May 10, 1912] 
hand, between the Heliozoa and the Radiolaria. 
This, of course, need make little difference. 
The slime-moulds are “mouthless and gut- 
less” and should go anywhere with that set. 
From just which, however, of the “ mouth- 
bearing, gut-hollow” creatures such graceful 
forms as Arcyria and Lamproderma have de- 
scended will no doubt be made clear on some 
future page! 
Such is the sort and kind of finished 
scholarship with which it is now sought to 
align American botanists. 
But really does it much matter where these 
things are placed? For 150 years they have 
been handled by the botanist. If they are now 
to go to the zoologist, or the chemist, he must 
show some reason for his claim. Some day, 
refined research, perhaps by methods not now 
devised, will show more clearly lines of descent 
and so of genetic kinship. That day is not 
here yet—so far, at least, as is to be learned 
from authorities herein cited. 
Meantime, it may be said in conclusion, the 
great collections on which the Oxford pro- 
fessor and his pupils have so gratuitously 
toiled, still oceupy probably an honored alcove 
in the herbarium of the British Museum. 
T. H. Macsripe 
Iowa Crry, 
April 13, 1912 
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 
Meteorology, a Text-book on the Weather, the 
Causes of its Changes and Weather Fore- 
casting, for the Student and General 
Reader. By Wi.is Ispister MinHam. The 
Macmillan Company. 1912. 
As the author of this latest treatise on 
meteorology is a most popular professor of 
astronomy in Williams College it is natural 
that this book shall bear all the characteristics 
of an admirable text-book for class use. It is 
also intended for the general reader. It starts 
at the beginning and must be intelligible to 
all, but it has abundant references to current 
literature for the use of those who wish to 
study further. The author has not attempted 
the history of the science, nor the relations 
of climate to disease or plants, nor has he 
SCIENCE 
743 
laden his pages with heavy mathematical 
work nor with a dozen other special items that 
would be included in an encyclopedic treatise. 
Professor Milham’s book is simply an en- 
largement of the lectures which he has been 
giving for the last eight years in Williams 
College which aims to give its students a 
broad education in languages and _ sciences 
that have to do with our every-day life. The 
genial generosity of the author is shown by 
his painstaking acknowledgment of every 
authority from whom he quotes and one might 
imagine the book to be a compilation were it 
not for the many good ideas originating with 
the author. As a popular text-book it is ad- 
mirable and fills a want distinct from that 
which is satisfied by the excellent work of Davis. 
After four hundred pages devoted to the at- 
mosphere and the weather bureaus the author 
adds a hundred pages, as part two, devoted to 
the climate, the floods, electric, optic and 
acoustic phenomena. 
The great utility of reliable forecasts has 
undoubtedly always been an incentive to all 
mankind and throughout all ages to apply our 
crude scientific knowledge to the study of the 
atmosphere, but since the days of Galileo the 
love of knowledge for its own sake—the love 
of research into the hidden things of nature 
has been a characteristic of civilized man. 
The conflict between darkness and light, the 
contest between superstition and intelligence, 
the fight between conservatism and progress 
has nowhere been so persistent as during the 
past forty years and in the field of meteorol- 
ogy. Professor Milham is quite correct in say- 
ing that there is no subject wherein ignorance 
and superstition are more nearly universal 
than in connection with the weather. Per- 
haps we can not blame the well-educated 
citizens for a certain amount of ignorance 
since so little is taught about meteorology 
either in high schools or colleges. Apparently 
another century must elapse before courses of 
laboratory experimentation have been devised 
for use in our higher schools of science. 
Our subject begins with the constitution of 
the atmosphere considered as a mixture of sey- 
eral gases and vapors; these are warmed by 
