532 



NA TURE 



[Oct. 7, iSSo 



through want of time or the requisite ability, to extend 

 their reading into the more recondite parts discussed by 

 the above-named writers. As a proof that Mr. Aldis's 

 labours have been appreciated, we need only say that this 

 edition, improved by the addition of hints for the solution 

 of some of the examples, is the third. 



FaDiiliar Wild Flowers : Figured and described by F. 



Edward Hulme. 2nd Series. With Coloured Plates. 



(London : Cassell, Fetter, Galpin, and Co.) 

 We have already called attention to the appearance of 

 the first volume of this series, and of the second we can 

 speak in equally favourable terms. In selecting for 

 illustration a hundred of our familiar wild flowers, all 

 chosen in some way for their beauty, a certain amount of 

 arbitrariness must be allowed ; but in the present instance 

 very little complaint will be made on this head by the 

 majority of readers. The coloured lithographs are some- 

 what unequal in excellence, but, as a rule, are extremely 

 good. The book is one well adapted to awaken or to 

 foster in young people a love of the floral beauties of our 

 fields and hedges, woods and ditches. 



A New and Easy Method of Studyi7ig British Wild 

 Flowers by Natural Analysis. By Frederick A. Messer. 

 (London: D. Bogue, i88o.) 

 This work indicates a very large amount of labour on the 

 part of the author ; whether the labour has been alto- 

 gether well applied is another question. For the field 

 botanist whose sole object is to determine the name of a 

 wild flower it will no doubt be useful in assisting him to 

 make out at least the order and genus, for beyond this it 

 does not pretend to go. No botanist will be disposed to 

 depreciate the value of field botany and of the study of 

 critical species, which often leads to further study of some 

 of the great questions connected with the life of plants. 

 There is no doubt that species-botany had been exalted 

 a quarter of a century ago to a far too prominent place 

 by English workers, and had been much too exclusively fol- 

 lowed, to the disregard of morphological and especially of 

 physiological work. The inevitable reaction has set in, 

 and is now perhaps at its height, when the number of 

 botanists who have an accurate acquaintance with our 

 British flora is extremely small. As an introductory work 

 for those who are desirous of increasing this number, Mr. 

 Messer's book may be recommended, always provided 

 that the student does not imagine that it will materially 

 help him in his study of the structural and genetic affi- 

 nities of the diff'erent families of plants. The graphic 

 illustrations are novel in design, and will no doubt help 

 to impress the meaning of the technical terms on the 

 beginner. Some few errors should not have been allowed 

 to pass in a work bearing the date of the present year. 

 Among these is the reference of Selaginella selaoinoides 

 to the genus Lycopodium, and the complete suppression of 

 Selaginellacese as a British order of vascular cryptogams. 



Manual of the Indigenous Grasses of N^ew Zcala?id. By 

 John Buchanan, F.L.S. (Wellington: James Hughes, 

 i8So.) 

 This is one of those excellent manuals emanating from 

 the Colonial Museum and Geological Survey Department 

 of New Zealand under the admirable direction of Dr. 

 Hector. The work is a reproduction in a handy form of 

 the folio work ordered by the New Zealand Government 

 in 1S76, to be prepared "with nature-printed plates and 

 descriptions of each species, and to be accompanied by 

 an essay on the grasses and forage plants likely to prove 

 useful in New Zealand." This explanation is extracted 

 from the preface of the book before us, which preface has 

 been written by Dr. Hector himself. We also learn from 

 the same source that "the whole of the illustrations of 

 the large edition were drawn from nature by Mr. John 

 Buchanan. . . . The condition imposed — that the plates 

 should be nature printed — rendered it necessary in the 



first instance to publish the work in folio, but, as this 

 large size is both inconvenient and costly, only a small 

 edition has been issued, and the present handy volume 

 has been printed for more general distribution. The 

 plates now given — sixty-four in number, and including 

 eighty-seven different species and varieties of grasses — 

 are reductions by the process of photo-lithography from 

 the original folio plates, and depict the grasses as of one 

 half the natural size of the original specimens." 



There can be no doubt but that the book will be very 

 valuable, not only to the botanist, but also to those who 

 wish to know all about New Zealand grasses for their 

 utility for fodder or for other jDurposes. The plan 

 adopted in the book is to give under each genus a brief 

 generic description and general distribution over the 

 world, the names of the countries being given in capitals, 

 so that they catch the eye at once ; this is followed by 

 the etymology of the generic name. The species are 

 tlien separately enumerated, the generic and specific 

 names standing first, followed by the common name, 

 reference to the plate, synonyms, habit of the plant, 

 time of flowering, specific description and distribution of 

 the particular species, after which is a good account of 

 the properties and uses of the grass, and a detailed 

 reference to the figures. The book is extremely well 

 printed, the plates are well done, and there are two 

 capital indices, the first to genera and species, and the 

 second to popular names. John R. Jackson 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, or 

 to correspoitd with the writers op, rejected mamiscripts. No 

 notice is taken of anonymous communications. ^ 



[ The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters as 

 short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great that it 

 is impossible otherwise to ensure the appearance even of com- 

 munications containing interesting and novel facts. '\ 



Geological Climates 



In Nature, vol. xxii. p. 2ooet s^j., there occurs an important 

 statement by Mr. J. Starkie Gardner, to the effect that fossil 

 remains not distinguishable from Araucaria Cunninghami had 

 been found among the Eocene plant beds of Bournemouth, in the 

 touth of England. 



After reading Mr. Gardner's paper, I availed myself of an 

 opportunity of studying the leaflets of the living and dead speci- 

 mens of this species of Araucaiia in the Kew Gardens, in- 

 cluding the original specimens in the Herbarium named by 

 Mr. Cunningham, and agree with Mr. Gaidner as to the difficulty 

 of separating the A. Cunninghami from the Sequoias by leaflets 

 alone when in the fossil condition. 



.Assuming Mr. Gardner's conclusion to be true, viz., that the 

 Eocene Bournemouth tree was identical, or nearly so, with the 

 living A. Cunninghami, a question arises as to climate which will 

 prove insoluble to geologists of the school of Lyell and his 

 followers, who assume that all physical causes during geological 

 time have been pretty much the same as at the present time and 

 times immediately preceding the present. 



The Moreton Bay Pine (A. Cunninghami) is found, as the 

 name imports, on the shores of Moreton Bay, on the east coast 

 of Australia, and has a range of 900 miles, from 14° S. lat. to 

 29" 30' S. lat. along that coast. It does not extend more than 

 eighty miles inland, where, instead of being 130 feet in height, 

 which it is on the coast, it becomes a dwarf tree, and farther in- 

 land it entirely disappears. 



Tills tree therefore becomes a most delicate self-registering 

 thermometer, indicating to us precisely (after the well-known 

 manner of plants) the exact conditions of the Eocene climate 

 that existed in Bournemouth during the earlier Tertiary period. 

 I i^ropose to examine the evidence given by this thermometer, 

 and to invite my uniformitarian friends to explain how this 

 evidence can exist in conformity with their views. 



Tlie climate of the northern limit of tlie Moreton E.ay Pine is 

 as follows (as regards heat) : — 



Mean (January), 

 82°-o F. 



Mean Quly). 



7i°-o F. 



Mean (Annual). 



76°.5 F. 



