384 NOTES AND COMMENTS [December 



chemical history of an annual plant from germination to death, in 

 connection with which the author recognises the enthusiastic work of 

 his colleague, Mr. G. Andre. The third volume consists of special 

 researches on the chemistry of plants, the distribution of particular 

 elements, the alleged formation and distribution of nitrates in plants, the 

 formation of oxalic acid and carbonates, the process of respiration, and so 

 on. The fourth volume has mainly to do with the soil, the chemical 

 nature of humus, and the physiological value of the various mineral sub- 

 stances. It concludes with an account of the author's numerous researches 

 on the chemistry of wine. Many of the illustrious chemist's results are 

 familiar through previous publication, and have been met with no- 

 small amount of criticism ; it is all the more important that we should 

 now have them in collected form and in detailed expression, which 

 enables us to see more clearly the unequal strength of the evidence on 

 which the several conclusions rest. As the record of a great work 

 persistently prosecuted for many years and justified by many results 

 of practical and theoretical importance, the book must command the 

 admiration and respect of all. 



Floreat Wood's Holl. 



Eveky biologist who is still young enough to be enthusiastic, looks 

 with eagerness about this time of year for the arrival of the volume of 

 " Biological Lectures " from the Marine Biological Laboratory, Wood's 

 Holl, Mass. The volume for 1898 (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1899, 

 pp. 343) has just arrived, in good time for the Christmas holidays, 

 when one can enjoy its stimuli with a less preoccupied mind. One 

 cannot help feeling that the intellectual atmosphere of Wood's Holl 

 must be bracing, the lectures are so vigorous. 



The volume begins with a lecture by Professor E. B. Wilson on 

 the structure of protoplasm, which we have already noticed. " The 

 evidence indicates that alveolar, granular, fibrillar, and reticular struc- 

 tures are all of secondary origin and importance, and that the ultimate 

 background of protoplasmic activity is the sensibly homogeneous matrix 

 or continuous substance in which those structures appear." Wilson is 

 also the author of the second lecture on cell-lineage and ancestral 

 reminiscence — a strong plea for the acceptance of cell-homology. The 

 third lecture on " adaptation in cleavage " is by Frank B. Lillie, who 

 seeks to show that the special features of the cleavage in each species 

 are as definitely adapted to the needs of the future larva as the latter 

 is to the actual conditions of its environment. Professor E. G. Conklin 

 discusses in the fourth lecture protoplasmic movement as a factor in 

 differentiation, showing how delusive it is to consider the cell as if it 

 were merely static, since movements of the cytoplasm play a very im- 



