REVIEWS. 



** Ueher den Bau unci das IVachsthmyi der Zellhaiite.'" 

 von Dr. E. Strasbuhger, Prof, an der Univ. Bonn. 

 Jena^ 1882. A Review by H. Marshall Ward, B.A., 

 Fellow of Owens College, Victoria University. 



A FURTHER communication on the subject of the vegetable 

 cell, by the author of the well-known book, ' Zellbildung 

 und Zelltheilung,' cannot fail to interest all who are busied 

 with morphological investigations. In the present work, 

 from the active pen of Professor Strasburger, we are intro- 

 duced to a large number of new facts, supplemented by a 

 brilliant series of hypothetical considerations. However 

 opinions may differ as to the value of the latter, there can 

 be little doubt about the importance of the former, and no 

 better plea for special work in biology could be demanded 

 than such a book and its natural connection with previous 

 investigations by the same author. 



One of the difficulties met with in this as in former books 

 by Professor Strasburger is the want of obvious arrange- 

 ment of the multitudinous details. It requires no little 

 patience and some skill to pick out the most important points 

 from a huge mass of minute details spread over more than 

 250 pages of text, and even the aid of a fairly complete 

 index and tables of explanation to the eight large plates in 

 no way obviates the necessity of laborious reading of the 

 whole work. 



This is, perhaps, in itself no fault ; but it would conduce 

 to greater clearness on the part of the reader if the author 

 either summed up his results more distinctly, or, at any rate, 

 offered more apparent clues to the directions in which the 

 facts are leading him. 



In what may be termed the first section of the book we 

 are introduced to a mass of observations going to prove that 

 the cell-wall increases in thickness by the successive deposi- 

 tion of new layers of ready-formed matter. One is impressed 



