This volume contains the reports of the parties sent from the Naval Observatory to Des Moines, Iowa, Plover Bay, Siberia, and Bristol, Tennessee; as well as those of Mr. W. S. Gilman, Jr., and General Albert J. Myer, at St. Paul Junction, Iowa, and Abingdon, Va., respectively, who also communicated their observations to the superintendent. The latter saw the eclipse from the top of White Top Mountain, 5530 feet high; the effect was, of course, magnificent. The papers of Professor Harkness on the spectrum, and of Dr. Curtis on the photographs which they obtained at Des Moines, are specially interesting. One hundred and twenty-two photographs were taken in all, two during the totality, fac-similes of which last are appended, together with other representations of the total phase, and copies of the spectra observed, etc. Professor Harkness observed what appears to be a very decided iron line in the spectrum of the corona, which was otherwise continuous, and he considers it quite probable that this mysterious halo is to a great extent or even perhaps principally composed of the vapor of this metal. He saw magnesium and hydrogen in the prominences, and the unknown substance which has been elsewhere observed. Professor Hall, who went to Siberia, was unfortunate, the weather being cloudy during the eclipse, though clear before and afterward; but he made what observations were practicable under the circumstances. * * * * * A TEXT-BOOK OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE. By Dr. Felix Von Niemeyer, Professor of Pathology and Therapeutics; Director of the Medical Clinic of the University of Tübingen. Translated from the seventh German edition, by special permission of the author, by George H. Humphreys, M.D., and Charles E. Hackley, M.D. In two volumes octavo, 1500 pp. New York: D. Appleton & Co. These books place at once before the American practitioner the most advanced scientific knowledge on the general practice of medicine possessed by the German school, of which Professor Niemeyer is considered, and justly, one of the most erudite and brilliant ornaments. Each subject treated shows the profound and masterly manner in which its details have been garnered by him from the only reliable source of such knowledge, the hospital clinic. The rapidity with which it has passed through seven German editions, the last two of triple size, and the fact that it has been translated into most of the principal languages of the old continent, afford ample proof of its appreciation in Europe. The medical student is here presented with a solid, comprehensive, and scientific foundation upon which to rear his future superstructure of learning, while the over-worked practitioner will find a never-failing source of gratification in the work for casual reference and study.