7 o SOME NE IV BOOKS [january 



these groups is excellent, but the arrangement of the sub-classes and cohorts of 

 the Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons is open to criticism. The author has 

 " thought it desirable to follow, in the main, the classification laid down in the 

 Genera Plantantm of Bentham and Hooker," one of the classics of Systematic 

 Botany, but a work which occupied half a lifetime, and was completed fifteen 

 years ago. As in Morphology and Physiology, so in the study of the affinities 

 of the families of seed-plants, much has been done in the interval, and some 

 expression of this should find place in an elementary text-book. 



THE COMPLETE GENEALOGIST. 



Lehrbuch der gesammten wissenschaftlichen Genealogie. Stammbaum und 

 Ahnentafel in ihrer geschichtlichen, sociologischen und naturwissen- 

 schaftlichen Bedeutung. By Dr. Ottokar Lorenz, Professor der 

 Geschichte. 8vo, pp. ix. and 489. Berlin: Hertz, 1898. 



More than a hundred years ago, as Dr. Lorenz tells us, Gatterer of Gottingen 

 wrote a text-book of genealogy for the use of his students. And, strangely 

 enough, this old book has remained until now the only systematic treatise on 

 the subject. It was high time that there should be a new " Gatterer," and 

 this our author has supplied, to the gratification of a wide circle of students, 

 whether of history, or heraldry, or heredity. Dr. Lorenz discusses "genealogy 

 as a science," "the theory of the genealogical tree," "tables of ancestry," and 

 " the bearing of genealogical studies on heredity." He deals very judiciously with 

 modern theories of heredity, inclining on the whole to agree with Weismann ; 

 and makes a strong case for the advantage of genealogical studies to supplement 

 those which are purely statistical. In our judgment he does not fully appreciate 

 the importance of Mr. Galton's work, especially as regards "the law of ancestral 

 inheritance." X. 



THE GEOLOGIST'S VADEMECUM. 



Aids in Practical Geology. By Grenville A. J. Cole. Third edition. 

 8vo, pp. xvi. and 432, with coloured frontispiece and numerous illus- 

 trations. London: C. Griffin and Co., 1898. Price 10s. 6d. 



Good wine needs no bush, and Professor Cole's excellent adjunct to the 

 text-book and the laboratory, having now reached its third edition, requires 

 little further commendation from us. The first edition was published in 

 December 1890; the second in April 1893. The present edition is enlarged by 

 several pages, and is revised throughout. New inventions of apparatus 

 are introduced in the text, and the more recent literature referred to in 

 the footnotes. A good deal of improvement and extension is visible in 

 the palaeontological part, which is better than most English text-books of 

 equal size. Nevertheless we are not sure that we understand the reason 

 for this section. It would not really be of much use in the field ; and it is 

 certainly not a guide to laboratory practice or to original investigation. Still we 

 have little fault to find with it, except that the true scale of the various figures 

 is not indicated. On the whole we should recommend Professor Cole to reduce 

 those portions of his book that cover ground which is, or ought to be, covered 

 by the ordinary text-book, and to amplify the strictly practical chapters, which 

 already are admirable. 



Dr. John Anderson has completed his researches on the Reptilia and 

 Batrachia of Egypt, and the results form volume one of the Zoology of Egypt, 

 which has just been announced by Bernard Quaritch. Only 100 copies 

 have been printed, and the price is £12 : 12s., which is quite prohibitive. Some 

 1500 specimens were collected, the greater part of which are now in the British 

 Museum. 



