cupant of it, and least of all to a member of an alien race. In the teeth, however, of this negatively proved canon the last of the Egyptian Abbassides, either voluntarily or under pressure of force, renounced the dignity in favor of the Ottoman Sultan Selim I.-by blood a Tartar-on that prince's conquest of Egypt; and from him the office has since descended, conjointly with the temporal Sultanate, to the present sovereign, Abdul Hamid. If the premises of the argument ended here, it would be safe to affirm with Dr. Badger, Mr. Baillie, and G. B.' that the Ottoman claims to the dignity are both canonically and historically untenable. But the syllogism is practically upset by the authoritative expediency of the Foussoul-Isteroucheny, already quoted, and by the more substantial fact still that for more than three centuries and a half this usurpation' of

the Ottoman Sultans has been condoned and sanctioned by the general Mussulman world, from Bosnia to Kashgar. In fact, time and a consensus of Mussulman opinion have created for the house of Othman quite as good a title to the office as could be claimed for any of the dynasties since Ali and Hassan. For all purposes of practical politics, therefore, the validity of this must now be recognized. The notion that there ever was anything like an apostolical succession in the office is as exploded as our own old dogma of Divine right; and, that cleared away, it is-with all respect to the eminent scholars who blunt their pens against an accomplished and now unchangeable fact-mere Quixotism to dispute a claim which Mussulmans themselves all but universally acknowledge.Fraser's Magazine.

WE make in this number another addition to our series of portraits of eminent American educators, in the person of the venerable Mark Hopkins, who for the long period of thirty-six years presided over Williams College, and who still holds an important position in the corps of instructors of that institution.

MARK HOPKINS is a grandson of Mark Hopkins, an officer in the war of the Revolution, and subsequently a lawyer of considerable reputation. He was born at Stockbridge, Mass., on the 4th of February, 1802. He was graduated at Williams College in 1824, and having filled a tutorship in the college for two years, received in 1828 the degree of M.D., and in the same year commenced the practice of medicine in New York City. In 1830 he was recalled to Williams College to fill the chair of rhetoric and moral philosophy, and in 1836 succeeded Dr. Griffin as President of the college, a position which he held continuously until 1872. In the latter year, being then "the oldest college president in America," he resigned executive duties and resumed his old position as professor of mental and moral philosophy. Under his supervision Williams College greatly increased her resources and the

number of her students, and achieved a reputation which has placed her among the foremost educational institutions in the land. From a position little better than that of a good local school he raised it to the level of a national fame and influence; and his name will always fill an honored place in the educational annals of America.

In addition to his labors as an instructor, Dr. Hopkins has been a frequent lecturer before scientific and literary associations, and, besides a number of occasional sermons and addresses, he has published a number of works evincing high intellectual culture as well as literary skill. "Among Among them," says a writer in the Cyclopædia of Education,

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that which illustrates best his peculiarly lucid mode of teaching difficult subjects is 'An Outline Study of Man (New York, 1873), which is a model of the developing method as applied to intellectual science, as well as of blackboard illustration." Presiding over a college which has been called the cradle of foreign missions, he has also taken an active part in the deliberations of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, of which, for a number of years after 1857, he was president.

EGYPT AS IT IS.. By J. C. McCOAN. With a Map Taken from the Most Recent Survey. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

The character and scope of this work will be sufficiently indicated perhaps by saying that it was prepared as a companion volume to Wallace's "Russia" and Baker's "Turkey," and its quality by saying that it is worthy to fill a place beside those admirable works on the library shelf. It lacks the wide comprehensiveness of Mr. Wallace's treatise, for more than one elaborate volume would be required to deal satisfactorily with the history, antiquities, and social life of Egypt, and each of these several branches of the subject is already illustrated by a quite voluminous literature. Mr. McCoan's object is to furnish a comprehensive account of the material, economic, and administrative condition of the country as it is at the present time; and though he performs the role of historian sufficiently to give a vivid sketch of the principal events that have marked the annals of Egypt since the accession of Mehemet Ali, and makes use of the researches of antiquarians wherever they can be made to serve the purposes of illustration, he confines himself chiefly to practical matters, and to an explanation of the causes that have produced the great national revival which in little more than half a century has lifted Egypt from the position of an obscure and despised dependency of the Porte to one in which it is recognized as the most civilized and progressive of existing Oriental states. Agriculture and manufacturing industries, commerce, finances, population and territory, public works, the educational system, judicial reforms, slavery, and administration-these are the principal topics that engage the author's attention; and upon all these he furnishes vastly more and better materials for a satisfactory judgment than have hitherto been accessible to the general reader. A considerable portion of this material has been gathered from the governmental archives and the best official and private sources, and the whole was corrected and confirmed by lengthened personal visits to Egypt made by the author for the special purposes of investigation. His statistical information is particularly full and precise, and, considering the difficulty of procuring such data in a country like Egypt, forms a praiseworthy feature of the work; and the evident impartiality with which he approaches the entire subject, combined with this amplitude of knowledge, renders his hopeful view of the future of the country and his favorable opinion of the character and intentions of the

present Khedive more impressive than all the fulsome eulogies that have been penned in such numbers by enthusiastic travellers during the past twenty years.

As regards the attractiveness of the book, it is evidently designed rather for instruction than amusement; and yet it presents many

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features of interest even for readers who usually seek mere entertainment. The article Slavery in Egypt" which appeared in the August number of the ECLECTIC forms a chapter of the work, and affords a fair example of the author's skill in investing the most hackneyed topics with new and suggestive interest; and it is always pleasant to follow a well-informed, clear-headed, and lucid writer through the intricacies of an important and intricate subject. Mr. McCoan is never dull even when dealing with statistics; and when. ever he describes persons, or events, or natural scenery, or social customs and characteristics, he shows all the vividness and vigor of style which we should expect in the veteran

editor of the Levant Herald.

The map contained in the volume, better than any other yet published, depicts Egypt from the Mediterranean to the equator.

CHRISTIANITY AND HUMANITY: A Series of

Sermons by Thomas Starr King. Edited, with a Memoir, by Edwin P. Whipple. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.

In view of the remarkably wide popularity which Starr King had attained both as preacher and as lecturer, it would seem as if some literary memorial of his character and work would long ago have been forthcoming. He died in 1864, when his reputation and influence were at their zenith, and when thousands of hearts in the East as in the West were thrilled with loving remembrances of him; and a thirteen years' lease of oblivion is a longer term than his admiring friends should have allowed him. Tardy though it be, however, the present memorial volume, with its promised successors, will doubtless find a large circle of eager readers, including many whose interest in Mr. King is a transmitted feeling derived from those who had known him personally or participated in his intellectual ministrations. The twenty-two sermons which it contains represent, as Mr. Whipple says, the average excellence of Mr. King's weekly discourses, and though they cannot be regarded as brilliant examples of pulpit eloquence they certainly justify the esteem in which he was held as a preacher to cultivated audiences. In exaltation of senti

ment, in subtlety of thought, and in polish of style, they are inferior to Channing's; but there is a sweet serenity of tone about them, a fervor of conviction, a keenness of insight into the perplexities of the human heart, a varied picturesqueness and force of expression, and a wooing persuasiveness of argu. ment, that give them a place apart from, if not above, the ordinary standards of comparison. To minds perplexed by recent historical criticism and the seeming encroachments of science they will prove especially helpful; for Mr. King enforces with peculiar emphasis the vital truth that religion appeals not to the understanding but to the soul, and that its testimonies are to be sought in the lives of men and not in their meagre historical records.

But perhaps the most valuable as it is certainly the most enjoyable portion of the volume is the brief biographical sketch prefixed to the sermons. To know what a good man is is vastly more improving than to know simply what he says, and Mr. Whipple's affectionate and eloquent memoir brings Mr. King before us with remarkable vividness. "To know him was to love him," says Mr. Whipple; and we may add that this memoir awakens in the reader something of the reverent, tender, and admiring sentiment with which Mr. King seems to have inspired all who enjoyed the privilege of intimate personal contact with him.

THE QUESTION OF LABOR AND CAPITAL. By John B. Jervis, Civil Engineer. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

In these days of a universal printing-press any social convulsion is sure to be speedily reflected in literature, and the recent great railroad strike has already elicited a goodly number of treatises, in addition to the multitudinous comments upon it in the periodical press. Mr. Jervis's book on "The Question of Labor and Capital" was apparently written and completed before the strike culminated, and consequently does not deal with it directly; but it undoubtedly was suggested by the troubles and agitations that heralded the final catastrophe, and the topics which it discusses take a peculiar significance from events which furnish a lurid commentary upon its argument. Mr. Jervis does not wield the pen of a ready writer, and he makes no pretension to originality of view; but his mind has laid firm hold upon one or two of the essential doctrines of economical science, and these he expounds and reiterates with a certain homely force of phrase and aptness of illustration that will very likely prove more effective with working class readers than the subtle logic and precise periods of better known and more

authoritative writers. Those who are already familiar with the principles of political economy, and especially with the literary masterpieces that have given the science such high intellectual claims upon the attention of thinkers, would doubtless be wearied by Mr. Jervis's simple arguments, rambling repetitions, and ungrammatical sentences; but it is to the unlettered laboring-classes that he specifically addresses himself, and upon such classes, if they can be induced to read it, his treatise will unquestionably make a profound and wholesome impression. The cardinal doctrine which he teaches is that which About concisely sums up in the epigram: "Capital is the instrument civilization has put into the hands of labor." This sound and healthful doctrine he emphasizes over and over again, and illustrates from the practical experiences of every-day life. His sympathy with the unavoidable hardships of the workingman's lot is frank and unmistakable, but the whole tone of his thought is manly and practical, and offers a wholesome antidote to the weak sentimentalism with which the discussion of the labor question is too often befogged. The following paragraph—a fair specimen at once of his teaching and of his unpolished directness of speech—is worthy of being extensively reproduced: "The sentiment that labor is worth so much, or more or less, is without foundation. It is worth just what it will command in the market, same as any other commodity. There is no other philosophy than this. The benevolent idea that wages should be such as to yield a fair support, is necessarily indefinite, and has little or no application in the commerce of men. Business is one thing and charity another. Nor dignity of labor, or lead to any other than the would the charitable view comport with the pauper or semi-pauper plan, which no ablebodied American citizen should respect, or propose for his support."

The chief fault of Mr. Jervis's book arises from his habit of constant self-repetition. He either does not know when he has made his point, or has unbounded faith in the efficacy could easily have been said within the limits of mere reiteration. All that he has to say of a modest pamphlet, and the general circulation that might have been secured for his ideas in that form would undoubtedly have been productive of good.

LIGHT: A Series of Simple, Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the Phenomena of Light, for the Use of Students of Every Age. By ALFRED M. MAYER and CHARLES BARNARD. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

This attractive little book forms the initial volume of an Experimental Science Series

for Beginners," in which it is designed to teach young students the elementary principles of optics, sound, heat, magnetism, electricity, and mechanics, and at the same time to give them such a knowledge of the art of making practical experiments as will enable them to go forward steadily and confidently into the more complex phenomena of the physical sciences. The manual "is specially prepared for the boy or girl student, and for the teacher who has no apparatus, and who wishes his pupils to become experimenters, strict reasoners, and exact observers. Nearly all the experiments described are new, and all have been thoroughly tested. The materials employed are of the cheapest and most common description, and all the experiments may be performed at an expense of less than fifteen dollars. The apparatus is, at the same time, suitable for regular daily use in both the home and school, and with care should last for years." One of the customary objections to the introduction of science-teaching into the elementary schools is that the requisite apparatus is too expensive, and that the teacher requires a special training in order to utilize it. This objection is completely met by the present manual; for any tolerably ingenious boy of ten would easily perform every experiment in the volume, making the greater part of his apparatus himself, and finding nothing but enjoyment in the entire process. Moreover, having thus prepared for and performed them, he will have such an exact idea of what Light is and how it acts as could not possibly be so firmly lodged in his mind by any other method of instruction.

The experiments are very clearly described with the aid of illustrations and diagrams.

AMERICAN ADDRESSES, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology. By THOMAS H. HUXLEY. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Decidedly the most important portion of the contents of this volume are the three lec

tures delivered by Professor Huxley in New York during his recent American visit, in which, after discussing the several hypotheses concerning the history of Nature that have been entertained by mankind, he presented what he calls "the demonstrative evidence of Evolution." These lectures were reported and extensively copied at the time, and there are few intelligent readers probably who have not a more or less definite idea of their character; but they are likely to be the startingpoint of a whole literature of scientific discussion, and all who can appreciate their importance will be glad to possess them in book form, uniform in style with the professor's other works. Besides the lectures on Evo

lution, the volume contains the admirable "Address on University Education" delivered at the opening of the Johns Hopkins University, and a lecture on "The Study of Biology," delivered at the South Kensington Museum in connection with the loan collection of scientific apparatus. The former will be read with special pleasure for the hearty recognition which it accords to American ef. forts in science and education; and the latter is a topic on which Professor Huxley can speak with the authority of the greatest living biologist.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

DR. FRIEDRICH DELITZSCH is preparing a work on the geography of the Assyrian inscriptions.

Two American authors, Mr. Henry James, Jr., and Miss Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, have new books on the lists of English publishers which will be first published in London.

PROF. MAX MÜLLER has returned to Oxford very much benefited by his year's sojourn abroad, and will now devote himself to the editing of the translations of the sacred books of the world which he has undertaken.

TUCKERMAN'S "Greeks of To-Day," published in London two years ago, has been published in Athens in Modern Greek. A Greek newspaper speaks of it as "the only true picture of Greek character ever presented by a foreigner."

THE family of Hackländer-"the German Dickens"-have arranged with Herr Bacciocco, the Viennese novelist, to edit the literary remains of the deceased author. A manuscript "Romance of My Life" is known to be among his unpublished papers.

DR. DAVID KAUFMANN has just brought out, in German, an important book for Jewish and scholastic philosophy, under the title of 'History of the Doctrine of the Attributes in the Jewish Mediæval Philosophy, from Saadyah to the famous Maimonides," i.e. from 960

to 1200 A.D.

THE German Booksellers' Association have determined to publish "Geschichte des Deutschen Buchhandels," from the discovery of printing up to the present time, for which co-operation is invited. They have set on foot a periodical, Archiv für die Geschichte des Deutschen Buchhandels, as a means of collecting materials for this purpose.

M. ERNEST RENAN is preparing a translation of Ecclesiastes, to appear next winter. A specimen is given in one of M. Stapfer's lectures on Humor in a recent number of the Revue politique et littéraire. The work will form a com

panion-volume to the author's translations of Job and the Song of Songs, and, like them, will probably be prefaced by an introductory

essay.

THE Austrian Statistical Year Book for 1875 has just been issued, and, according to it, during that year 876 periodicals were pub

lished in the empire, being an increase of 66 on the previous twelvemonth: 591 were in German, 116 in Hungarian, 60 in Italian, 53 in Polish, 18 Sclavonian, 12 Hebrew or in Hebrew type, 8 Ruthenian, 2 French, 2 in Greek, and the remainder in mixed dialects.

THE reform of German spelling, initiated by Schleicher, is being carried through and pressed forward by Dr. Frikke of Wiesbaden. Spelling-reform associations are being formed throughout Germany as well as among the German settlers in England and elsewhere, and a paper devoted to the cause, and printed in the reformed spelling and type, is now published at Bremen, under the title of Reform. The first number appeared at the beginning of

last March.

SCIENCE AND ART.

THE "AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN."-A description of the great river Amazons and of the vast region watered by its affluents, by Mr. R. Reyes, is published in the Bulletin of the Société de Géographie, at Paris. He calls it the American Mediterranean, and shews that by itself and its feeders, the noble stream borders the territories of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. Ships of the largest class can navigate to a distance of three thousand miles from the sea, and ascend some of the tributaries from two to nine hundred miles, through a country rich and fertile almost beyond description. The forests produce four hundred different kinds of wood, mostly of excellent quality, as may be seen in the Museum at Rio Janeiro; and fruits, drugs, and minerals abound. A tourist wishful to take a holiday in the tropics may now embark in the West Indies, cross to the mainland, steam up the Magdalena to the city of Purification in the Colombian State Tolima. Thence by a land-journey of three days he reaches the steamers on the affluents of the Amazons, and ends his voyage of four thousand miles on the great Brazilian river.

GALILEO AND THE TELESCOPE.-With reference to Galileo's claim to be the inventor of the telescope, M. Wolf quotes ("Annalen der Physik und Chemie") from a manuscript of Scheiner (1616) in a library in Zurich, a curious passage, of which the following is part :

"It must be allowed first, considering what the telescope does, that Baptista Porta has better right to be thought the inventor, because he describes, after his own way, in obscure words and puzzling expressions, an instrument like the telescope. But, secondly, if we speak of the telescope, as it is now used after

general perfection, we must say that neither

Porta nor Galileo is the first discoverer of it, but the telescope in this sense was discovered in Germany, among the Belgians, and that accidentally by one Krämer, who sold spectacles, and either for amusement, or experimentation, combined concave and convex glasses, so that with both glasses he could see a quite small and distant object large and near; at which success being rejoiced, he united several similar pairs of glasses in a tube, and offered the combination at a high price to wealthy people. Thereafter they (the telescopes) became gradually more common among the people, and spread to other countries.

In this way two of them were brought for the first time by a Belgian merchant to Italy; of these, one remained long in the college at Rome; the other went first to Venice, later to Naples ; and here the Italians, and especially Galileo, at that time Professor of Mathematics in Padua, took the opportunity of improving it, in order to apply it to astronomical purposes, and extend its use further. Thus the telescope, as we have it today, was discovered by Germany, and perfected by Italy; the whole world now rejoices in it."

TEMPERATURE OF TREES.-Professor Boehm has recently investigated the temperature of trees in its relation to external influences. His conclusions (reports Nature) are these:1. The temperature of the tree-interior is, during transpiration, the combined expression of the air and the ground heat. 2. The air heat is conducted transversally, the ground heat longitudinally. 3. The longitudinal conduction is effected through the ascending sapcurrent, or rather through transpiration. 4 A lowering of the ground temperature during transpiration produces also a depression of temperature in the tree-interior. 5. The influence of the temperature of the ascending sap-current decreases in the stem from below upwards, and from within outwards. 6. The amount of this decrease is determined by the amount of the transversely-conducted solar heat, and is in direct ratio with the diminution of the volume of the stem part, and the approximation to the periphery of the stem. 7. The lower part of the stem is still under the full influence of the ground heat, or rather of the ascending sap-current. 8. The vertical limit of this influence is lost in the ramifica