392 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Dec, 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



Laboratory Exercises in Botany Designed for the Use of Colleges 

 and Schools in which Botany is Taught by Laboratory Methods. By 

 Edson S. Bastin. 8° 540 pp. 250 figures. Phila., 1895. $2.50. 



We have frequently complained in these columns of the waste 

 of time inflicted upon botanical students because their atten- 

 tion has been taken up in classifying and drying specimens as 

 a sequel to the learning of a new language — the technic.il terms 

 in which this science has always reveled. The present book 

 meets our demands most fully — that students be taught a great 

 deal about a few plants instead of a smattering regarding all 

 plants. To know all that Professor Bastin teaches regarding the 

 Ox-pye Daisy is better than to know all that Linnaeus knew 

 about all plants. 



The first half of the book is upon Organography and includes 

 the study of mots, stems, leaves, flowers and fraits somewhat 

 after the style of the older botanies, but with new and improved 

 metho'ds. On the very first page one is introduced to the dis- 

 secting microscope. The language is a guide t) actual labora- 

 tory experiments in lieu of a lot of stuff to memorize and re- 

 jDcat in class. 



But the second half of the book is what fills us with enthusi- 

 asm. This is entitled Vegetable Histology. In it are studies 

 of parenchyma, collenchyma, epidermal tissue, suberous tissue, 

 wood-cells, tracheary tissues, starches, aleurone-grains, chloro- 

 plasts, inulin, vasal, collateral and radial bundles etc. In all 

 cases the reader is supposed to actually perform the manipula- 

 tions needed to demonstrate the structures. Of course this in- 

 volves a knowledge of microscopy and this book ma.y fairly be 

 said to include a treatise on that subject. The apparatus is de- 

 scribed and its use made plain. The stains, media, etc , are 

 fully set forth. 



Hence, although written for a college hand-book, it is of the 

 greatest value to all microscopists studying plant structure. 

 There is no serious criticism to be made on the book and no 

 disappointment in store for the purchaser. The price, too, is 

 adapted to our times. For such a book, it is remarkably low 

 and the book will stand the wear of laboratory handling. 



