LITERARY NOTICES. 



845 



President. — Albert B. Prescott, Ann Ar- 

 bor, Mich. 



Vice-Presidents. — A, Mathematics and As- 

 tronomy— E. W. Hyde, Cincinnati, 0. B, 

 Physics— F. E. Nipher, St. Louis. C, Chem- 

 istry— B. C. Kedzie, Agricultural College, 

 Michigan. D, Mechanical Science and Engi- 

 neering — Thomas Grey, Terre Haute. E, 

 Geology and Geography — J. J. Stevenson, 

 New York. F, Biology — J. M. Coulter, Craw- 

 fordsville, Ind. H, Anthropology — Joseph 

 Jastrow, Madison, Wis. I, Economic Science 

 and Statistics — Edmund J. James, Phila- 

 delphia. 



Permanent Secretary. — F. W. Putnam, 

 Cambridge, Mass. 



General Secretary. — Harvey W. Wiley, 

 Washington, D. C. 



Secretary of the Council. — A. W. Butler, 

 Brookville, Ind. 



Auditors. — Henry Wheatland, Salem, 

 Mass. ; Thomas Meehan, Germantown, Pa. 



Treasurer. — William Lilly, Mauch Chunk, 

 Pa. 



The meeting for 1891 will be held in 

 Washington, D. 0. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



The Evolution of Sex. By Patrick Ged- 

 des and J. Arthur Thomson. The Con- 

 temporary Science Series. New York: 

 Scribner & Welford. Pp. 322. Price, 

 $1.25. 



The purpose of the Contemporary Sci- 

 ence Series is to bring within general reach 

 of the English-speaking public the best that 

 is known in all departments of modern sci- 

 entific research. Frank investigations and 

 clear presentations are promised, in particu- 

 lar, of all the questions of modern life — the 

 various social and politico-economical prob- 

 lems of to-day, the most recent researches in 

 the knowledge of man, the past and present 

 experiences of the race, and the nature of 

 its environment. The first book issued in 

 this series covers a field in which lie some of 

 the most difficult as well as most generally in- 

 teresting of biological questions. The sub- 

 ject is, therefore, an attractive one both to 

 trained biologists and to persons without 

 special training, and the wants of both these 

 classes of readers have had consideration in 

 the mode of treating the subject which the 

 authors have pursued. They undertake to 

 give an outline of the various kinds of re- 



productive processes that occur in the animal 

 'kingdom, and to point out an interpretation 

 of these processes in the elemental facts of 

 biology. They have decided opinions on the 

 important biological questions now in dis- 

 pute, which are not always the ones gen- 

 erally accepted, and especially as regards 

 the factors of organic evolution. Hence 

 they are continually joining issue with this 

 or that evolutionist or physiologist, agree- 

 ing only in part with any one. Darwin's 

 theory of sexual selection comes up for 

 criticism at the very outset, and both this 

 and Wallace's views on natural selection are 

 rated as accounting for the acquirement of 

 secondary sexual characters only in part. 

 The authors offer, as a broader and more 

 fundamental explanation of the origin of 

 sexual differences, that katabolic, or destruc- 

 tive, changes in living matter prevail in the 

 male, while anabolic, or constructive, action 

 characterizes the female. This idea as to 

 the essential difference between the sexes is 

 the key to the whole theory of sex relations 

 held by the authors. Thus, in regard to 

 what determines sex in the embryo, concern- 

 ing which over five hundred theories have 

 been set forth, they say that anabolic, or 

 favorable, conditions of the environment 

 tend to cause the production of females, 

 while katabolic, or severe, surroundings fa- 

 vor the appearance of males. A consider- 

 able division of the volume is devoted to a 

 description of the organs, tissues, and cells 

 concerned in reproduction, in the course of 

 which an account is given of the phenomena 

 of hermaphroditism. In concluding this sec- 

 tion the theory of sex already alluded to is 

 fully set forth. The various modes of re- 

 production which obtain in the animal king- 

 dom are then described, including partheno- 

 genesis, which leads to a discussion of the 

 alternation of one-sexed and two-sexed gen- 

 erations. The theory of reproduction which 

 the authors advance is that there is a con- 

 tinual see-saw between anabolism and kata- 

 bolism, nutrition and reproduction. Growth 

 of cell and of organism alike has a limit 

 which, as stated by Spencer, depends on the 

 tendency of increase of mass to outrun in- 

 crease of surface. When anabolism threat- 

 ens to pass this limit, katabolism acts and 

 restores the preponderance of surface. Re- 

 production is continually going on in organic 



