BOTANY OF THE 40TH PARALLEL. 181 



neer Corps series, has been carefully edited and beautifully 

 printed, so that the volume is every way an attractive one. 

 Errors of the press are to be found, but they are aj^parently 

 few, and the whole typography is remarkably excellent for the 

 Government Printing Office. Our comparison is naturally 

 with corresponding volumes of the Pacific Eailroad Survey, 

 and of the Mexican Boundary Survey, upon which the pres- 

 ent volume is a notable improvement. The forty plates, filled 

 with well chosen subjects, if not of the very highest style, 

 are so well done and of such excellent promise that the name 

 of the draughtsman (who is new to this class of work, we 

 believe), Mr. J. H. Emerton, of Salem, Massachusetts, should 

 properly have been appended to them. 



The General Keport, of 53 pages, forms a separately 

 paged introduction to the " Catalogue," as it is termed with 

 excessive modesty, i. e., the systematic account of the plants 

 collected, which makes up the principal bulk of the volume. 

 This General Eeport will naturally be most interesting to 

 general readers and naturalists, but no less so to special bota- 

 nists. It is thoroughly readable matter, and we expect to 

 see it reproduced in the scientific journals. Four or five 

 pages sketch the geographical features of the region, tersely 

 and clearly. But, when a stream of water is said to " become 

 demoralized with alkali and is lost," we could wish that this 

 popularized use of the word were buried with it. The mete- 

 orological notes, with tabulated observations by thermometer, 

 evaporator, etc., are equally interesting, displaying the dry- 

 ness of the Great Basin, its cold winters and hot summers. 

 The notes on the general character of the vegetation picture 

 to us the botanical aspect of the region, the relative preva- 

 lence of the predominant species, the slow and cross-grained 

 growth of what timber there is in the canons, etc. A dead 

 branch, apparently of Finus monophyUa, 8 inches in diame- 

 ter, had the fibres so twisted that in 7 feet they made four 

 complete circuits. A saw-mill in Ruby Valley offered the 

 opportunity of ascertaining the age and dimensions of several 

 specimens of Pinus flexiUs from the upper canons of the 

 Humboldt Mountains; sections from 22 to 30 inches in 



