76 Recent Literature. ‘s- 1208 
cent botanical works it would be hard to find one which is more 
welcome to the student than the one before us. The original was 
published in Germany, in 1887; and now we have an admirable 
English translation issuing from the Clarendon press, to which we 
Owe so many excellent translations of standard German botanical 
works. : 
The literature of palzophytology is so scattered as to be practi- 
cally inaccessible to the general botanist; and, moreover, a great 
part of it is the work of men who are not botanists at all, the result 
of whose works is an appalling mass of fragmentary and often ut- 
terly unreliable material. Count Solms not only has won a high 
reputation as a palzophytologist but has also done excellent work 
in other departments of botany, and, as a thoroughly trained bota- 
nist, is eminently fitted for the task he has so admirably performed 
in the volume before us. To him we owe a careful resumé of what 
has been done up to the time of publication of his book, and a thor- 
ough sifting of the material thus brought together. He is extreme- 
ly cautious in his judgments, and often suspends judgment entirely; 
but where he makes a positive statement one is sure that it is based 
upon adequate evidence. As the result of this careful examination, 
many forms, usually accepted by paleophytologists, are thrown 
aside as resting upon imperfect evidence, and, in consequence, 
one’s ideas of the nature of many of the fossil forms are materially 
changed. 
An introduction of some thirty pages deals largely with the con- 
ditions under which plant remains have been preserved in a fossil 
State, and includes an able discussion of the formation of peat and 
coal beds. The Thallophytes and Bryophytes are disposed of in a 
single chapter, and the rest of the book is devoted toa considera- 
tion of the lower vascular plants — Pteridophytes and Gymno- 
sperms. The Coniferz are treated first for reasons thus given by the 
author: “In departing from the customary arrangement * * * 
we have been influenced chiefly by practical considerations, for the 
adoption of this order will facilitate the discussion of the many 
doubtful forms which belong to one or the other of these classes, 
but which it will be best to consider in connection with similar 
groups of the Archegoniate,’’ A chapter is devoted to the group, 
and the author seems to think that there is not sufficient evidence to 
warrant the assumption that conifers of the modern types existed _ 
