1906] CURRENT LITERATURE 61 
Discontinuous variation and mutation are treated in three lectures, and the 
six remaining lectures trace the history of the evolution idea from ARISTOTLE to 
Darwin, the last lecture being devoted to the life of the latter. 
A treatise on contemporaneous science is fraught with the same difficulties 
as attend the writing of contemporaneous history. A just estimate of the impor- 
tance of the latest developments in either case only becomes possible in the light 
of subsequent development, and consequently a book of this kind might be 
expected to have a very evanescent value. Lorsy has avoided very much of 
this by taking a judicial attitude and treating his subject historically. He has 
depended to a very large extent upon quotations from the various scientists whose 
views or results he has presented, and this gives the reader something of the 
unpleasant sensation always given by a so-called “digest;” but his choice of 
quotations is good and his own language is simple and direct, and therefore 
easily followed. - 
A second volume is promised, in which is to be indicated the work still to 
be done, and this will be awaited with much interest, for it will be here that we 
may hope to gain more of the personality of the author. The present volume 
is exceptionally impersonal, and both gains and loses by this fact. If the second 
volume takes on the strength and virility of personal enthusiasm which incites 
to investigation, the lack of such qualities in this first volume may not be looked 
upon asa disadvantage. But even if it should indicate in the same dispassionate 
manner that characterizes this book, the problems awaiting solution, he will 
deserve the gratitude of every biologist. While this book can not be said to jill 
the need that called it forth, it is gratifying that the first attempt at filling it is 
so excellent. As the first comprehensive work dealing with the more recent 
phases of evolutionary study it should at once gain a deservedly large circula- 
tion.—Grorce H. SHULL. 
Chemistry of plants. 
THE second volume of CzAPEK’s Biochemie der Pflanzen is a huge one,’ 
and deepens the impression made by the first volume of the immense labor 
which sucha compilation represents, and the equally immense service which the 
author has rendered to science in its preparation. For knowledge of the chem- 
istry of plants has lagged far behind that of animals, which, under the stimulus 
of human relations through medicine, has been under constant investigation 
by many students. 
his volume is devoted to (x) the proteids and their metabolism in various 
plants (bacteria and fungi, mosses, algae, seeds, buds, leaves, roots, pollen 
grains) including the formation, absorption, and regeneration of proteids by 
various parts and under various conditions; (2) the nitrogenous end produ: 
of metabolism, including purin bases, glucosides yielding HCN, and alkaloids; 
aay 
? CzaPEK, F., Biochemie der Pflanzen. Zweiter Band. 8vo. pp- xii +1027. 
Jena: Gustav Fischer. 1905. M 25. 7 
