Jan. 20, 1881] 



NA TURE 



263 



themselves. Where hundreds go in an evening for books 

 it is impracticable to allow them access to the shelves of 

 the library to select them ; while in an ordinary bare list 

 of titles it is impossible for them to judge which book in 

 a column will be found the one most to their require- 

 ments. 



Like Dr. Billings, our Newcastle librarian has fully 

 worked out a most important branch of a subject-catalogue. 

 Magazine literature in these days has become far too im- 

 portantto be treated byeither a thrifty librarian or an inquir- 

 ing student as "fugitive" and "ephemera!.'' All the newest 

 science now appears first in journals, and all leaders of 

 thought give their first expression of it in magazines and 

 reviews. In this new catalogue therefore we are much 

 pleased to see that not only is each volume of all important 

 periodicals entered separately with its list of articles, but, 

 as we have said, under the head of each subject a reference 

 is given to all of such articles as bear upon it. By this 

 means students who have read a standard work published 

 a few years ago upon any subject will be not only guided 

 but stimulated into reading the latest researches or 

 theories which these publications contain. It is perhaps 

 going beyond our subject, but we cannot help noticing 

 how convenient for this important purpose a card-catalogue 

 at a library is ; in which cards containing the subject of 

 each article down to the last number of all the magazines 

 have been dropped into their places. Such an arrarge- 

 ment would make many students feel a printed catalogue 

 to be ancient by the time it was published. 



The selection of books as a whole is admirable — though 

 of course few selections have been made under such 

 favourable circumstances. We are rather surprised in so 

 large a list to note the absence of books like Boyd 

 Dawkins's " Cave-Hunting" and "Early Man in Britain," 

 Clifford's " Lectures and Essays," Croll's " Climate and 

 Time," Moseley's " Naturalist on board the Challenger" 

 and Sir Wyville Thomson's book ; Hreckel's " Histo'ry of 

 Creation" and "Evolution of Man"; Schliemann's "Troy" 

 and Cesnola's " Cyprus" ; Wallace's " Geographical Dis- 

 tribution of Animals,' &c. And if some of these are so 

 costly as to be confined to the Reference Library, as is 

 probably the case here, still we are sorry to miss Wallace's 

 "Tropical Nature," and R. Jefferies ("The Gamekeeper 

 at Home") with his series of books teaching men to open 

 their eyes as they move about the fields and lanes. 



The printing is a credit to both printer and editor. It 

 is almost as funny as the " Ingoldsby Legends " to read 

 " Life and Remains of Dean Hook," by Barham ! but it 

 is plainly a slip, and the smallest errors are very scattered. 

 The Rules and Regulations are clumsy to enforce, which 

 indeed will probably not be attempted, at any rate for 

 long. The annoyance of having to get a guarantor prac- 

 tically shuts out many whose hitherto idle life might have 

 taken a fresh start if books had been put into their hands 

 freely. We have been very pleased to see that several 

 large libraries have done away with this irritating system 

 without any loss of property, and it seems a step back- 

 wards when a new institution like this starts with more 

 rigid and inconvenient rules than many others. Indicators 

 are capital things in libraries to which each reader goes 

 for his own book as at a university, but only very few of 

 the hundreds who exchange books every night at a 

 flourishing Free Library are at all able to work with 



them. Children are the usual messengers, not high 

 enough to consult an Indicator of 20,000 volumes. It is 

 an unmerciful rule that borrowers should return their 

 books personally, and a downright unreasonable one that 

 every book must be returned in a fortnight (Rule 17), NOT 

 to be re-issued the same day (Rule 16), although we are 

 told (p. vi.) that three-volume works are issued complete. 

 Few Free Library readers can get through 600 or 800 

 pages in a fortnight. And surely it was not necessary to 

 threaten each person who consults the catalogue with 

 imprisonment with ■whipping if he defaces a book ! It 

 may be necessary to make such Draconian laws, but they 

 should be brought forward to intimidate gross offenders, 

 not flourished in the face of all whom we wish to attract. 

 Such severe rules repel sensitive people, while from their 

 very familiarity they lose their effect on the careless. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



Botanische Jcihrbiicher fiir Systematik Pflanzengeschichte 

 tind PJlanzengcographie. Herausgegeben von A. Engler. 

 Erster Band, zw'eites Heft. (Leipzig : Wilhelm Engel- 

 mann, 1880.) 

 This part includes four papers. The first is by W. 0. 

 Focke, on the natural divisions and geographical distri- 

 bution of the genus Rubus. The characters chiefly 

 discussed are : — i. Mode of growth or habit. 2. Forms 

 of leaf which are very numerous : the duration of the 

 leaf being also variable. 3. Characters derived from the 

 stipules, which are considered of great value. 4. In- 

 florescence ; and 5. the Structure of the flower. The 

 number and size of the parts of the calyx and corolla vary, 

 as also the colour of the corolla. The stamens vary in 

 closely allied species, and while most of the species are 

 hermaphrodite, some are unisexual. The structure of the 

 gyncecium is very varied, the number of carpels being 

 five or six in some, as in R. dalibai da, or ahove 100, as 

 in R. rosafolius. The hairs (trichomes) on the different 

 parts of the plant are very numerous and remarkable for 

 the variety of structure shown ; no other group, except 

 perhaps some Solanaces, approaching the Rubi in this 

 particular. In regard to the geographical distribution 

 the most important points are : — i. The characteristic 

 difference in the Rubi of Eastern Asia and Europe. 2. 

 The predominance of European forms in the Atlantic, 

 and of East Asian forms on the Pacific side of America. 

 3. The occurrence of south Chinese and north Indian 

 types in Mexico and Peru. These peculiarities Focke 

 would explain on geological grounds. 



The second paper is by Franz Buchenau on the distri- 

 bution of Junraceai over the world. The author gives a 

 complete list of the species of the genera Juncus : Luzula, 

 Rostkovia, Marsippospennum, Oxychloe, Distichia, and 

 Prionium, and a table showing their distribution into 

 regions nearly corresponding to those of Grisebach. 



Koehne, in the third paper, gives the first portion of a 

 monograph of the Lythraceffi, including a key to twenty- 

 one genera. He admits and then describes thirty-one 

 species with numerous varieties of Rotala (Ammania, 

 Linn., Bentb., and Hooker). 



The last paper is by Engler. Contributions to the 

 knowledge of the Araceae, in which he describes some 

 new Aracere from the Indian Archipelago and Mada- 

 gascar, and also directs attention to the cultivation of 

 Zamioculcas Loddioesii from the detached leaflets of the 

 remarkable pinnate leaf of the plant. A sweUing occurs 

 at the base of the leaflet, and in a few days a small tuber 

 is produced which develops two buds, below each of which 

 roots are formed. The plant has been propagated in this 

 way by Herr Hild of the Kiel Botanic Garden. 



