Haeckel's Work on the Artistic Forms of Nature.

haeckel's work on the artistic forms of nature. - problems similar to our own ; and to explain how they thought that they had solved those problems." Not claiming to write a history of American diplomacy, and not recording many controversies of import nor discussing many essential principles of international politics, the author has sought to recount the development of certain characteristic phases of American foreign relations, and of the methods of American diplomacy in dealing with them. An excellent working bibliography of American diplomacy, diplomatic history, and general histories, as well as of treatises, and monographs on international law, of treaties, official indexes, official collections, cases in the Federal courts, official correspondence, foreign correspondence, manuscripts etc. has been added. (New York : Macmillan. igoi. Pp., xi, 307. $1.50.) Mention has before been made in The Opett Court of the admirable collection of readings entitled American History Told by Contemporaries, which is now completed with the issuance of the fourth volume. The Welding of the Nation, 184^-igoo. The ground covered by the present book begins with the Mexican War and the consequent renewal of the Slavery contest, and then leads through the exciting "Fifties." The Civil War is also treated in detail; its causes, conditions, and progress being discussed by the participants, both civil and military, with directness and cogency. It must be remembered that the contents of these volumes are without exception the records of contemporaries, taken from such sources as the Debates of Congress, the House and Senate Reports, executive documents, and the records of the Union and Confederate armies, presidential messages, the speeches and essays of politicians, publicists, and military experts, private journals and diaries, newspapers, works of poets, etc , etc. The period of Reconstruction is also illustrated here, together with that since 1875, which includes the recent history of our political affairs, commerce, finances and currency, foreign relations, the Spanish War, questions of colonisation, and the pressing social problems. Volume IV. contains an excellent index of the entire work, and though containing but 732 pages costs but two dollars. The titles of the previous volumes, all of which have been compiled by Prof. Hart of Harvard, are : Era of Colonisation, I4g2-i68g; Building of the Republic, i68g-i'j8j; and Natio7ial Expansioji, 1^83-184^. (New York : The Macmillan Co. Price, $2.00 each.) The political, industrial, social, and intellectual history of the various states of the Union are occupying now a goodly portion of the attention of special workers in political science, and several of these subjects have already been taken as themes for dissertations for the degree of doctor of philosophy, notably in Columbia University, New York. The most recent attempt of this character is that entitled : Maryland as a Proj^rietary Province, by Newton D. Mereness, who is of the opinion that " In no other place upon this American continent is there to be found so good an example of a people who, after a struggle of nearly a century and a half, made the transition from a monarchical government to a ' government of the people, for the people, and by the people' as in Maryland; and the attempt has been made in this book to enable the reader to enter into the experience of that people engaged in that struggle." Our colonial, and in fact our entire national history, of which the sources are of great extent and difficulty, are rapidly being made accessible to inquirers by such books. (New York : The Macmillan Co. 1901. Pages, XX, 530. Price, $3.00.) Ernst Haeckel is not only one of the most celebrated naturalists of the world, known for his championship of Darwinism in its earliest days in Germany and for his rich personal contributions to the theory of evolution and of biology in general he is further not only a protagonist of freedom of thought, action, and speech in all AcANTHOPHRACTyE. Ffom the Animate Wonderland. (Haeckel's Artistic Forms in Nature.] its forms ; but he is also an artist, or at least is endowed with a goodly portion of artistic taste. He not only sees the hidden meaning of things, he sees also their hidden beauty. He has not only contributed his share toward deciphering the riddles of the universe, but he has also a keen appreciation of the wondrous beauty PosoBRANCHiA. Specimens of beautiful snail-shells. (Haeckel's Artistic Forms in Nature.) of the myriad forms of life in nature. His new and elegant work, therefore, Kuyistformen der Natur (Artistic Forms in Nature), which has been sumptuously published by the celebrated Bibliographisches Institut of Leipzig and Vienna,^ will be gladly welcomed by the public. It consists of a collection of large colored plates and photogravures which, though drawn with the painstaking care and exactitude of a naturalist, nevertheless exhibit the marvellous harmony of (...truncated)