Sept. 6, 1877] 



NATURE 



395 



SCIENCE IN THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC 

 The Argentine Republic. Written in German by Richard 

 Napp, assisted by several Fellow-writers, for the 

 Central Argentine Commission on the Centenary 

 Exhibition at Philadelphia. With several maps. 

 (Buenos Ayres, 1876.) 

 Physikalische Beschreibung der argentinischen Republik, 

 iiach eigenen nnd den vorhandene7i fremden Beo- 



,' bachtiin^ett en/uvrfen. Von Dr. Hermann Burmeister. 



/ Erster Band : die Geschichte der Entdeckung und die 



geographische Skizze des Landes enthaltend. (Buenos 

 Aires, 1875.) 



^/ Acta de la Acadeniia Nacional de Ciencias Exactas exis- 

 tente en la Uni^tersidad de Cordova. Tomo I. (Buenos 

 Aires, 1875.) 

 Los Cabal las Fosiles de la Pampa Ari^entina. Descriptos 

 por Dr. Hermann Burmeister, Director del Museo Pub- 

 lico de Buenos Aires. Obra ejecutada por drden del 

 Superior Gobierno de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, 

 para ser presentada en la Exposicion de Filadelfia. 

 Con viii. Ldminas Litografiadas. (Buenos Aires, 1875.) 



ON several previous occasions ^ we have alluded to the 

 excellent work in science accompUshed by Prof- 

 Burmeister, or under his supervision, since that eminent 

 German naturalist took up his residence in the Argentine 

 Republic. A batch of books, which has now, we regret 

 to say, been lying before us for some time, testifies to his 

 unabated activity in the good cause, and requires a (ew 

 vi-ords of acknowledgment and explanation. The first of 

 these, originally written in German by Richard Napp, but 

 translated for the benefit of the Anglo-Americans, gives a 

 general physical and commercial account of the Argen- 

 tine Republic, prepared on the occasion of the Centenary 

 Exhibition at Philadelphia. It is, of course, rather super- 

 ficial, as is usually the case with such essays, but contains 

 a good deal of information, and will be useful to the many 

 Angl^'-Saxons who are now settling in various parts of the 

 country of which it treats. 



Next we have the first volume of a complete physical 

 description of the Argentine Republic, by Dr. Burmeister 

 himself, which when finished will, as we understand from 

 the introduction, contain a much more complete account 

 of this extensive territory and its products than any work 

 that has yet appeared. The present portion of it gives us 

 the history of the discovery of the country and an account 

 of its physical geography. Subsequent volumes will con- 

 tain a general resnme of its natural history and geology. 

 A French edition as well as a German will be issued, and 

 a folio atlas will contain the necessary illustrations. 



The third work on our list is the first volume of the 

 "Acta" of the National Academy of Sciences of Cor- 

 dova, which, as we have explained to our readers on 

 former occasions, has been recently re- constituted under 

 Dr. Burmeister's directorship. It contains contributions 

 to science by some of the members of the new profes- 

 soriate, the organisation of which has caused our excel- 

 lent friend so much embarrassment. Dr. Stelzner and 

 Dr. Brachebusch treat of various points in the geology 

 and mineralogy of the Argentine Republic. Dr. D. C. 

 Perg contributes an essay on the Lepidoptera of Pata- 



ATURK, vol. iil. p 2S2 ; vol. vii. p. 240"; and vol. xii. p. 145. 



gonia, based upon collections made during an excursion 

 to that country in 1874. 



Lastly, we have an excellent memoir by Dr. Bur- 

 meister on the Fossil Horses of the Pampas formation 

 written in Spanish and German, and prepared, as it 

 appears, on the occasion of the International Exhibition 

 of Philadelphia. Eight well-executed lithographic plates 

 illustrate this important work, which is executed in the 

 same style as other excellent essays of the indefatigable 

 author that we have already noticed on former occasions. 

 An Appendix contains a complete list of the mammals of 

 the Quaternary Pampian formation, remains of which are 

 contained in the Public Museum of Buenos Ayres. From 

 this it appears that between fifty and sixty species are 

 represented more or less perfectly in this unparalleled 

 series, amongst which are many specimens that, in spite 

 of the richness of our own paljeontological collections, 

 might well excite the envy of Prof. Owen and Mr. 

 Waterhouse. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Part 

 in. — Report of the Commission for 1873-74 and 

 1874-75. (Washington Government Printing-office, 

 1876.) 

 This volume is quite as interesting as any of those which 

 have preceded it, whilst the amount of reliable information 

 it brings to a focus, not only regarding the fish and 

 fisheries of the United States, but of the fisheries of 

 Gieat Britain, Sweden, Prussia, Holland, France, and 

 Russia, is remarkable ; nor are the historical observa- 

 tions on the condition of the fisheries among the ancient 

 Greeks and Romans, and on their modes of salting and 

 pickling fish less interesting. The volume is throughout 

 so rich in statistics and details of piscicultural labour that 

 we feel embarrassed as to what part of it to notice first ; 

 to give a detailed account of the contents is simply 

 impossible in anything like the space we can afford. As 

 readers of Nature may be aware, the present volume is 

 one of a series having for its object an exposition of the 

 present state of the American fisheries, and in particulur 

 showing the extent to which the seas and waters of the 

 United States have been over-fished, and how far the 

 systems of artificial fish culture at present in vogue 

 provide a remedy for the reckless spoliation of the waters 

 which has been going on for the last twenty years. 

 Familiar as we are with the figures of fish-culture, so far 

 as they are locally applicable to British enterprise, and 

 whether in respect of oysters or salmon, any details we can 

 give are utterly dwarfed by the fabulous-looking figures 

 applicable to what has been achieved in America. The 

 young salmon which have been thrown into the River Tay 

 from the Stormontfield hatching-ponds since the beginning 

 of the experiments in 1853 up to the present time, will not 

 be equal to the operations of one season on the Upper 

 Sacramento; in 1875 the salmon eggs collected numbered 

 1 1,000,000, making a bulk of eighty bushels, and weighing 

 nearly ten tons ! 1 hese eggs, so carefully packed that 

 only a small percentage was wasted, have been largely 

 distributed over America, and will doubtless ultimately 

 add largely to the fish supply of the United States. 



Another fish which has been subjected to the mani- 

 pulations of the pisciculturists on a positively gigantic 

 scale IS the shad, Alosa sapidissiina, and the fish locally 

 known as the " alewife," Fomolobiis pseiido-liarengus. 

 These fishes were at one time (forty years since) exceed- 

 ingly abundant in the Potomac river, so much so that as 

 many as 22,500,000 shad and 750,000,000 alewife were 

 captured in six weeks' time. Only a small percentage of 



