1896. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 229 



some of the work done by this particular Anders Retzius, who is not 

 to be confused with his father, Anders Johan, or with Anders Adolf. 

 He published, for the most part in Swedish, several minor studies in 

 comparative anatomy, confining himself chiefly, though not entirely, 

 to the Vertebrata. Among these were the important " Microscopical 

 Researches on the Teeth," published in the Handlingar of the Swedish 

 Academy for 1836. His main work, however, was done in craniology, 

 where his writings, if not very numerous, were most suggestive. 

 Thus, it is to him that we owe the terms brachycephaly and dolicho- 

 cephaly, and the formulation of the cranial index. It is interesting 

 to note that precisely fifty years have elapsed since the British Asso- 

 ciation published his paper " On the ethnographical distribution of 

 round and elongated crania," and it was, therefore, appropriate that 

 this jubilee, as well as the centenary, should have been celebrated at 

 Liverpool by the Anthropological Section of the Association, on 

 September 18, as well as pleasing that the genial Professor Retzius 

 of to-day should have been present to receive the congratulations. 



Librarians on Dewey. 



The Library Associatipn of the United Kingdom met at Buxton 

 during the first week of September and, among other things, discussed 

 the Dewey decimal classification. Our correspondent writes : " It 

 was very noticeable that everyone who had tried the system was in 

 favour of it. The criticisms of the opponents either were directed 

 against all schemes of classification, and not against Dewey in 

 particular, or else showed entire misconception of the principles and 

 practice of Dewey. We had the time-honoured objections that certain 

 books belong to two classes ; that the press-marks became too long, 

 etc., etc., as well as the confusion between classification on the shelves 

 and classification in the catalogue. However, there were a large 

 number present who had tried the system and spoke warmly of it from 

 long personal experience ; and this, after all, is the main thing." 



The Flora of the Alps. 



The recent issue of the Linnean Society's Transactions (vol. v., 

 pp. iig-227) contains a valuable contribution to plant-geography in 

 general and alpine botany in particular. In a lecture at the Royal 

 Geographical Society in 1879, on the origin of the flora of the 

 European Alps, the late John Ball told how a passion for mountain 

 scenery had led him from youth onwards to pass much of his time in 

 the Alps, and to visit, among other mountain districts, the Carpathians, 

 the Pyrenees, the mountains of Southern Spain, and the hills of our 

 own islands. " It was impossible to collect the plants of all these 

 districts without being struck at once by the resemblances and the 

 contrasts presented by their respective floras, and without being led 



