176 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [AUGUST 
Text-book of general botany. 
ANOTHER work on general botany, of moderate size, and of a grade for 
use in colleges, has been provided for English students by the translation of 
Westermaier’s recent volume. The translation has been made by Dr, Albert 
Schneider,? and with the exception of occasional aberrations in the use of 
shall and wil/, and some remnants of Teutonic phrases, it is acceptably done. 
There are two reasons why this work is likely to meet with favor from 
a number of teachers. In the first place it intimately combines physi 
ology with morphology and at every step inquires what use the particular 
cell, tissue, or organ serves. And then it comes from a new source, being 
dominated by the views of Schwendener and Nageli, while our text-books 
heretofore for the most part have represented the views of Sachs and his 
followers. 
The work is of a suitable size for text-book use, but is not to be put into 
the hands of novices in botany. For students who have passed the rudi- 
ments of the science, and who know something of chemistry and physics, 
and of the current theories of descent, it will prove serviceable, and, more 
over, will be more than ordinarily suggestive and inspiring. 
The work is not large, but inclines to be compendious, and this has 
necessarily led to condensing weighty matters into such brief compass = 
many statements will prove barely intelligible to the ordinary student pee 
expounded by a teacher. 
tures of it . 
author has failed many times to present the latest and most appt 
upon disputed or recently settled topics, especially when such vi 
Opposition to those of the school to which the author belongs. A 
. 
theories, and no attempt to outline them or name the investigators: 
of course, afford to be a little charitable when the author insists sie " 
own imperfect views regarding the rise of sap iu plants, and gd 
curiosity to know just to whom or what he refers when he says that “1 
to this question many authors hold erroneous opinions ;" but 2€ 
enlighten us. 
; The trouble which the author takes to show his opposition to the P 
views in evolution seem strange in such a work, and does not heighten 
appreciation of it. There are many out of date points of view and 
2 
WESTERMAIER, MAx.—A compendium of general botany: 
Albert Schneider. 8yo, pp. 299. figs. 171. New York: John Wiley and _ 
00, : 
