﻿368 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [may 



The chapter on the natural history of the forest contains an interesting 

 discussion of the physical and biological relations of trees and forests. Other 

 general topics treated are sylviculture, forest economy, forest policy, forest 

 policies of foreign nations, forest conditions, and the forestry movement in 

 the United States. The book is not intended as a popular discussion, but to 

 supply a lack in the professional literature of economics in the English lan- 

 guage. It is interestingly written and embodies so much general knowledge 

 that it deserves to have a wide circulation. 



Under the general title Woody Bou 



many facts concerning both the scientific and commercial aspects of the 

 subject. In the first chapter the origin, structure, and development of wood 

 and the uses of wood are discussed. Then follows a comprehensive and 

 valuable key for the determination of woods. Of more than usual interest is 

 the treatment of the defects of woods, the selection, seasoning, storage, and 

 durability of woods, the application of special woods, and supplies of wood. 

 In part two is found an alphabetical list of woods, with facts concerning their 

 sources, character, and uses. — H, N. Whitford. 



MINOR NOTICES. 



Postelsia3 is a collection of seven botanical essays, four of which are 

 phycological in character. The first is the Uses of marine algae in Japan, by K. 

 Yendo. There are probably no people that make such extensive use of sea- 

 weeds as the Japanese. We are given a list of perhaps twenty-five forms that 

 have a place in the life, principally of the peasantry, some as staple foods and 

 others as delicacies, condiments, and decorative plants. There is even an 

 extensive export trade, chiefly with China, for laminaria and agar-agar, which 

 amounts to more than 30,000,000 lbs. a year. With each form is a brief 

 account of its uses and the paper is illustrated with three Japanese prints. 

 Algae collecting in the Hawaiian Islands, by Josephine E. Tilden, is a very 

 readable account of a summer spent among these islands, whose marine flora, 

 rich in green and red algae, presents the sharpest sort of contrast to the luxu- 

 riant brown algae of the Pacific coast. Yendo has a second paper entitled The 

 distribution of marine algae i?i Japan, He describes the varied ocean cur- 

 rents that bathe the Japanese archipelago and give to it such great extremes 

 of temperature that a sub-arctic marine flora may be found almost side by side 

 with a tropical. Japan with its bold shores and many bays and indentations 

 furnishes wonderful variations in conditions, and will prove a magnificent 

 field for a study of the factors that determine the distribution of algae. There 



"BouLGER, G. S., Wood, a manual of the natural history and industrial applica- 

 tion of the timber of commerce. 8vo. pp. viii-l-369, figs. 66. pis. 4. London: 

 Edward Arnold. 1902. $3.00. 



3POSTELSIA, The Year Book of the Minnesota Seaside Station. 1 901. 8vo. 

 pp. 220. pis. 26. St. Paul: The Pioneer Press. 1902. 



