March 14, 1901J 



NATURE 



463 



and Chelonians ; whilst in a fourth, Archosauria, the 

 CrocodiUans, Dinosaurs aad Pterodactyles are brought 

 together. Little objection will be found to the compo- 

 sition of the second and fourth subclasses, as it answers to 

 the views held by almost all modern classificators. But 

 it is difficult to believe that the proposal to group the 

 Squamata, Rhynchocephalia and Ichthyosauria in a group 

 equivalent and opposed to the one including Mesosauria, 

 Plesiosauria and Chelonia, will meet with ready accept- 

 ance. It would, however, carry us too far to enter on 

 this occasion into a discussion of the reasons that have 

 determined the author to adopt such an arrangement. 



But it may not be out of place here to enter a protest 

 against the introduction of new terms for higher divisions, 

 such as Patagiosauria for the well-known Ornithosauria 

 or Pterosauria, Gecko-Cham^leontes s. Uroplatimorpha 

 for the group already named Uroplatoidea by Gill 

 and Geccovarani by Cope, on the mere ground of the 

 new names being more expressive. A propos of the 

 last-named division, it is indeed startling to learn that 

 the long-sought ancestor of the Chameleons is believed 

 by Prof. Fiirbringer to be approximated by the curious 

 Uroplates of Madagascar which, formerly placed with the 

 Geckos, was first raised to family rank on the ground of 

 the difference in the shape of the clavicular arch. How- 

 ever, the arguments brought forward by the learned 

 professor in favour of this hypothesis do not seem very 

 convincing. 



The limits assigned to this notice do not permit of 

 attention being drawn to the many other salient points in 

 the new classification, and to the incidental remarks on 

 the relationships which birds and mammals bear to the 

 reptiles. Suffice it to say that Prof. Fiirbringer's work 

 is, like everything we owe to his marvellous industry, most 

 elaborate and careful, and that the very complete biblio- 

 graphical indications that accompany it constitute in 

 themselves a valuable mine of information for the student 

 of the morphology and taxonomy of the reptiles. 



G. A. B. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



A Practical Guide to Garden Plants. By John Weathers. 

 Pp. 1 192 + xii. (London : Longmans, Green and Co., 

 1901.) Price 2\s. net. 



The garden plants here dealt with are those which are 

 hardy enough to be cultivated in the open air, and they 

 comprise not only ornamental plants but fruits and vege- 

 tables. A well-constructed glossary precedes the body 

 of the work. The earlier portions are devoted to the life- 

 history of cultivated plants, which is well done so far as 

 it goes, but which would bear to be considerably expanded. 

 It is rather misleading to call oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, 

 nitrogen and the other elementary substances which the 

 chemist finds in plants, different kinds of food. They are 

 the materials of which food is made, but not the food 

 itself. 



The bulk of the work is made up of descriptions of 

 the various hardy plants generally grown in gardens, 

 together with indications for their cultivation. 



The plants named are arranged in their natural orders, 

 which is a great boon to the amateur, greatly facilitates 

 the acquisition of knowledge, and adds to the interest of 

 the plant. "If the cultivator," says the author, "has 

 even only a slight knowledge of the way in which plants 

 have been grouped more or less naturally by botanists, 



NO. 1637, VOL. (il\ 



he may, by the aid of his books, run the unknown plant 

 very close, if not quite, to its own group from the 

 characters he sees. But if his books have the plants 

 arranged simply in alphabetical order according to their 

 names and not according to their relationships, he may as 

 •well give up his search at once unless he has the time 

 and inclination to wade through every name from A 

 to Z. Indeed, descriptive plant-books, arranged in purely 

 alphabetical order, are only of value when the proper 

 name of the plant about which information is required is 

 already known." 



From long experience we can confirm the author's 

 statement. It is the fashion nowadays to neglect the 

 comparative study of plants as they now exist, but, look- 

 ing at the matter from a utilitarian point of view, it is of 

 much greater use to be able to recognise the distinctions 

 between one natural order and another than it is to in- 

 dulge in speculative and conjectural genealogies In 

 any case, a knowledge, even though it be slight, of the 

 principal natural orders adds greatly to the interest of a 

 garden and often affords useful indications for cultivation. 

 Mr. Weathers has sometimes supplied English names 

 for the orders which appear to us as to be unnecessary — 

 for instance, why should we have to learn that the Mag- 

 nolia order is called the Lily-tree order, or why should 

 the Leguminosae be called the Laburnum and Broom 

 order ? The Latin names of the orders present, as a rule, 

 little or no difficulty to those who really desire to know 

 them. For those who do not, it is not necessary to put 

 one's self to inconvenience. This portion of the work is 

 excellent for reference purposes, and must have entailed 

 great labour on the author. 



The sections relating to fruit and vegetables are not 

 so satisfactory, but, on the whole, the book is well calcu- 

 lated to satisfy the requirements of the amateur and of 

 the professional gardener, the more so as it is provided 

 with an excellent index. 



Atis^eiva/ilte Methoden der Analytischen Cheinie. By 

 Prof. Dr. A. Classen. Erster Band. Pp. xx-l-940. 

 (Brunswick : Vieweg und Sohn, 1901.) 



The first impression which this volume on select methods 

 of analysis conveys is entirely favourable. The book is 

 well printed, tastefully bound, and furnished with those 

 delicate illustrations of apparatus which are characteristic 

 of German chemical books. 



The chief desideratum in a work on analysis is that 

 the author shall not only be a skilled analyst, but that 

 he shall have had personal experience of the methods 

 which he describes. 



Prof Classen's connection with analytical chemistry, 

 especially with the introduction of electrolytic methods, 

 is too well known to leave any doubt as to his qualifica- 

 tions as an analyst, and we are assured by him in the 

 preface that " In diesem Buche sind demnach diejenigen 

 Methoden vorzugsweise beschrieben worden, welche ich 

 personlich vielfach anwandte, oder welche durch meine 

 Assistenten und Schiiler oder von dritten Seite kritisch 

 gepriift wurden." 



We can only admire the zeal and industry of the author 

 and his assistants in having been able to examine criti- 

 cally even half the methods described in these 900 pages 

 of closely printed matter. In reviewing a book of this 

 kind, one naturally turns to the description of processes 

 with which one is familiar. Judged by this test it fully 

 justifies its first impressions. It is furnished with that 

 minuteness of detail which is requisite in any book on 

 quantitative and especially technical analysis, as this 

 professes to be. 



In addition to the estimation and separation of the 

 commoner metals, considerable space is devoted to the 

 rarer ones, some of which, like cerium and its allies, 

 have recently entered the field of technical chemistry. 



It seems odd that in a work relating entirely to metals 



