REVIEWS 243 
IX.-XV. From the Trias, Bassani describes eleven species, represent- 
ing eight genera, and five families. 
The most important memoir of the volume is that of Vinassa de 
Regny, “Synopsis dei molluschi terziari delle Alpi venete, Parte 
prima; Strati con Velates Schmiedeliana,” pp. 210-275, Plates XVI., 
XVIII. Heretofore papers on Italian Tertiary geology have been 
badly scattered and hard to get at, but de Regny’s memoir will help to 
remove this difficulty by republishing in accessible form many obscure 
figures and descriptions. 
All the papers in Volume I. of the Palgontographia /talica are well 
indexed, and have copious bibliographic lists appended, an example 
that other paleontological publications might well follow. J. P.S. 
The Soil; its Nature, Relations, and Fundamental Principles of 
Management. Pp. xv.+ 303, illustrated. By F. H. Kine. 
New York, 1895. . 
This little book was written for students of agriculture, but it con- 
tains so much of interest to students of geology that we give it room here. 
The distinctly geological matter in the volume is well chosen, and 
the geological illustrations are all helpful and to the point. The fol- 
lowing topics are of especial interest to geologists: origin of soils, 
methods of rock disintegration, sediments moved by streams, work of 
rain, composition of soils, nitrogen of the soil, capillarity, solution and 
osmosis, soil water, distribution of roots in the soil, relations of air to soil. 
One of the commendable virtues of the book is the simplicity of 
the writer’s style: complex problems of chemistry, physics, geology, 
and botany are all dealt with in the simplest manner possible. There 
is no laborious argumentation to bewilder the new student. The 
occasional dropping into poetry will strike the critical as rather over- 
doing the matter perhaps, but there is nothing to detract from the 
dignity of the subject under consideration. 
It is to be hoped that the author of this valuable little book will soon 
give the world the benefit of his more technical knowledge of the physics 
and chemistry of soils expressed in his clear, easy style, and accompanied 
with the references needed by advance students and investigators. 
Aside from the value such a work may have for agriculture, it will 
aid geologists to understand the work of water and acids in the altera- 
tion of minerals and rocks, the agencies of rock decomposition and 
the formation and modification of many ore deposits. Jo (Co te 
