_Some Observations on the Fundamental Principles of Nature_ is the title of an essay by _Henry Witt_, which, though very brief, takes the world of matter, mind, and society within its scope. One of the features of the treatment is that instead of the present theory of an order of things resulting from the condensation of more rarefied matter, one of the organization of converging waves of infinitesimal atoms filling all space is substituted. With this point prominently in view, the various factors and properties of the material universe--biology, psychology, sociology, ethics, and the future--are treated of.
Among the later monographs published by the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, is a paper in the Geological Series (No. 3) on _The Ores of Colombia, from Mines in Operation in 1892_, by _H. W. Nichols_. It describes the collection prepared for the Columbian Exposition by F. Pereira Gamba and afterward given to the museum--a collection which merits attention for the light it throws upon the nature and mode of occurrence of the ores of one of the most important gold-producing countries of the world, and also because it approaches more nearly than is usual the ideal of what a collection in economic geology should be. Other publications in the museum's Geological Series are _The Mylagauldæ, an Extinct Family of Sciuromorph Rodents_ (No. 4), by _E. S. Riggs_, describing some squirrel-like animals from the Deep River beds, near White Sulphur Springs, Montana; _A Fossil Egg from South Dakota_ (No. 5), by _O. C. Farrington_, relative to the egg of an anatine bird from the early Miocene; and _Contributions to the Paleontology of the Upper Cretaceous Series_ (No. 6), by _W. N. Logan_, in which seven species of _Scaphites_, _Ostrea_, _Gasteropoda_, and corals are described. In the Zoölogical Series, _Preliminary Descriptions of New Rodents from the Olympic Mountains_ (of Washington) (No. 11), by _D. G. Elliot_, relates to six species; _Notes on a Collection of Cold-blooded Vertebrates from the Olympic Mountains_ (No. 12), by _S. E. Meek_, to six trout and three other fish, four amphibia, and three reptiles; and a _Catalogue of Mammals from the Olympic Mountains, Washington_, with descriptions of new species (No. 13), by _D. G. Elliot_, includes a number of species of rodents, lynx, bear, and deer.