June 29, 1905] 



NA TURE 



197 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Riding and Drhiiii;. (American Sportsman's 



Library.) By E. L. Anderson and P. Collier. Pp. 

 xiii + 441; illustrated. (New York: The Macmillan 

 Company; London; Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 

 K)05.) Price Si. 6rf. net. 

 1 \ almost all books on subjects connected with 

 animals there is a growing tendency at the present 

 day to introduce something concerning the natural 

 history of the species under consideration. Too often 

 in this country such remarks betray an insufficient 

 knowledge of zoological science on the part of the 

 writer, but this failing is seldom noticeable in 

 American works. In the present volume, truth to 

 say, there is some matter for criticism in Mr. Collier's 

 remarks on the origin of the horse on p. i6g, more 

 especially in regard to the sense given to that much 

 abused word "prehistoric." On the other hand, the 

 author furnishes some very interesting information 

 with regard to the early history of the European 

 horse in .\merica. In the first place he refuses to 

 credit the theory that the horses seen by Cabot in 

 La Plata in 1530 were indigenous. Secondly, he 

 shows that the horses which have run wild in Mexico 

 and South America are the descendants of Spanish 

 barbs, and therefore of the same blood as the English 

 thoroughbred. This is very important in view of a 

 fact recently communicated to the present writer by 

 Mr. Yearsley, the well known surgeon, nameh', that 

 an .Argentine horse living some years ago had a 

 functional "larmier," or tear-gland, on each side of 

 the face. 



To review the work before us from its own special 

 point of view would obviouslv be out of place in this 

 Journal, and it must therefore suffice to say that it 

 appears, so far as we are capable of judging, to 

 maintain the high standard of excellence set in the 

 earlier volumes of the same series. Riding falls to 

 the lot of the first-named of the two authors, while 

 Mr. Collier is responsible for the section on driving. 

 The numerous reproductions from photographs are 

 almost life-like in their sharpness and definition, 

 although it must be confessed that some of them do 

 not convey by any means a pleasing idea of the 

 manners and disposition of the American saddle- 

 horse. R. L. 



Der Oeschineii.'iee im Berner ObrrlanJ. By Max 



GroU. Pp. vi + 78; illustrated. (Bern: Haller'sche 



Buchdruckerei, 1904.) 

 This pamphlet, an extract from the nineteenth 

 volume of the Berne Geographical Society, is the 

 result of a careful study of the Oeschinensee at 

 intervals from 1901 to 1903. Nestling at the foot of 

 the limestone precipices of the Blumlisalp group, 

 about 5200 feet above sea-level, and reflecting like 

 a mirror the snows of their highest peaks, its 

 romantic beauty makes it a favourite resort of visitors 

 to Kandersteg, on the northern side of the Gemmi 

 Pass. 



Herr Max GroJl's memoir is a valuable contri- 

 bution to physical geography. After some pre- 

 liminary information about the position and surround- 

 ings of the lake, which lies roughly along the strike 

 of Eocene and Cretaceous limestones, and about 

 other matters of a topographical character, he de- 

 scribes its banks and basin, its dimensions and 

 contents, its variations in level, the transparency, 

 colour, and temperature of its waters, the amount 

 of mud yearly deposited, and adds a note on the 

 literature. 



Of these topics, the form of its basin is, perhaps, of 

 most general intere^t, and of that Herr Groll gives 



NO. 1 86 1, VOL. 72] 



an excellent map and sections plotted from numerous 

 soundings. Its dimensions, of course, vary somewhat 

 with the season, the greatest length and breadth (in 

 summer) being 1750 and 950 metres, when its greatest 

 depth is 56.6 metres ; in winter it is about 200 metres 

 less one way and 100 metres the other, and shallower 

 by 15 metres. Under the former conditions its cubical 

 content is estimated to be forty million metres. Its 

 bed deepens at first rather rapidly, a circular diagram 

 of the progressive depth reminding us of an ordinary 

 dinner plate. The ring in which the drop is from 

 o to 50 metres is barely an inch wide ; the radius of 

 the remainder, which nowhere attains 57 metres, is 

 almost an inch and a half, or, on a rough estimate, 

 about half the lake bed is not less than 50 metres 

 deep. The shallowing is rather more gentle on the 

 western than on the eastern or Blumlisalp side. Near 

 the middle part of this, the 50-metre contour conies 

 rather near the cliffs, those less than 30 metres being 

 closely crowded. This would be yet more con- 

 spicuous but for a fan of debris at the south-east 

 angle. The lake, in fact, lies in a kind of corrie 

 at the head of a mountain glen, and it is held up by 

 a natural dam which has been formed by bergfalls 

 from the rocky spurs about a mile below the cliffs at 

 its head. Thus its history is to a considerable extent 

 par llel with that of the Lago d'Alleghe, near Caprile, 

 in the Dolomites. 



Manual of the Trees of North America (exclusive of 



Mexico). By C. S. Sargent. Pp. xxiii + S26. 



(Boston and New York : Houghton, Mitflin and 



Co., 1905.) Price 6 dollars. 

 The manual under notice embodies the most recent, 

 exhaustive, and detailed account of the trees of North 

 .America (exclusive of Mexico). It cannot fail to be 

 of the greatest value to students of botany and 

 forestry, as it brings into available form all the in- 

 formation concerning the trees of North .\merica 

 which has been gathered at the Arnold Arboretum 

 during the last thirty years. As the author points 

 out in the preface, there is probably no other region 

 of equal extent where the indigenous trees are so 

 well known as those of North America, but in spite 

 of this fact much investigation yet remains to be 

 done as regards their sylvicultural requirements, and 

 also the diseases to which they may be liable. 



The object of this volume is to stimulate further 

 inquiry into the cultivation requirements and diseases 

 of forest trees. The classification adopted is that of 

 Engler and Prantl's " Die naturlichen Pflanzen- 

 familien." .At the beginning of the book a synopsis 

 of the families of the plants described is given. This 

 is followed by a very useful analytical key to the 

 families based on the arrangement and character of 

 the leaves, which will enable the student readily to 

 determine the family to which any North .American 

 tree belongs. In the text a full description of each 

 family is given, and also a conspectus of the genera 

 based on their more salient and easily made out con- 

 trasting differences. L'nder each genus a similar 

 conspectus of the species is given by which the exact 

 name of the tree may be finally determined. 



The frontispiece consists of a map of North .America 

 showine- the eight principal regions of arborescent 

 vegetation, each of which is indicated by a letter, and 

 in "the conspectus above referred to a letter occurs 

 after the name of each species, thus indicating the 

 region in which the tree grows. This is a further aid 

 in determining any given species provided the region 

 from which it comes is already known. 



A valuable feature of the book is the numerous 

 illustrations, which number between six and seven 

 hundred, from drawings by Mr. Faxon. 



