76 Recent Literature. [zoe 



cent botanical works it would be hard to find one which is more 

 welcome to the student than the one before us. The original was 

 published in Germany, in 1887; and now we have an admirable 

 English translation issuing from the Clarendon press, to which we 

 owe so many excellent translations of standard German botanical 

 works. 



The literature of palaeophytology is so scattered as to be practi- 

 cally inaccessible to the general botanist; and, moreover, a great 

 part of it is the work of men who are not botanists at all, the result 

 of whose works is an appalling mass of fragmentary and often ut- 

 terly unreliable material. Count Solms not only has won a high 

 reputation as a palaeophytologist but has also done excellent work 

 in other departments of botany, and, as a thoroughly trained bota- 

 nist, is eminently fitted for the task he has so admirably performed 

 in the volume before us. To him we owe a careful resume of what 

 has been done up to the time of publication of his book, and a thor- 

 ough sifting of the material thus brought together. He is extreme- 

 ly cautious in his judgments, and often suspends judgment entirely; 

 but where he makes a positive statement one is sure that it is based 

 upon adequate evidence. As the result of this careful examination, 

 many forms, usually accepted by pateophytologists, are thrown, 

 aside as resting upon imperfect evidence, and, in consequence, 

 one's ideas of the nature of many of the fossil forms are materially 

 changed. 



An introduction of some thirty pages deals largely with the con- 

 ditions under which plant remains have been preserved in a fossil 

 state, and includes an able discussion of the formation of peat and 

 coal beds. The Thallophytes and Bryophytes are disposed of in a 

 single chapter, and the rest of the book is devoted to a considera- 

 tion of the lower vascular plants — ^ Pteridophytes and Gymno- 

 sperms. The Conifene are treated first for reasons thus given by the 

 author: " In departing from the customary arrangement =^ * * 

 we have been influenced chiefly by practical considerations, for the 

 adoption of this order will facilitate the discussion of the many 

 doubtful forms which belong to one or the other of these classes, 

 but which it will be best to consider in connection with similar 

 groups of the Archegoniatae. " A chapter is devoted to the group, 

 and the author seems to think that there is not sufficient evidence to 

 warrant the assumption that conifers of the modern types existed 



