158 THE .rOUHNAL OF 130TAXY 



should be carefully studied bj every British or Irish arboriculturist. 

 The third chapter exhibits in a striking* manner the vacillating, un- 

 scientific empiricism of modern medicine ; while in sharp contrast to 

 its methods — or want of method — the preceding pages contain a brief 

 but thoroughly scientific analysis of the varied infiuences of forests 

 upon the atmospheric conditions that make up climate. It must be 

 borne in mind that Dr. Henry is concerned only with temperate lati- 

 tudes and mainly with " insular " conditions ; but we certainly 

 expected to have found a greater recognition of the presumably 

 different effects of masses of xerophytic conifers with limited transpi- 

 ration on the one hand and of broad-leaved mesophytes on the other. 



Each chapter is furnished with a valuable set of references, and 

 there is an adequate index. We hope that the book will attain the 

 object stated in the Preface — tiiat of interesting "the statesman, 

 the student of economics, the engineer, the phj^sician, and the lay- 

 man, as well as the forester." 



G. S. BOULGEE. 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, etc. 



Those interested in the practical aspects of plant pathology will 

 regret the death of John Snell, who died at Preston on April 19th, 

 in his forty-second year. Snell was at one time a schoolmaster, and 

 having taken his London B.Sc. became demonstrator and lecturer in 

 Botany at Birkbeck College. He was a very capable manipulator 

 and, in 1012, took up the post of demonstrator in Histology at the 

 Middlesex Hospital. The following year he was appointed one of the 

 district inspectors of the Horticultural Branch of the Board of 

 Agriculture ; his name came prominently before the public in connec- 

 tion with the Ormskirk Potato Trials, where he tested varieties 

 of potatoes with regard to their resistance to wart disease (Chn/so- 

 phlyctis endohlofica). Born of a Cornish farming-stock, Snell's 

 interest when he got into the field was all on the practical side. The 

 Lancashire farmers valued him at his true worth, and showed their 

 appreciation in a very marked manner at the annual Ormskirk 

 meetings. — J. K. 



Albeet Johx Chalmees, M.D. (b. London 1870), died at Cal- 

 cutta on April 5th, while on his way home from Egypt on retiring 

 from his post as director of the Wellcome llesearch Laboratories at 

 Khartoum. He was a leading authority on tropical diseases, and the 

 Manual of Tropical Medicine written by him in collaboration with 

 A. Castellani is known to every student. After qualifying at Victoria 

 (Liverpool) University he joined the West African Medical Service 

 in 1897, serving later in the Ashanti Field Force. In 1901 he was 

 appointed Registrar of the Ceylon Medical College, but resigned his 

 position in order to devote more time to the study of tropical diseases ; 

 in 1913 he was appointed to Khartoum. The study of disease- 

 causing fungi was of peculiar interest to Chalmers : he published 

 several papers on various aspects of the subject, and was hoping to 

 apply the latest developments of systematic mycology to the study of 

 some of these intricate orsranisms, — J. R. 



