I909 ] CURRENT LITERATURE 243 



justifiable from the standpoint of the student or of the subject. Obviously, the 

 author expects that by lectures or other reading and experimentation such inequal- 

 ities are to be corrected. 



One very helpful feature for the teacher is that various apparatus and methods 

 of conducting experiments are either described in full or are referred to, so that 

 they may be available. In most cases, however, it will be found that the method 

 adopted in the book is clearly the most suitable for the elementary student, taking 

 all things into consideration. 



Much of the " normal apparatus," devised by Professor Ganong and now 

 put upon the market, is highly convenient and useful. In some cases, however, 

 it is doubtful whether the game is worth the candle, e. g., in the quantitative deter- 



limited 



time of the student. 



guide 



from the point of view of convenience, training, and knowledge acquired, the 



experiments 



attention is paid to the various topics. On these matters each teacher will have 



form his own 



rm 



factors 



possible 



But 

 ill 



*e fancy there will be small disagreement with the statement that no one wi 

 fail to find this book of the greatest service in conducting elementary courses 

 even if he hesitates to adopt it formally as a laboratory manual; and for that pur 

 P * it is, in many respects, far and away the best that has appeared in an) 

 language.— C. R. B. 



MINOR NOTICES 



known 



Javanese fresh-water algae.— Various works have contributed to makt 

 fte algal flora of Java, of which the nearly simultaneous ones by de Wildemax 



and by Gutwinski are best known and most comprehensive. Bernard, 

 n <* a professed phycologist and modestly decrying the value of his work, adds 

 y ery materially to the knowledge of the Protococcaceae and Desmidiaceae, m a 

 jather voluminous paper published by the Department of Agriculture of the Dutch 

 Indl es.> Beginning the work of collecting almost accidentally, the beauty and 

 Merest of the unicellular forms and the necessity of examining them in the living 

 condition determined his study of them. In an introduction (45 PP-) the author ' 

 ™er giving briefly the history, bibliography, methods of study and collection, and 

 "* peculiarities of the localities explored, discusses the variations, adaptations^ 

 and Cosn >opolitanism of certain forms, states his attitude on nomenclature and 

 ** fcrth in tabular statistical form the various contributions to his subject. 

 TOm this * appears that there are now known 230 species and varieties of these 



'Be*n ard> Ch> Protococcac6es et Desm idiacees d'eau douce, recokee s a Java 

 « *cmes par C. B. I mp . 8vo . pp . 2 «; . pis. 16. Batavia: Landsdrukkenj. 1908. 



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