Reviews—Brief Notices. 129 
V.—Brier Notices. 
1. Sorts. oF Sourn Arrica.—Dr. C. F. Juritz, in his Presidential 
Address to Section 2 of the South African Association for the 
Advancement of Science, on September 29, 1909, has some pertinent 
remarks on this subject. After sketching the general lines of soil 
investigation, he states: ‘‘ We have not been able to do all this in the 
Cape Colony, because the entire work of investigating the Colony’s 
soils has always been allocated to one solitary man, and even then it 
has been subject to constant interruption.” He proceeds to point out 
what is done in the United States, and shows that the original staff of 
10 men (not one man) had, ten years after its establishment, increased 
to 127 men, including 83 scientists and soil experts, 13 tobacco 
experts, and 29 clerks and other employés, and still was found 
inadequate for one-half the demands made upon it for investigations 
along its special lines. Dr. Juritz, quoting the official publications, 
points out that extraordinary increases in land value have followed 
the work of the Bureau of Soils in the United States. Soils in the 
Connecticut Valley, which the Bureau showed were adapted for 
growing a superior tobacco, increased in value threefold. Trucking 
soils of the Atlantic seaboard have risen from 5 dollars an acre to 
200 dollars; rice lands of Louisiana from 5 to 50 dollars; and 
Florida patches, specially adapted for growing pine-apples, from 
nothing to over 500 dollars an acre. Upon these facts and many 
others Dr. Juritz comments: ‘‘Has not the time arrived for this 
important subject to be tackled in right earnest in our own South 
Africa instead of continuing merely to be toyed with?” 
2. Sorrs or Huneary.—For many years the study of the soils of 
Hungary has occupied a number of her best investigators, and in 
February last year the Royal Hungarian Geological Institute (Ilagyar 
kiralyi Féldtant Intezet) issued invitations for a Conference of Agro- 
geologists to meet in Budapest. This was, we believe, the first 
Agrogeological Congress, and the report of its deliberations is now 
before us as Comptes Fendus de la premiere Conférence Internationale 
Agrogéologique. The volume consists of 334 pages and has a soil map 
of Roumania with an inset map of the climatic zones of the same 
country. Sixty-nine pages are devoted to the reports of the meetings 
of the Congress, twenty to the excursions made to Hidegkut, Godollo, 
the Great Plain (Alfold), and to Lake Balaton; and the remainder of 
the volume is occupied by papers on various subjects as follows :— 
Soils of Kuropean and Asiatic Russia, by Glinka; Soils of Norway, by 
Bjorlykke ; Daily Weathering in the light of Colloidal Chemistry, by 
Cornu; What is Weathering? by Treitz; Climatic Zones of Soils, 
by Cholnoky; Special Exigences of Agriculture with regard to 
Analyses of Soils, by Leplae; Methods of Soil Analysis in the 
Prussian Survey, by Schucht; Agrogeological Maps, by Timko 
and Gill; Agronomical Work in Bohemia, by Kopecky; Chemical 
Analyses of Soils, by Emszt and Sigmond; The Kords Floods, by Uj ; 
Soda-holding Soils, by Sigmond; Ampelogeological Maps,.by Dicenty ; 
Lime-holding Soils, by Treitz; Mineral Soils, by Atterberg; Unifica- 
tion of Methods of Chemical Soil Analyses, by Hilgard; and the Soils 
of Roumania, by Murgoci. 
DECADE V.—YOL. VII.—NO. III. 9 
