418 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 950 



bergen." It covers the area bounded west- 

 wardly by Belgium and eastern France, south- 

 erly and easterly by Switzerland, Galacia and 

 central Russia, to the White Sea, Spitzbergen 

 and Iceland. It thus includes Germany, Bel- 

 gium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, 

 more than one half of Russia, besides parts of 

 Austria and France, and the islands men- 

 tioned. Yet in spite of the large area in- 

 cluded the book contains only 524 small oc- 

 tavo pages. It should serve as a good model 

 for our North American manuals. 



Miss Frederica Detmers has published her 

 dissertation for the doctorate, " An Ecological 

 Study of Buckeye Lake," as a contribution to 

 the phytogeography of Ohio, constituting a 

 pamphlet of 138 pages. This artificial lake, 

 a little more than seven miles long, and from 

 a quarter of a mile to a mile and a half in 

 width, was constructed eighty years or more 

 ago on the site of an impassable swamp. 

 Some interesting studies were made by Miss 

 Detmers, and these are recorded in her paper. 

 There is an annotated list of plants collected 

 in and about the lake, and a good bibli- 

 ography. 



The New Jersey Forest Park Reservation 

 Commission has issued a useful pamphlet en- 

 titled " The Planting and Care of Shade 

 Trees " which may interest botanists, and cer- 

 tainly vpill do so for those who are interested 

 in trees. The second half of the book is de- 

 voted to " Insects Injurious to Shade Trees," 

 by the state entomologist, J. B. Smith, and 

 " Diseases of Shade and Forest Trees," by the 

 state plant pathologist, M. T. Cook. Many 

 good " half-tone " reproductions of photo- 

 graphs add much to the value of the report. 



, Allied to the foregoing is the paper on 

 " Cultivation of Native Ornamental Plants," 

 by Miss Eloise Butler, in the October Minne- 

 sota Horticulturist. In it the author enthu- 

 siastically urges the use of a large number of 

 wild plants, listing them under the following 

 heads. Trees, Shrubs, Woody Vines, Herba- 

 ceous Vines, Shade Plants, Early Flowering 

 Herbs (chiefly shade plants). Flowering Herbs 



that will grow in Full Sun. On reading the 

 paper one is filled with a desire to make a 

 little wild garden in one's back yard. 



Here we may notice briefly Professor Henry 

 Kraemer's " Outlines of Courses in Botany, 

 Microscopy and Pharmacognosy " for phar- 

 macy students. The " first year's work " (bot- 

 any) as here outlined is one of the best we 

 have seen. 



A DOZEN years ago Professor Selby, of the 

 Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, pub- 

 lished a bulletin (No. 121) entitled " A Con- 

 densed Handbook of Diseases of Cultivated 

 Plants in Ohio," which proved to be so useful 

 that a demand sprang up for it all over the 

 country. Two years ago he published in 

 pamphlet form a revised and enlarged edition 

 (No. 214) under practically the same title, and 

 now we have a bound book with essentially the 

 same matter as the second edition but with 

 the title " Handbook of Diseases of Cultivated 

 Plants." This also is issued by the Experi- 

 ment Station, and is numbered as before 

 (214). In its present form it is a handy book 

 of somewhat more than one hundred and 

 fifty pages of text and includes one hundred 

 and six text illustrations. We may hope that 

 in time this may grow into a still more com- 

 plete handbook of plant diseases, the need of 

 which is suggested by the demand shown for 

 this bulletin. Charles E. Bessey 



The University of Nebraska 



THE AGE OF PICANTHSOPUS EBECTUS 

 Just twenty years ago Dubois startled the 

 scientific world by his announcement of the 

 discovery of the skeletal remains of an ape- 

 man, Pithecanthropus erectus, near the hamlet 

 of Trinil in east central Java. The age was 

 supposed to be Pliocene, and recently Dubois 

 has reiterated his belief in the Pliocene age of 

 this unique material, in which he is confirmed 

 by Stremme and others. Discussion of the 

 age of these remains has been the basis for a 

 considerable volume of literature and the re- 

 cent tendency has been toward considering 

 Pithecanthropus younger rather than older. 

 Thus Martin and Elbert assign it to the old 



