Books and Current ItIterature. 71 



'sperms, Ferns and Plantae Incertae Sedis." It is quite extensive 

 •and is designed to clear the way for the treatment of the better 

 known types in Volume III. This final volume is promised 

 ■without unnecessary delay and will be looked forward to with a 

 :great deal of interest. 



The book as a whole is so valuable a compilation that one 

 hesitates to find fault with any of its features. The general plan 

 of these volumes is, however, open to the criticism, admitted by 

 their author, that some forms receive extended treatment while 

 •others are ignored, and most individuals will differ regarding 

 the wisdom of any other individual's selections. This feature 

 •could be overlooked if the work were designed merely for working 

 paleobotanists, but for botanists and, to a much greater degree, 

 for geologists it is a serious imperfection. The same criticism 

 applies to certain illustrations and comparisons. For example, 

 it might seem from a perusal of page 75 that paleobotanists 

 "were in Ganger of confusing the genera Veronica, Tajalla, Lavois- 

 dera, Dacrydium, and Podocarpus in the Paleozoic floras, although 

 no such implication is intended. There is also displayed through- 

 out the book a certain iconoclastic attitude regarding the botan- 

 ical affinity of various fossils which is admirable and necessary 

 to a degree sufficient to offset the more or less imaginary claims 

 of relationship put forward from time to time, but such valid 

 conservatism should not become an attitude of mind whereby 

 the criteria of proof demanded are such as would exclude a 

 goodly proportion of existing plants from the category of proved 

 botanical affinity. This conservatism of Professor Seward 

 goes hand in hand with a very radical "lumping" of similar 

 forms under a single specific name when perhaps their occurrences 

 in time are separated by several million years and their occur- 

 rences in space by several thousands of miles. There is also 

 considerable freedom, hardly justified at the present time, in 

 suggesting Pteridospermic affinities for certain Jurassic forms. 

 Finally, in a work where space is so valuable, the reader could well 

 dispense with the information that John Doe discovered such 

 and such a specimen, and other similar irrelevancies, which are 

 not uncommon. The nomenclature also is of a kind which a 

 majority of systematists regard as undesirable. Despite these 

 shortcomings, which may be regarded as secondary in a work of 

 this magnitude, Professor Seward is to be congratulated in pro- 



