LITERARY NOTICES. 



5 6 3 



the results of an almost continuous series of 

 personal experiments extending over a pe- 

 riod of eight years. These conclusions are 

 — to sum them up into one — that plants 

 and flowers, particularly when cultivated in- 

 doors, are worthy to be placed in the fore- 

 most rank of sanitary agencies. Further, 

 " the mass of evidence at hand relating to 

 the subject, in the author's opinion, estab* 

 lishes the complete efficacy of living plants 

 as preventive measures in that deadly mal- 

 ady, consumption of the lungs, as well as 

 the signal services they are capable of ren- 

 dering in certain other conditions of dis- 

 ease." We do not understand the author 

 as recommending in-door life among flowers 

 at the expense of out-door life — if he did, 

 we should differ with him decidedly — but 

 as holding flowers up as a valuable sanitary 

 clement of m-door life, and as a substitute, 

 so far as they may be a substitute, for out- 

 door life to those who are not able to enjoy 

 it. A chapter is added on the practical cul- 

 tivation of plants in the house ; and the last 

 chapter is devoted to the consideration of 

 the " Sanitary Influences of Forest Growth." 

 We have to thank Dr. Anders that he has 

 not made his book by dumping into it the 

 magazine articles he has written on the sub- 

 ject, as it is too much the fashion to make 

 books now, but that he has written it all out 

 afresh, in harmonious arrangement, and has 

 thereby given us a compact, symmetrical 

 treatise. 



Geological Survey of Alabama. By Eu- 

 gene A. Smith, State Geologist. Bul- 

 letin No. 1. Tuscaloosa. Pp. 85, with 

 Nine Plates. 



The " Bulletin " comprises two mono- 

 graphs, the first being a preliminary re- 

 port on the tertiary fossils of Alabama and 

 Mississippi, by Truman BT. Aldrich, and 

 the other " Contributions to the Eocene Pa- 

 leontology of Alabama and Mississippi," 

 by Otto Meyer. Mr. Aldrich's paper is 

 the first installment of a work which is 

 designed to be a complete account of the 

 paleontology of the tertiary formation in 

 Alabama. In preparing it, the author has 

 personally gone over the greater part of 

 the ground, and has collected a large part 

 of the material himself, so that he has 

 been able to give to each species both its 



locality and its exact place on the strati- 

 graphical scale. The work is, therefore, 

 not a bare description of species, but it illus- 

 trates very fully the distribution of the spe- 

 cies both in time and space. To it Dr. 

 Smith adds a summary of the lithological 

 and stratigraphical features and subdivis- 

 ions of the various deposits which make up 

 the tertiary formation in Alabama. In Dr. 

 Meyer's paper a number of new or previ- 

 ously unfigured species of invertebrates are 

 described and figured, and a very few known 

 species are refigured for some special rea- 

 sons. The type specimens of the fossils are 

 in the author's collection. 



Report op the United States National 

 Museum, under the Direction of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, for the Year 

 1884. Washington: Government Print- 

 ing-Office. Pp. 458. 



This report constitutes Part II of the 

 Report of the Board of Regents of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. A clear account is 

 given in the report of the assistant director 

 of the organization, administration, and ar- 

 rangement of the museum collections. In 

 the account of the function and aims of the 

 museum, reference is made to the attitude 

 occupied by some special investigators who 

 are disposed to neglect the claims of the 

 educated public to the enjoyment and in- 

 struction which museums afford, and de- 

 mand that those institutions be administered 

 for the benefit solely of persons engaged in 

 research, as the manifestation of a spirit 

 which defeats its own purpose. " The ex- 

 perience of Europe with its magnificent edu- 

 cational museums, and the history of the 

 several expositions in the United States 

 should be quite sufficient to satisfy any one 

 who has studied the matter that the museum 

 is an educational power even more influen- 

 tial than the public library." The show of 

 specimens in the cases was, in the year cov- 

 ered by the report — and presumably still 13 

 — but a feeble index to the richness of the 

 collections, for " the development of the ex- 

 hibition series is necessarily slow, since it is 

 not considered desirable to place on exhibi- 

 tion specimens which are not fully explained 

 by printed labels. . . . The extent and na- 

 ture of the work of the museum are not ap- 

 preciated by persons who are not familiar 



