THE PEDREGAL. 287 



where are pits and caves from the size of a bucket to that 

 of a dwelling house. The disintegration of the volcanic 

 rocks makes a fertile soil and the caverns great and small 

 serve as reservoirs, which collect water and allow it to escape 

 slowly. The general surface is that of a desert, but the walls 

 of the pits afford all possible combinations of shade and drip- 

 ping moisture with the result that some of them are fairly 

 choked with vegetation. 



The walls are clothed with mosses and ferns, luxuriant 

 woody perennials and herbaceous species find lodgment in 

 the soil on the floors and in the crevices of the rocks, among 

 which are the pepper tree (Schinns mollis), a clematis and 

 a woody seneclo. — D. T. MacDougal, 



Nature and Development of Plants, by C. C. Curtis, is 

 the title of a new book recently put out by Henry Holt & Co. 

 This is a reading book in general botany, pp. VII — 471, 

 which is stated in the preface to be for the purpose of ac- 

 quainting "the reader with the more essential aspects of the 

 subject. Especially have we in mind to make familiar our 

 common plants — which knowledge we believe to be funda- 

 mental in any botanical work. It is not put forth 



as a text hook but it is hoped that the discussion will give 

 the student such a comprehension of the subject that he will 

 come to the lecture room in proper attitude and that he will 

 approach his laboratory work with a desire for investiga- 

 tion." This quotation, which may be regarded as Dr. Cur- 

 tis' platform, has been consistently and closely followed 

 throughout the book. 



The work is evidently an outgrowth of Dr. Curtis' long 

 experience with undergraduates at Columbia University; it 

 is divided into an introduction and two parts. The intro- 

 duction, six pages, treats of the nature of protoplasm and of 

 the plant cell. The first part, 129 pages, takes up the sub- 



