44-inch refractor. It was pretty bright, and 2' in diameter. 4. Rio-Monte-Video. 5. Monte-Video-Buenos Ayres. c. Buenos Ayres-Cordoba. d. Cordoba-Santiago de Chile. (c and d have been done by Dr. Gould.) South America is thus connected telegraphically with Europe-an important work. The next step is to connect Panama with Santiago, and thus practically to join South America with Wash The Greenwich Observatory has been engaged for some years in the determination of the moThe results of the photographic determination tions of stars in the line of sight, spectroscopicof the solar parallax from British transit of Ve- ally. In the Monthly Notices R. A. S. for 1878, nus parties have been published. The conclusion Vol. 38, No. 9, Mr. Christie has given his results drawn by Captain Tupman, under whose charge for fifty-one stars in detail and in tabular form. the reductions were made, is that "the discord- The table gives the name of each star, its velociances are of such magnitude as to forbid the em-ty of recession (+) or approach (−) in miles acployment of the measures in the determination cording to Dr. Huggins and to the measures made of the solar parallax," and that “these discord- at Greenwich with two spectroscopes-a ten-prism ances support the decision of the American Com-spectroscope (I.) and a half-prism spectroscope mission that the photographic diameter of the (II.). The principal results are shown in the folsun can not be relied on when accuracy is re-lowing table: quired." The photographs were twice measured, and the resulting parallaxes were: Burton, π= 8.25"-0.021 (dR+dr); Tupman, =8.08"0.040 (dR+dr), dR and dr being unknown corrections to the diameters of the sun and Venus. Star. Huggins. +15 II. -19 +21 -22 17 22 +18-22 +22 +26 +23-28 +35 -49 -21 B Orionis a Cygni Professor S. P. Langley, director of the Alleghany Observatory, has just started on a voyage to Europe, being commissioned by the United States Coast Survey to make observations to serve as a standard of comparison in determining the In Physics, an article has appeared in Nature requisites for astronomical stations in our own upon the science of easy-chairs, in which the physterritory. The inquiry will have particular ref-iology of fatigue and of the positions facilitating erence to the effects of different elevations and atmospheric conditions upon the fitness of various localities for the practical work of astronomy. Professor Langley goes direct to Paris, and thence to Italy. The trip will include an ascent of Mount Etna. He takes with him a 3-inch Clark tele subsequent rest are discussed at some length. The cause of fatigue being the accumulation within the muscle of the waste products which result from the oxidation which develops its force, these products must be removed in order to rest the muscle. This removal is effected partially by the |