BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE 363 



experiments over ten years ago, that light exerts universal and invari- 

 ^ able influence on growth in length or thickness. 



Chapter V., The Chemistry of the Plant, consisting of a list of the 

 commoner plant constituents and products, giving the name, chemical 

 formula and occurrence of each, so far as these are known, while contain- 

 ing important information, most certainly could not be used with either 

 intelligence or interest, by the average beginner of the study of botany, 

 especially by college freshmen, or high school students, who, as often 

 as not, have never studied chemistry. 



In the systematic chapters the plant kingdom is divided into fourteen 

 phyla, the ''Thallophytes" being separated into seven phyla. For 

 the first time in an elementary text (so far as the reviewer knows) fossil 

 plants receive the attention to which their importance and their relation 

 to living forms entitle them. 



There is not, in the entire book, any reproduction of a photograph, 

 the 206 illustrations being confined to diagrams such as the teacher 

 would place on his blackboard during the course of his lecture. This, 

 as the authors suggest, removes the temptation to "grave abuse" of 

 elaborate drawings in the laboratory, and may doubtless have other 

 good arguments to recommend it, but the restriction of all illustrations 

 to this type tends to take the life out of the book, and to make absolutely 

 necessary an inspiring teacher and a rich abundance of living material 

 for laboratory study. Perhaps, after all, any feature of a book that 

 operates to insure the two latter desiderata may be regarded as one of 

 its strong points. 



The tabular statement of the steps in the progressive development 

 of plants from the Myxophyceae to the Anthophyta (p. 317-318) is 

 admirable, giving a summary, as illuminating as it is concise, of the 

 main forward steps in the evolution of plants. In fact, though the book 

 is rather Spartan in point of illustrations and condensed statement, the 

 result of its use, in the hands of stimulating teachers, such as its authors 

 are known to be, would be to make the pupil know plants — a kind of 

 knowledge often conspicuous for its meagerness as a result of some 

 introductory courses. 



The senior author was a pioneer in raising botanical instruction in 

 this country above the level of merely collecting, pressing, and naming 

 "the wild flowers," and it is both instructive and gratifying, on com- 

 paring this new book with its predecessor, to note the great advances 

 that have taken place in the method and content of botanical instruction 

 since the first edition appeared. One of the factors contributing in 



