56 JOURNAL OF the; WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES VOL. 11, NO. 3 



the United States east of the Mississippi River. This is arranged under the 

 headings of the several Indian stocks and an attempt has been made to 

 correlate it with the results of modern explorations. J. R. SwanTon. 



ETHNOLOGY. — Alsea texts and myths. Leo J. Frachtenberg. Bur. 

 Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 67. Pp. 304. 1920. 



Alsea is a dialect of the Yakonan linguistic family, which formerly occupied 

 a small portion of the Oregon coast southward of the Columbia River. So 

 few Indians are now acquainted with it that the material contained in this 

 volume is, in all probability, practically all that will ever be available for study. 

 It consists of 24 native texts with English translations, five originally re- 

 corded by Dr. Livingston Farrand, now Director of the American Red Cross, 

 and the remainder by Dr. Leo J. Frachtenberg, who also revised and edited 

 the material collected by his predecessor. Four tales collected by Dr. Far- 

 rand in English, without native equivalents, are added, and the whole is 

 followed by vocabularies in Alsea-English and English-Alsea and a list of 

 formative elements. A brief introduction explains the various ways in 

 which this series of texts was brought together and indicates the character 

 of Alsea mythology and its position with reference to the mythologies of the 

 neighboring peoples. J. R. S wanton. 



EVOLUTION. — Kinetics of material transformations. Alfred J. Lotka 

 Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts and Sciences 55: 137-153. 1920. 

 A discussion along very general lines of the differential equations relating 

 to systems undergoing change of state, chemical, physical, or other. The 

 method and conclusions cannot be readily set forth in a brief abstract. While 

 the immediate application is chiefly in the field of physical chemistry, a very 

 general mode of treatment has been adopted with a view to preparing the 

 ground for the discussion of the broad problem of evolution. A. J. L. 



EVOLUTION. — Evolution and irreversibility. Alfred J. LoTka. Science 

 Progress 14: 400-417. Figs. 5. 1920. 



It has been pointed out by biologists that organic evolution is an irre- 

 versible process. Physicists also have spoken of the second law of thermo- 

 dynamics broadly as the law of evolution. In organic systems irreversible 

 processes are attended with a decrease in certain functions of the variables 

 defining the state of the system. Stable equilibrium is characterized by 

 the fact that these functions assume a minimum value. 



In the case of organic systems in the process of evolution we have not, 

 in general, such definite criteria for equilibrium, and the direction of the 

 process, although undoubtedly perfectly definite, has hitherto never been 

 formulated in precise terms. The paper here abstracted sets forth, for 

 certain cases at any rate, a precise formulation of the direction of evolution 

 and a criterion for the stability of equilibrium in the familiar form of a func- 

 tion which assumes a minimum value at the point of equilibrium. 



A. J. L. 



GEOLOGY. — Iron-depositing bacteria and their geologic relations. E. C. 

 Harder. U. S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 113. Pp. 89, figs. 37. 1919. 

 Iron-depositing bacteria are abundant and widespread in soil and natural 

 water. They occur not only in surface waters but have been found in under- 

 ground waters, such as well waters and iron-bearing mine waters, to depths 



