376 NATURAL SCIENCE. May, 



variation proceeds are larger than we supposed. But it will also 

 serve to make the apparent discontinuity less striking by directing our 

 attention to the immense importance of the laws of growth in normal 

 structures, as well as in abnormal ones. I do not thmk that his book 

 so much suggests, as he supposes, that the discontinuity of species 

 may be a consequence and an expression of the discontinuity of 

 variation, but that the apparent discontinuity found both in variation 

 and in species will seem less and less as we understand more the 

 physical limitations by which the growth of organisms are determined. 



P. CM. 



An English Botany Text-Book. 



A Students' Text-Book of Botany. By S. H. Vines, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S. 

 (First half.) 8vo. Pp. x., 430, with 279 illustrations. London ; Swan Sonnen- 

 schein & Co., 1894. Price 7s. 6d. 



We have waited a long time for Dr. Vines' text-book, and, while 

 welcoming the first portion, fervently echo the hope expressed by the 

 publishers on the back of the cover, to wit, " that the remainder of 

 the work, together with the Index, etc., will be ready for issue in the 

 course of the year." The book has grown out of the author's English 

 edition of Prantl's Lehrbuch, but growth has implied a change in form 

 as well as increase in bulk, and to such an extent that " the present 

 is essentially a new and distinct work," and, consequently, bears only 

 Dr. Vines' name on its title-page. The older work, issued in 1880, 

 contained 344 pages and 275 woodcuts ; the first half of the new one 

 contains nearly 100 pages more and 279 cuts ; moreover, the scope of 

 the book has been so extended that, while retaining all that has 

 made it of value to beginners, it may also be useful to those engaged 

 in the advanced study of the science. 



A text-book is generally regarded as nourishment for the student 

 who is feeding up for examination, or has a worthy desire to get a 

 good general knowledge of botany before specialising in some one of 

 its many branches. But it should have a wider use, as a tonic for 

 specialists, and a corrective for the evils arising from work in a too 

 confined space. Workers in different fields would be more in touch 

 with each other if their knowledge of the general principles in the 

 great divisions of morphology, physiology, and classification was kept 

 fairly up-to-date ; besides which, they would take a broader view of 

 things, and make fewer blunders, while the value of their work would 

 be enhanced accordingly. This puts a heavy responsibility on the 

 shoulders of the text-book writer, and exposes him to universal 

 criticism, but might also have the salutary effect of suppressing, if he 

 is suppressible, the ever-recurring individual who, having realised a 

 long-felt want, hastens to supply it with a compilation badly planned 

 and feebly executed. 



Dr. Vines' text-book is the first that modern botany has produced 

 in this country. We have text-books, and good ones, like Sachs and 

 Goebel, but they have been only translations of German works, 

 native talent exhausting itself in the addition of a few foot-notes and 

 a glossary at the end. It is matter for congratulation that 

 originality in this line has not been utterly quenched. No botanist 

 is so well iitted for the task as Dr. Vines, and the portion of the text- 

 book already produced is admirable. It includes Part I., on 

 Morphology; Part II., on the Intimate Structure of Plants (Anatomy 

 and Histology) ; and that portion of Part III., the Classification of 

 Plants, comprised under the old term Cryptogams including the 



