3IO 



BOTANICAL GAZETTE [october 



not alluded to in the context. "Quite, or almost quite, impermeable" for "sehr 

 schwer oder gar nicht permeabel" surely must be a typographic slip for "almost 

 or quite impermeable." When JosT wrote "der im Wasser gelosten Molekule 

 und lonen," why should it be translated, *'of the molecules dissolved in water and 

 of the ions," as though the ions were not dissolved in water ? There are other 

 slips of more serious nature. Thus, in describing the cohesion movements of the 

 annulus of ferns and the anthers of seed-plants, to render "FuUwasser" by "imbi- 

 bition water" makes the description inconsistent and unintelligible, for it is the 

 water contained in the cell ca\'ity, not the imbibed water of the walls, whose ten- 

 sion comes into play. 



If these defects appear in a cursory examination one may suspect that a thorough 

 comparison would reveal many others. Yet the total impression, without such a 

 searchj is quite the reverse, and it may be fairly said that on the whole the trans- 

 lation, though rather wordy, is good. The English may not be irreproachable, 

 but it happily does not fall into the German idiom. 



We note Jost's lame excuse for retaining assimilation instead of adopting 

 photosynthesis, pleading bad examples and the lack of a correlative term to apply 

 to "nitrogen assimilation." A little boldness, pardonable in a leader, would have 

 set aside the examples of Ppeffer and Wiesxer, and a little ingenuity would 

 have de\ised a new term, if amide synthesis and proteid synthesis were not accept- 

 able. A bit more boldness in the translator would have at least harmonized the 

 typography of citations with the better style of the original, and not over- 

 much would have modernized it completely. Now it halts between the traditional 

 and the modern, losing much of the modest advance the author had made. 



In makeup the book follows the general style of the Clarendon Press classics. 

 The thicker but lighter paper, the solid type and slightly larger page, make a 

 bulkier book, actually larger by some 60,000 words, fall w^ithin the compass of 

 554 pages of text.as against 682 in the original. The rough -surfaced paper makes 

 impossible the proper printing of the delicate cuts of the German edition, the half- 

 tones especially being mere smudges. The figures should have been remade 

 for such paper. Yet we can almost forgive the blotchy cuts for the sake of the 

 dull surface and the agreeable lightness of the book. But the price, as usual, 

 goes away up — 21 to 24 shillings as against about 15 marks — and imported copies 

 at $7.75 will be ajmost too dear for general students. Yet it is well to have it 

 available in English even at the exorbitant price. — C. R. B. 



The morphology of plants 



Jos. Velenovsky^ has added to the lengthening list of general textbooks 



Every such work represents some characteristic point 



■rphology 



the older morphology tinctured 



4 VELENOVSKf , Jos., Verglcichende Morphologic der Pflanzen. Vols. I and II 

 PP- 73^* P^' 5- figs- 455- Prag: Fr. Rivnac. 1905 and 1907. 



