No. 1072, Vol. 42] 



NATURE 



51 



the author confines himself almost entirely to an exposi- 

 tion of Marckwald's views. Apnoea is referred to a 

 hyperoxygenation of the blood, no mention being made 

 of the fact that it may be produced by positive ventilation 

 with any inert gas, and so must be mainly a reflex effect. 



Surely, too, in the treatment of the changes in the 

 blood, the researches of Bohr, Blix, and others, on the 

 combination of haemoglobin with CO2, were worthy of note. 



In the section on the kidney, about 30 pages are 

 devoted to an elaborate description of the normal and 

 abnormal constituents of urine, with their tests and quan- 

 titative determination, while the subject of the process of 

 secretion itself is dismissed in the ridiculously small 

 space of three pages. 



The final section, on the nervous system, is one of the best 

 parts of the book. Especially good are the pages treating of 

 the special senses. The chapters on the spinal cord and 

 brain are less complete, and present several omissions and 

 errors. Thus no mention is made of the perfectly defi- 

 nite anlero-lateral ascending tract, and the knee-jerk is 

 referred to as a true reflex, which is, to say the least, highly 

 dubious. Again, the statement is made that clots in, or 

 lesions of, the corpus striatum cause hemiplegia, whereas 

 this is rarely or never the case unless the internal capsule 

 is also implicated. 



Throughout the work the author lies under the disad- 

 vantage of having tried to cater for two distinct classes of 

 students, beginners and those who have already a fair 

 general knowledge of the subject. For the former the 

 work is too large and not sufficiently accurate ; for the 

 latter, in most parts, too meagre. Still it will be found 

 useful by many of the latter class who have enough 

 critical power to eschew the evil and choose the good, and 

 will serve them as an excellent introduction to the reading 

 of original memoirs. E. H. S. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



I. Historia Nntiiralis Itinerum N. M. Przewalskii per 

 Asiaiii Centralem. Augustissimus auspiciis sumpti- 

 busque ab Societate Imperiali Geographica Rossica 

 edita. Pars Botanica elaboravit C. J. Maximowicz. 

 Volumen I. " Flora Tangutica." Fasciculus i, Thalami- 

 florae et Disciflorae. 4to, pp. 110, cum tabulis 31. 

 II. Volumen II. " Enumeratio Plantarum hucusque in 

 Mongolia nee non in adjacente parte Turkestaniae 

 Sinensis lectarum." Fasciculus i, Thalamiflorae et 

 Disciflorae. Pp. 138, cum tabulis 14. 



III. PlatttcB Chinenses Potatiiniance nee non Piasezkiatice 

 {Acta Horti Petropoliiani,No\. XI, pp. 1-112). Ela- 

 boravit C. J. Maximowicz. (St. Petersburg Botanic 

 Garden, 1889.) 



Here are three separate contributions to the flora of 

 Eastern Central Asia, by the well-known authority on the 

 botany of Central and Eastern Asia. It is now nearly 

 forty years since Mr. Maximowicz, through the force 

 of circumstances, had an opportunity of exploring Mand- 

 shuria, the results of which he published under the title 

 of " Primitia' Floras Amurensis." He was attached as 

 botanist to the Russian frigate Diana on a scientific 

 voyage round the world, but in consequence of war break- 

 ing out with England and France he was landed in 

 Mandshuria, where he spent three or four years, return- 

 ing through Siberia and European Russia to St. 

 I Petersburg. Subsequently he has visited Japan two or 



j three times, and made large collections of dried plants, 



and his life, apart from official duties, has been devoted 

 to working out the botany of temperate Asia. 



It was known to botanists that he was engaged on the 

 collections made by the renowned Russian explorer 

 Przewalski and others, and we now have the first instal- 

 ments in a connected form. Many of the novelties he 

 had previously published in the Melanf^es Biologiques 

 and elsewhere. From the titles cited above, it will be 

 seen that the plan of publication is, if not exactly an 

 ambitious one, at least very laborious, involving much 

 repetition. Possibly such conditions were imposed upon 

 the author. Anyhow, it seems a great pity that the 

 materials were not all worked up in one enumeration. 

 This course would have been far preferable from a 

 practical standpoint, and, what is of greater importance, 

 there would have been a reasonable prospect of its being 

 finished within a few years. With all Mr. Maximowicz's 

 capacity for work, it seems unlikely that he can hope to 

 reach the end on the present elaborate scale. The ag- 

 gregate of the two quarto publications is 250 pages, and 

 contains the Thalamiflorae and Disciflorae of the collec- 

 tions. At the outside, this is only a sixth of the flowering 

 plants. Then there is the octavo enumeration of Chinese 

 plants brought down to the same point, and this is not the 

 whole of Mr. Maximowicz's botanical work in hand. 

 Recently he issued a monograph of the genus Pedicularis, 

 comprising about 250 species, nearly 100 of which were 

 new, and these mostly Chinese. When it is added that 

 Mr. Maximowicz is a very critical worker, some idea may 

 be formed of the magnitude of the task he has undertaken. 



Glancing over the pages we find that the novelties con- 

 sist almost entirely of new species of old genera, chiefly of 

 those of a wide range, in the northern hemisphere, at least. 

 In fact, only two new genera are described : Clemato- 

 clethra, near Ac/mtdia (which Maximowicz places in the 

 Dilleniaceae in preference to the Ternstroemiaceae), and 

 Teiraena, an obscure plant provisionally referred to the 

 Zygophyllaceae. New genera are more numerous in Dr. 

 Henry's collections from the warm temperate regions of 

 Central and Western China. 



W. BOTTING HEMSLEY. 



Le Glacier de VAletsch et le Lac de Mdrjeleti. By Prince 

 Roland Bonaparte. (Paris : Printed for the Author, 

 18S9.) 

 In this ample pamphlet the author gives an account of 

 the well-known glacier of the Aletsch and the neighbour- 

 ing mountain region, in the course of which it is inci- 

 dentally mentioned that the glaciers are again showing 

 signs of increase after a period of general retreat which 

 began in 1854. This statement, I think, requires some 

 qualification, for the Corner glacier certainly was advanc- 

 ing about the year 1859. The most marked diminution 

 occurred in the next decade, and it did not commence 

 till, at any rate, after 1861. The author describes the 

 curious Marjelen See, which has already been noticed in 

 these pages (vol. xxxvi. p. 612), giving some statistics as to 

 its area, depth, &c. He quotes also a list of the occa- 

 sions, so far as known, since 1813, on which its waters 

 have escaped beneath the .Aletsch glacier. In this, how- 

 ever, there is either an omission or a misprint. It states 

 that in 1859 le lac se vide. This may be true, though it 

 seems improbable, for the lake was also drained in 1858. 

 In the latter part of August in that year I saw it for the 

 first time. It was then full. The next evening I again 

 visited the lake. The water had almost all vanished, and 

 the great blocks of ice were stranded on the muddy floor. 

 In reference io this floor the author makes a statement 

 which I fail to understand: " Le bassin du lac est une 

 ancienne moraine de fond d'une des branches du glacier 

 de I'Aletsch. Unless this mud be claimed as moraine pro- 

 fonde — and this I should dispute— the assertion seems to 

 me without any valid foundation. The lake lies in the 

 upper part of a small valley, worn by the passage of ice 



