BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 217> 
testify. But it is meant to call attention to the fact that the pendulum has 
swung farther away from the old side than it can stay, and that a study of bot- 
any must include the systematic phase. Whether a class should begin with 
Gray’s text-books and Manual, and then follow Bessey, or begin with pro- 
. and then 
study classification, is for the individual teacher to decide, and is as often a 
question of convenience as anything else. The point is that both kinds of work 
should be done. If the time allotted to such work is comparatively short, the 
very best method is to combine thetwo, and beginning with Protococcus, lettypes 
of classification and of siructure advance with equal step. e writer is not 
sure but that this is the best way to begin the study of botany at any rate, as it 
surely results in a broader, more comprehensive view of plants than either of 
the other methods alone. But for convenience of application, as well as a 
ny h 
always will hold, a very important place. Of course it becomes disastrous 
when the impression is left that all of a plant is its name, just as it would be if 
the examination of some dozen types should lead to the conclusion that all 
plant structures had been studied. : 
R. Orcurr has begun the publication of a scientific paper at San Diego, 
California, entitled The West-American Scientist, and is meant to be “a popular 
review and record for the Pacific coast.” It is a four-page octavo, issued 
monthly, and costs fifty cents a year. : 
Iv Is REMARKABLE what an amount of material can be collected with ret- 
ference to a single plant. The last number (No. 4) of the quarterly Drugs 
edicines of North America continues the subject of Hydrastis Canadensis, and the 
“next number will pursue it still farther. 
_ THE pouBr THROWN upon Koch’s cholera bacillus by the work of Finkler 
and Pryor has been completely dispelled by Koch himself, who not only con- 
Victs his critics of cultures that are not pure, but also has readily produced 
cholera by the inoculation of a solution of a pure culture, even in so small an 
“amount as .01 of a drop. Koch’s results have been amply confirmed also by 
- von Ermengen, and the so-called cholera bacillus and cholera seem bound 
together by ties that can not be broken. 
I? HAs GENERALLY been supposed by biologists that a distinct department 
of “ Microscopy ” had about as good a right to exist as a department of razors 
or sewing-machines. And this is true when taken as such a department is 
sometimes conducted ; but an biologist reading Dr. Whitman’s note in the 
January American Naturalist will discover that he wants to keep his eye on that 
department as Dr. Whitman proposes to conduct.it or he will miss something 
he ought to know. When “ microscopy ” becomes less subjective and more ob- 
Jective, biologists had better prick up their ears. 
